Archaeology



Archaeology is a secondary profession released in the expansion, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Archaeology is limited to players who have purchased the Cataclysm expansion, even though it involves some low-level activity. Archaeology also:


 * Provides players with a casual profession to enjoy in their "downtime".
 * Focuses on locating, piecing together, and appraising artifacts unearthed by the Cataclysm.
 * Allows you to interact with artifacts you find in a manner similar to other gathering professions. It has been specifically stated that you will be able to track both artifacts and your regular tracked objects for gathering professions (e.g. herbs or ore). Instead of tracking individual nodes, you will instead search marked regions on the world map, given by a shovel icon when viewing an entire continent or by a red enclosed region when viewing a single zone.
 * Produces completed artifacts that go into your inventory, and creates an entry in your archaeology journal describing the artifacts you completed.
 * Unlocks unique rewards such as vanity pets, mounts, and other "toys", with occasional rare and epic quality weapons or armor.
 * Expands players' knowledge of the game's lore by filling in plot holes and documenting the history of the world as it was before the Cataclysm. Players will reportedly be able to compile what amounts to a lore database.

Description
Upon learning the archaeology secondary profession, the player receives the ability Survey.

There are nine fields of research players can explore, each relating to a race in the game, such as troll, night elf, dwarf, and tol'vir.

Using the surveying skill, players gather Archaeology Fragments of one type (e.g. Dwarf Archaeology Fragment) from Archaeology Finds of the same type. They can then solve the current stage of this race's research and will receive an item upon doing so.

How Archaeology Works
As related by Ghostcrawler...

Sites
Once Archaeology is trained, you can see dig sites on your continent map (but not the mini-map). There are always four dig sites per continent. These will not change until you dig all the fragments out of any one site.

Your dig sites appear in level-appropriate zones. Players will not be able to survey in Outland or Northrend until they have reached the minimum level to enter those zones.

Sites are race-specific. You can usually discern the race by the location and name, and some race locations are only available on some continents. You need both a minimum character level and a minimum archaeology level to use some sites.

There is no competition for dig sites; each site is player-specific.

Finds and fragments
Each dig site can be searched three times before it despawns and a new site spawns. To search a dig site, use the Survey ability. A theodolite will spawn, pointing in the approximate direction of a find; it looks like a telescope with a small flashing light on a pole next to it. The color of the light and the rate at which it flashes tell you how far you are from a find: red means you are far away, yellow means you are close, and green means you may be within 40 yards or so. When you are very close, about 10 to 15 yards or so, the light will flash extremely quickly. The precise ranges for the different light colors vary depending on the site, with larges sites having longer ranges. When you loot your find, you'll get several fragments specific to a particular race, and may get a keystone. Each site yields only finds specific to one race. Note that unearthed archaeology finds will despawn if they aren't looted quickly enough, so be careful about surveying in combat. Also remember that if you are having some difficulty seeing your find, it will automatically show up on the minimap, just as herbs and minerals do with Find Herbs and Find Minerals. Although each archaeology site can have three finds unearthed at a time, only one node is active at a time: once the first find is unearthed, the location of the second find is randomly selected, it is possible to unearth two or even three finds in a row at the exact same location.

There are two main strategies to surveying. The first strategy involves attempting to triangulate by moving around the outer edge of a dig site. However, due to the inaccuracy of the directional indicator (the find may be anywhere in a frontal cone of about 75 degrees) this will often prove to not provide sufficient information for locating finds. The farther away from the theodolite, the greater the area that can include the find. The second strategy involves some orienteering, heading in the general direction indicated and for approximate distance indicated and survey again from that position, to "zero in" on the artifacts, using geographical landmarks to help locate finds.

Being aware of the landscape can help locate finds as well. Consider that the fragments are not "randomly" placed. Spawn points were placed by designers who utilize their "design aesthetics" in placing them. Consider the landscape and proximity to geographic features and existing non-fragment ruins and animal bones when choosing a location to survey. This can speed up your location of fragments.

The fact that each digsite contains only a few nodes could allow gathering addons such as Gatherer or Gather Mate to aid in archeaology. Addons such as Archaeology Helper, S.A.L. and ArcheoTriangle aid in triangulation and orienteering.

As the spawn points are not random, try surveying on the spot after finding your first and second fragment. It is entirely possible for the next one to be within reach, and even to spawn in the exact same spot as the last one.

Artifacts
When you get a new kind of fragment, you'll start a research project. You can only work on one artifact per race at a time. When you have enough fragments, click  to complete that artifact. You cannot waste excess fragments: if you have leftover fragments, they will just apply to the next project. You can accordingly save up to 200 fragments of one kind and solve several projects in a row.

