archaeologist
Americannoun
-
archaeologists
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
As an archaeologist specializing in desert sites, this was a singular experience.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 26, 2026
Buildings archaeologist Dr James Wright said science "pinpoints the archaeological development of the George Inn" to about 1430.
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026
As an archaeologist in southern Scandinavia, I studied peat cores for pollen, fallen into nearby wetlands centuries earlier, to understand the nature of the historical plant life and climate of a particular site.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
The supposed remains of Samuel were discovered by Greek archaeologist Nikolaos Moutsopoulos in the 1960s.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
As a matter of fact, I’m even planning to be an archaeologist when I grow up.
From "The Egypt Game" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
What worries one of the archaeologists in the documentary and causes him to lose sleep is how similar our world is to that one.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026
A shipwreck off the coast of Turkey is the oldest shipwreck in the world, our team of archaeologists believes.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 26, 2026
The world's oldest shipwreck has been discovered off the coast of Turkey, archaeologists say.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
Excavation by archaeologists further revealed an ancient stone cairn.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
In the case of the Pygmies, the answer is “not yet,” merely because archaeologists have yet to discover ancient human skeletons from the Central African forests.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
