Editing Archaeological excavation (section)

==History ==
One of the first known instances of archaeological excavation took place in the sixth century BC when [[Nabonidus]], the king of Babylon, excavated a temple floor that was thousands of years old.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Bahn|first=Paul|url=http://veryshortintroductions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199657438.001.0001/actrade-9780199657438|title=Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction|date=2012-08-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-965743-8|pages=8–12|doi=10.1093/actrade/9780199657438.001.0001}}</ref> During early Roman periods, Julius Caesar's men looted bronze artifacts, and by the medieval period, Europeans had begun digging up pots that had partially emerged from erosion, and weapons that had turned up on farmlands.<ref name=":1" /> Antiquarians excavated burial mounds in North America and North-West Europe, which sometimes involved destroying artifacts and their context, losing information about subjects from the past. Meticulous and methodical archaeological excavation took over from [[antiquarian]] barrow-digging around the early to mid-nineteenth century and is still being perfected today.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Archaeology|url=https://www.britannica.com/science/archaeology|access-date=2020-07-13|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1" />

The most dramatic change that occurred over time is the amount of recording and care taken to ensure preservation of artifacts and features.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Recent advances on historical artifacts and their preservation |url=https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/2023/may/recent-advances-on-historical-artifacts-preservation.html |access-date=2024-11-21 |website=American Chemical Society |language=en}}</ref> In the past, archaeological excavation involved random digging to unearth artifacts. Exact locations of artifacts were not recorded, and measurements were not taken. Modern archaeological excavation has evolved to include removal of thin layers of sediment sequentially and recording of measurements about artifacts' locations in a site.{{cn|date=August 2022}}