Modern archaeology

[1][clarification needed] Johann Joachim Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art.

[3] The next major figure in the development of archaeology was Mortimer Wheeler, whose highly disciplined approach to excavation and systematic coverage in the 1920s and 1930s brought the science into the modern era.

[8] Urban archaeology necessitated a new approach as centuries of human occupation had created deep layers of stratigraphy that could often only be seen through the keyholes of individual building plots.

Despite its many limitations (compared to later methods it is inaccurate; it can only be used on organic matter; it is reliant on a dataset to calibrate it; and it only works with remains from the last 10,000 years), the technique brought about a revolution in archaeological understanding.

Also used is light detection and ranging (LIDAR), a technology that measures the height of the ground surface and other features in large areas of landscape with resolution and accuracy that was not previously available.

Subsurface remote sensing techniques such as magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar enable an advanced picture to be built up of what lies beneath the soil before excavation even commences.