the.com/archaeologist

part historian, part detective, part person who gets very excited about ancient garbage

means A scientist who studies human history and prehistory by digging up and analyzing the physical remains people left behind — tools, bones, buildings, and yes, ancient garbage.

from From Greek 'arkhaios' (ancient, old) plus '-logia' (study of), built on the same 'arkhaios' that gives us 'archaic' — itself from 'arkhe,' meaning beginning or origin. So an archaeologist is, quite literally, a student of the old, and the word entered English in the 17th century before the muddy, trowel-wielding profession we picture today had fully taken shape.

trash treasure: Old garbage heaps are goldmines of daily-life data
slow work: Excavations measured in millimeters and decades
no dinosaurs: That is paleontology; bones get them confused often
poop science: Fossilized feces reveal ancient diets and parasites
sky spies: Lasers from planes now find buried cities

for instance

howard carter — british archaeologist who discovered tutankhamun's tomb in the valley of the kings in 1922

heinrich schliemann — german archaeologist who excavated troy in turkey in the 1870s, proving homer's city was real

mary leakey — british-kenyan archaeologist who discovered 3.6 million year old human footprints at laetoli in 1976