Archaeology Is a Great Research Paper Option

Archaeology Is a Great Research Paper Option Lets face itone of the toughest jobs of the student is to find a research paper topic, especially if your professor has assigned you a term paper with an open-ended subject. May I recommend archaeology as a starting point? People generally think of archaeology as simply a set of methods: Have trowel, will travel is the theme song for many an archaeological field worker. But in fact, the results of two hundred years of fieldwork and laboratory research means that archaeology is the study of a million years of human behavior, and as such it intersects evolution, anthropology, history, geology, geography, politics, and sociology. And thats just a start. In fact, archaeologys breadth is why I was drawn to the study in the first place. You can just about study anythingeven molecular physics or computer scienceand still be a working archaeologist. After more than fifteen years running this website, Ive built a number of places which you can use as a jumping off point to a fascinating paper, whether you are studying in the field of archaeology or outside of it. And with any luck, you can have fun doing it. I have organized the resources for this website using a broad areal coverage of world history, and in the meantime Ive developed a handful of encyclopedic directories that will help you in your search for the perfect paper topic. In each pocket youll find tidbits about ancient cultures and their archaeological sites compiled from provided references and other suggestions for further research. Somebody should benefit from my particular brand of lunacy! The History of Humans on Planet Earth The History of Humanity includes information on archaeological studies beginning with the very first stone tools of our human ancestors in the Stone Age of 2.5 million years ago, ends with medieval societies about 1500 AD and includes everything in between. Here youll find information on our human ancestors (2.5 million-20,000 years ago), as well as hunter-gatherers (20,000-12,000 years ago), first farming societies (12,000-5,000 years ago), early civilizations (3000-1500 BC), ancient empires (1500-0 BC), developing states (AD 0-1000) and the medieval period (1000-1500 AD). Ancient Civilizations Dont miss my collection of Ancient Civilizations, which brings together resources and ideas on Egypt, Greece, Persia, the Near East, the Incan and Aztec Empires, the Khmer, Indus and Islamic Civilizations, the Roman Empire, the Vikings and the Moche and the Minoans and others too many to mention. Domestication Histories Food naturally fascinates all of us: and more to the point, archaeology is the main source of information about how the domestication of the animals and plants that make up our meals came about. Over the last couple of decades, with the addition of genetic studies, what weve understood about the timing and process of animal and plant domestication has changed greatly. I recommend that you can get a taste of what science has learned about when and how we domesticated cattle, cats and camels, or chickpeas, chiles and chenopodium, can be found linked from the Tables of Animal Domestication and Plant Domestication, and the scientific literature I used to write those articles can serve as starting points for a possible paper. The World Atlas of Archaeology Want to study a particular continent or region? The World Atlas of Archaeology is a great place to kick off your investigations: it is an atlas of archaeological sites and cultures in the world sorted by modern geographic continent and political country boundaries.   The Ancient Daily Life pages includes links to archaeological investigations of roads and writing, battle sites and ancient houses, prehistoric tools and climate change. Scientist Biographies Interested in writing a biography of a famous archaeologist? Then the Biographies in Archaeology should be the starting place for you. There are nearly 500 biographical sketches listed in the Biographies pocket so far. In there youll also find a Women in Archaeology section. I segregated the women out for my own nefarious purposes, and you might as well take advantage of it. A Vast Glossary of Ideas Another resource for piquing your interest is the Archaeology Dictionary, which includes over 1,600 entries of cultures, archaeological sites, theories and other tidbits of archaeological information. I recommend that you simply pick a letter at random and scroll down through the entries. Some of the entries are full-fledged articles; others are short definitions, covering nearly twenty years of my exploration in archaeology, and I bet anything that something will pique your interest. Once youve chosen your topic, you can begin searching for information on which to write your essay. Good luck! More Tips for Writing Research Papers How to Conduct Background Research for a PaperTop Steps to Writing a Research Paper

A Beginners Guide to Statistics

A Beginners Guide to Statistics How many calories did each of us eat for breakfast? How far from home did everyone travel today? How big is the place that we call home? How many other people call it home? To make sense of all of this information, certain tools and ways of thinking are necessary. The mathematical science called statistics is what helps us to deal with this information overload. Statistics is the study of numerical information, called data. Statisticians acquire, organize, and analyze data. Each part of this process is also scrutinized. The techniques of statistics are applied to a multitude of other areas of knowledge. Below is an introduction to some of the main topics throughout statistics. Populations and Samples One of the recurring themes of statistics is that we are able to say something about a large group based on the study of a relatively small portion of that group. The group as a whole is known as the population. The portion of the group that we study is the sample. As an example of this, suppose we wanted to know the average height of people living in the United States. We could try to measure over 300 million people, but this would be infeasible. It would be a logistical nightmare conduct the measurements in such a way that no one was missed and no one was counted twice. Due to the impossible nature of measuring everyone in the United States, we could instead use statistics. Rather than finding the heights of everyone in the population, we take a statistical sample of a few thousand. If we have sampled the population correctly, then the average height of the sample will be very close to the average height of the population. Acquiring Data To draw good conclusions, we need good data to work with. The way that we sample a population to obtain this data should always be scrutinized. Which kind of sample we use depends on what question we’re asking about the population. The most commonly used samples are: Simple RandomStratifiedClustered It’s equally important to know how the measurement of the sample is conducted. To go back to the above example, how do we acquire the heights of those in our sample? Do we let people report their own height on a questionnaire?Do several researchers throughout the country measure different people and report their results?Does a single researcher measure everyone in the sample with the same tape measure? Each of these ways of obtaining the data has its advantages and drawbacks. Anyone using the data from this study would want to know how it was obtained. Organizing the Data Sometimes there is a multitude of data, and we can literally get lost in all of the details. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees. That’s why it’s important to keep our data well organized. Careful organization and graphical displays of the data help us to spot patterns and trends before we actually do any calculations. Since the way that we graphically present our data depends upon a variety of factors. Common graphs are: Pie charts or circle graphsBar or pareto graphsScatterplotsTime plotsStem and leaf plotsBox and whisker graphs In addition to these well-known graphs, there are others that are used in specialized situations. Descriptive Statistics One way to analyze data is called descriptive statistics. Here the goal is to calculate quantities that describe our data. Numbers called the mean, median and mode are all used to indicate the average or center of the data. The range and standard deviation are used to say how spread out the data is. More complicated techniques, such as correlation and regression describe data that is paired. Inferential Statistics When we begin with a sample and then try to infer something about the population, we are using inferential statistics. In working with this area of statistics, the topic of hypothesis testing arises. Here we see the scientific nature of the subject of statistics, as we state a hypothesis, then use statistical tools with our sample to determine the likelihood that we need to reject the hypothesis or not. This explanation is really just scratching the surface of this very useful part of statistics. Applications of Statistics It is no exaggeration to say that the tools of statistics are used by nearly every field of scientific research. Here are a few areas that rely heavily on statistics: PsychologyEconomicsMedicineAdvertisingDemography The Foundations of Statistics Although some think of statistics as a branch of mathematics, it is better to think of it as a discipline that is founded upon mathematics. Specifically, statistics is built up from the field of mathematics known as probability. Probability gives us a way to determine how likely an event is to occur. It also gives us a way to talk about randomness. This is key to statistics because the typical sample needs to be randomly selected from the population. Probability was first studied in the 1700s by mathematicians such as Pascal and Fermat. The 1700s also marked the beginning of statistics. Statistics continued to grow from its probability roots and really took off in the 1800s. Today, it’s theoretical scope continues to be enlarged in what is known as mathematical statistics.