The research by Braidwood and his interdisciplinary collaborators provided an extremely influential model for prehistoric archaeology in both the Old and New Worlds. Interdisciplinary, palaeoenviron-mental, palaeoecological archaeology became the norm to the extent that three new subdisciplines grew to autonomous maturity during the 1970s and 1980s: archaeobotany or palaeoethnobotany, geoarchaeology, and zooarchaeology (see Paleoethnobo-tany; Geoarchaeology; Archaeozoology). In addition to these three areas of research, now well established in the interdisciplinary space between archaeology and botany, archaeology and zoology, and archaeology and geology, respectively, several other zones of cooperation have developed or are developing between archaeologists and experts in specific scientific methods or techniques, such as radiometric means of dating archaeological materials, DNA analysis of human and nonhuman organic remains, and sourcing of artifacts or raw materials via trace element analysis. All the techniques and methods just noted, and many others actually and potentially applied to archaeological research, are sometimes jointly referred to as ‘archaeometry’. Archaeometric procedures as well as archaeobotany, geoarchaeology, and zooarchaeology are variously engaged by archaeologists of all persuasions. Archaeology everywhere in the world has become more and more intricately interdisciplinary, a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future. This, in turn, means that crucial practical issues of coordination and integration will also continue to present major challenges for all the collaborators in each interdisciplinary archaeological endeavor, and will continue to demand careful, persistent attention at the scale of the individual human beings working together in those endeavors.
See also: Archaeometry; Archaeozoology; Geoarchaeology; Paleoethnobotany.
World History
