 A NOTE ABOUT TERMINOLOGY
The science of archaeology
allows us to learn about past cultures by examining the physical remains of those cultures,
particularly the objects--made, used, and thrown away by people--that have been preserved in the
ground. By observing these objects and their relationships with each other, archaeologists piece
together the puzzles of our past. Archaeology can tell us much about our more recent past, filling in
some of the blanks in our historical records. However, it is the primary way by which we learn about
the human societies that lived in the Ohio area for thousands of years from the end of the ice age to
about 300 years ago. These cultures are often identified as prehistoric groups; that is, they either
did not record the events in their lives in a written system that has been preserved to the present
time, or they existed prior to contact with people who did write down their eyewitness accounts.
Because these prehistoric cultures left us no evidence of their language, archaeologists have devised
their own names for the various societies. Often these names are derived from the name of a particular
site that has been excavated (usually sites are named for the landowner at the time of excavation), or
a distinctive characteristic of the prehistoric culture. The basic groupings used in this program are:
Paleoindians, Archaic, Woodland, Late Prehistoric, and Historic. Some of the subgroups will be
introduced in the course of the program.
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