When searching for archaeological topics in the library, try the following search terms. These terms are parts of subject headings, the tags librarians add to books' records to describe what a book is about.
Antiquities -- Books about ancient artifacts, societies, and archaeological research often include the term antiquities combined with a geographic region group.
E.g. Turkey AND Antiquities; Sumer AND Antiquities; Easter Island AND Antiquities
Prehistoric peoples -- Combine with a geographic region or topic for books about prehistoric civilizations and cultures.
E.g. Prehistoric peoples AND Egypt; Prehistoric peoples AND Food
Ancient or Prehistoric -- Combine one of these with a topical or geographical term.
E.g. Ancient AND Weapons; Prehistoric AND Agriculture
When researching a site, try searching the site name first. This will retrieve full-length books on the site.
E.g. Lascaux; Qustul; Tikal; Çatalhöyük (diacritics not required)
Next, try searching for the broader geographic region or time period for which your site is important. There may be a chapter, or smaller portions of the book, that address your site in a broader context.
E.g. Turkey AND Neolithic; Maya AND Antiquities
If your site or topic is very narrow, and not well represented in book-length studies, try searching for scholarly journal articles in a database such as AnthropologyPlus, HRAF, or JSTOR.
Additional search tools may be helpful when focused on a particular area of archaeological research.
For additional sources of data, try our guide to Statistics and Data for the Social Sciences.
