ABSTRACT
The history of archaeology has been a process of developing ideas about how people can use material remains to learn about the past. In the mid-1700s, two philosophers of the French Enlightenment began one of the most audacious schemes in the history of publishing. Diderot and D’Alembert planned to write an encyclopedia that would collect all human knowledge into a series of massive tomes. Archaeological theory consists of the ideas archaeologists have developed about the past and about the ways people come to know it. Relics of human activity have been present in the landscape for millions of years. However, the earliest evidence of a conscious recognition of ancient objects comes from the early state societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. The life and career of Thomas Jefferson shaped many facets of American life. One of Jefferson’s lesser-known achievements was carrying out one of the first archaeological excavations in America.
