After an assistant had brushed debris off the tomb's wall, he discovered an inscription.

"By god there it was...a big Minoan mason's mark all over the facade of the tomb. It was the first time we ever understood that Cretan architects were building Greek tombs for Greek princes," says Vermeule.

Archaelogy as Academic Discipline

Bar-Yosef's groundbreaking work on human origins, and the scholarship of many of his colleagues, has bolstered the standing of archaeology as an academic discipline, scholars say.

"For years, archaeology was thought of at Harvard as not being a field but a technique--people didn't understand that it was cultural history," says Vermeule, who chairs the Committee on Archaeology.

While field work is still at the core of the pursuit, a number of other disciplines have augmented archaeology analysis in recent years, scholars say. Specifically, new dating and analysis techniques have increased the role of laboratory work after excavation, and ancient writing and linguistic experts have added their knowledge to the increasingly interdisciplinary field.

"Digging is a crucial part of archaeology, but it's only one piece of the puzzle. It's the part of the puzzle that takes the shortest amount of time," says Lecturere in Anthropology Robert E. Murowchick.

"In the field this summer we will have a geologist, a metallurgist, a conservationist, [a] physical anthropologist [and a] botanist. There's a continual interaction during the time we are actually digging," says Stager. More intensive artifact and lab analysis are deferred to a laboratory in Jerusalem or the Semitic Museum at Harvard. which Stager directs, he says.

As one of the pioneers of an isotope tracing process that indicates the composition of diets in early humans, van der Merwe is a good example of the wide range of scientists that have broadened archaeological inquiry.

"You just do the collecting in the field and get the samples into condition so that you can travel with them [to the lab]," says van der Merwe.

"It's much more of a team effort now because nobody can specialize in all aspects," says Murowchick.

Despite the increasingly technical nature of their field, many archaeologists say that it is still the lure of the exotic, and the quest of unlocking the secrets of the past, that is at the heart of archaeology.

"I grew up in Africa and have just a very different idea about what it is that makes life worth while," says van der Merwe. "Traipsing around in the bushes is one of those."