1 . Archaeologists are scientists who search for clues that help form a clearer picture of the lives people led in the past. Archaeology is a modern science, but it has been________for centuries. More than 2,400 years ago, the Greek historian Herodotus described the Egyptian pyramids and other monuments. He may have been the first writer to consider that remains and________could provide information for________generations. For more than a thousand years, however, such________were observers rather than researchers.

In the 1700s, scientists and adventurers from a variety of countries traveled________to explore ancients sites. Digs that are still________began in 1709 at Herculaneum, an Italian city buried in ash during the explosion of Mount Vesuvius in A. D. 79. The Danish scholar The Danish scholar Carsten Niebuhr visited the ruins of Persepolis in the Middle East in 1754to study cuneiform writing (楔形文字).________, archaeology didn’t become a widely recognized science and school didn’t recognize the subject as a scholarly pursuit until the 19^th century. The term itself was________in 1837. It comes from a Latin word meaning “the study of antiques (古物)”. One of the first archaeologists to use a scientific approach to the discipline was Heinrich Schliemann of Germany，who in the late 1800s________the ancient civilization of the city of Troy.

Today，archaeologists uncover the past in many different________, including deserts and jungles，at sites called digs. Ancient sources, folk tales, and landscape features can suggest where archaeologists should look. Surveys of the land help them choose sites________to provide artifacts, the objects that will unlock the story of a particular people—their daily lives, their beliefs, and their ties to other cultures. A site, however, does not have to be old to be interesting to an archaeologist. Some prefer to study more________settlements. One scientist, for instance, studies coal mining camps in California by examining the garbage that miners________. Archaeologists may work for universities, museums or governments, and some of them are involved in educating the public about________ancient sites. Artifact hunters who are________history rob these places and sell what they find for a few dollars to immoral dealers in antiquities.