archaeologist
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of archaeologist
Explanation
An archaeologist is a scientist who studies human history by digging up human remains and artifacts. Lucy, the oldest human known to man — nearly 3.2 million years old — was dug up in Ethiopia by archaeologist. We know about the history of the human species thanks to archaeologists who spend countless hours sifting through dirt and digging through ruins to find evidence of human life from across time. The word archaeologist can also be spelled archeologist. It comes from the Greek root archaeo-, for "ancient, primitive."
Vocabulary lists containing archaeologist
Play by the Rules: Arch
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Occupations
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The Origins of Civilization, Lessons 1–2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It follows the narrator and her 12-year-old daughter as they travel to Sicily, visiting the site where the narrator’s grandmother, an archaeologist, worked years before.
From Los Angeles Times • May 12, 2026
Brian Fagan, who died last year at the age of 88, was a well-known archaeologist with an unusual knack for making science accessible to the general public.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 30, 2026
At this point an archaeologist was called, who discovered the skeleton beneath where the altar table had stood 200 years ago.
From BBC • Mar. 25, 2026
"No farming community abandons fields and homes lightly," says archaeologist and co-first author Ramiro Barberena, a researcher at CONICET.
From Science Daily • Mar. 21, 2026
“We’re in a state of turmoil,” the consulting archaeologist Stuart Fiedel told me.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
