Although both historians and archaeologists are concerned with reconstructing our past, archeologists are different in two major ways. First of all, historians deal mostly with history and not prehistory. Prehistory is defined as the time before written records . Due to the nature and definition of prehistory, the line between history and prehistory is different from culture to culture, and region to region. A second difference between historians and archaeologists is that historians deal with written documents, where as archaeologists deal other material remains.
Archaeologists work with artifacts .
An artifact is any material remain left behind by the culture the archaeologist is studying. An education in archaeology is usually obtained through the anthropology department of a university. General coursework in all subdisciplines of anthropology can be expected, with an emphasis on archaeology. Some classes in the earth sciences are beneficial, particularly geology. Coursework from the geography department in soils and river formations will also be helpful to an archaeologist.