Most artifacts are common. These give a bit of lore or flavor text and an item you can sell for a small profit. You can estimate the value of the artifact by the number of fragments required to finish it.

Some artifacts are rare, and make a blue or purple item. Many of these are toys, or for flavor, but some are actual weapons and armor. Weapons and armor are bound to account, but will not scale like heirlooms do. Also, such artifacts can only be solved once per character.



Levels
Archaeology uses the same leveling scheme as the other secondary professions. Players begin as apprentices with zero skill points, and gain points by practicing archaeology skills. Players may reach 525 skill points in archaeology.

Until skill point 50, players receive one skill point for every successful collection of archaeology fragments. As there are three sets of fragments per dig site, at first players will gain three archaeology skill points per dig site. However, after skill point 50, archaeology skill can only be increased by completing artifacts.

At all levels, players receive five skill points for creating a common artifact and 15 skill points for completing a rare artifact.


 * Apprentice archaeologists (skill points 0–74) receive two to four fragments per survey, for a maximum of 12 fragments per site. Players also occasionally collect keystones, each worth 12 fragments, that can speed artifact construction. (This depends on the project; only some projects permit their use. See the archaeology rewards page for fuller details.)
 * Journeyman (skill points 75–149), expert (skill points 150–224), and artisan (skill points 225-299) archaeologists receive three to five fragments per survey, up to 15 fragments per site.
 * Master (skill points 375-449) receive three to six fragments per survey, up to 18 fragments per site.

Most artifacts are poor-quality. Occasionally rare-quality projects come up (see archaeology rewards for more information). Most of these rare items have merely cosmetic effects, but players can also construct non-combat pets and other highly desirable items. Players also get new titles upon reconstructing enough rare-quality artifacts: Assistant Professor for the first rare reconstructed item, Associate Professor for 10 rare reconstructed artifacts, and Professor for 20 rare artifacts. (These titles correspond to tenure-track faculty ranks in North American universities.)

Archaeology levels limit what kind of artifacts players can make. Players begin by collecting fragments for dwarf, night elf, and troll artifacts, as well as natural fossils, such as shells and fossilized ferns. At higher levels, players can research artifacts from different cultures, which will take them deeper into the lore. The higher-level archaeology racial project pages (e.g. orc or tol'vir) are not available to players until they have reached the appropriate level and have collected some fragments for a given type, though players can always see the greyed-out, untitled, and unclickable icons of not-yet-accessible cultures on the "Races" page of the archaeology journal. As soon as players hit the appropriate point level and make one successful dig at a new kind of site, that section of the journal is fully opened (i.e. a player can first see the draenei section of the archaeology journal upon hitting 300 archaeology and collect the first draenei archaeology fragments).

Zones and dig sites
Archaeology dig sites can be found on all four continents. There are four dig sites on each continent available at any one time. Dig sites are available based on player skill. However, compared to other gathering professions, there is no competition between players. Upon reaching a dig site, players will be able to collect their three finds before the dig site dries up and a new one is made available. Even if other players are searching at the site, the finds are individual to each player.

Rewards
Archaeology was originally intended to allow advancement in Path of the Titans system and may have awarded players with Ancient Glyph slots and recipes. At present, rewards include various non-combat items, mounts and epic quality Bind to Account gear. Players are able to piece together skeletal fragments to create a skeletal raptor mount, for example. Players can also read ancient runes found in ruins and dungeons to give buffs to themselves and others.

All 32 of the rare artifacts are listed here:

There are also achievements awarded as a result of leveling archaeology and finding rare finds:

Easy access
This simple macro puts both new skills on one button for your toolbar. Click to survey or hold a modifier key like shift and click to open your Archaeology skill book.

Solve count and summary
This macro shows how many finds players have come across. Open up the archaeology window and look at the results list before this macro will do anything useful.

Example output: Dwarf: 9 (rare: 1 solved: 8) Draenei: 10 (rare: 2 solved: 16) Fossil: 13 (rare: 2 solved: 13) Night Elf: 9 (rare: 2 solved: 12) Nerubian: 4 (rare: 0 solved: 3) ...

The first number is the count is the amount of unique finds players have come across for that race, whether or not that find has been solved. The next number lists the quantity of rare finds, and the solved count lists the total number of artifacts solved for that race, including duplicates. If players have not had a duplicate find for a race, the unique count will be greater than the solved count for that race.

Druid swift-shifting
This macro allows druids to shift out of flight form and into travel form to survey a digsite when clicked, and switch back into swift flight form when right clicked. Simply remove the word "swift" from the macro if you do not have swift flight form.

Videos
Introduction to Archaeology: I7x3WGF4fX0 C2VdQWS7WEw

Tankspot's overview: TiOLcVDMs9c

Websites
Below are websites associated with Archaeology.