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Archaeology

Archaeology is the study of human behavior and cultural changes through material remains. It examines artifacts, structures, and other evidence to understand past cultures and societies. Archaeology can provide information about periods with and without written records. Archaeological evidence includes artifacts, features, structures, organic remains, and fossils. Archaeologists aim to understand form, function, and cultural processes and changes by analyzing the distribution and relationships of this evidence over time and space.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
51 views4 pages

Archaeology

Archaeology is the study of human behavior and cultural changes through material remains. It examines artifacts, structures, and other evidence to understand past cultures and societies. Archaeology can provide information about periods with and without written records. Archaeological evidence includes artifacts, features, structures, organic remains, and fossils. Archaeologists aim to understand form, function, and cultural processes and changes by analyzing the distribution and relationships of this evidence over time and space.

Uploaded by

Anushka Pareek
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Archaeology is the study of human behaviour and cultural changes happened in the past

through material remains. It is the science by which remains of the ancient man can be
methodologically and systematically studied to obtain a complete picture of his ancient
culture and society to a possible extent. There is no time limit for archaeology as, to quote
Leonard Cottrel, it is a continuing story “which begins with the first appearance of man on
earth and will only end with the final extinction of species”. It has a wide scope, as Giyn
Daniel puts it- it deals with everything from Eoliths to time capsule. In contrast to history
which pertains to that part of human history for which there are records, archaeology is able
to probe even further back and surveys a period “a hundred times as long” (Gordon Childe)
Even for the period for which written records are available, archaeology provides useful
supplementary evidence and serves to fill the gaps. For example, more information is
available about Roman contacts with North West India from archaeological sources than
evidences contained in literature. However, arguably, the greatest achievements of
archaeology have been in the study of pre and proto history where it acts as the sole source of
information.
Archaeological sites are places where artifacts, features, structures, organic and
environmental remains are found together. Artifacts are simply the objects made and
modified by humans. Any movable or portable object, for example, stones, bones, and ,metal
tools, beads and other ornaments, artwork, religious and sacred items etc. comes under the
category of artifacts. Features, on the other hand, are mainly the immovable objects or
structures or paintings made or built by humans. These include houses, floors, walls, hearths,
pits, postholes, fields, street, roads. Other than these, another type of archaeological evidence
is Ecofacts, which refer to the non-artifact materials that provide information about
environment of the past. These are mainly objects of non-cultural origin. Seeds, texture of
soils, pollen, shell etc. are some of the example of the ecofacts. Archaeologists use several
scientific technologies to study these remains to understand what kind of environment
prevailed in the past. Ideofacts or Structures are another type of archaeological evidence
that contain information about peoples belief or administrative systems. Historical
monuments like forts, stupa, caves , mosques, temples, graves etc. come under this category.
Lastly, there are fossil evidences, like bones , teeth, shells, horns, woody tissue of plants etc.
buried inside the soil, which are retrieved by archaeologists through excavations and are
tested in labs to ascertain the exact time period to which that a stratigraphic layer belongs.
In theory, archaeological studies are aimed towards an explanation. The human past has both
a prehistoric as well as a historic antiquity, whose remains are a major part of archaeology.
For example, the whole landscape is a document and each archaeological site is a part of that
document This document has human activities that are reflected in the form of settlements,
architectural features and burial monuments. Archaeologists must take care in retrieving
maximum data from these sites. In obtaining this data, as K. Rajan lists, the archaeologists
have specific goals in mind- first, to consider the form of archaeological evidence and its
distribution in time and space. Form is the description and classification of material evidence
to develop models of artifact assemblage distribution through time and space, the study of
which helps to build local and regional sequence to reconstruct historical development.
Second, to determine past functions and thereby construct models of ancient behaviour.
The combined study of form and function helps to reconstruct the past environment through
the study of ethnobotanical, settlement and subsistence patterns. Lastly, to delimit the
processes of culture and determine how and why cultures change.
Traditional explanation of change in the past focussed on the concept of diffusion and
migration. They assumed that changes in one group must have been caused by the
comparison with the more advanced civilization. These explanations rest, however, on the
assumption that archaeological cultures can somehow represent real entities rather than being
mainly convenient classificatory or in other words, that ethnic units or peoples can be
recognised from the archaeological records by equation with these notional cultures. It is in
fact evident that ethnic groups do not always stand out clearly in archaeological remains and
migrations are not so easy to document archaeologically. Regarding the diffusion of culture, it
is felt that the explanation has been overemployed and nearly always over-simplified.
Much has been written in the recent years on various theoretical issues in archaeology. Willy
and Sablof have identified three phases of Archaeological theory and labelled them as
culture historical era, processual era and post processual era. On similar lines, in
"Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice", Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn have also
delved into the theoretical frameworks that have shaped archaeological thought.
Culture history in archaeology refers to an early approach that focused on the description
and classification of archaeological materials based on similarities and differences. It often
involved the construction of chronological sequences and cultural timelines based on the
typological analysis of artifacts. Renfrew and Bahn, along with other archaeologists,
acknowledge the limitations of the culture history approach. One key criticism is that culture
history often focused on superficial similarities in artifacts without delving into deeper
interpretative aspects. There was a shift from culture historical approach to processual
archaeology, which emerged in the mid-20th century. Processual archaeology sought to move
beyond mere description and classification, emphasizing scientific methods, systemic
analysis, and the study of cultural processes.
The processual approach, also known as the "New Archaeology," emerged in the mid-20th
century and emphasized on the application of scientific methods to archaeological research.
Archaeologists following this approach sought to make archaeology more rigorous and
objective by employing quantitative methods, statistical analyses, and scientific reasoning.
The aim was to study the interactions between various components of a culture, such as
environment, economy, technology, and social organization, within a larger system. Thus, the
focus was on identifying the underlying mechanisms that led to cultural change and
adaptation over time.
The early processual archaeology may reasonably be termed functional processual, like that
of 1968 general explanation of the ‘farming revolution’ by Binford. Such explanations were
applied to hunter-gatherers and early farming communities where subsistence questions often
seem to have had a dominant role. For the study of more complex societies, however, a
development of this approach- cognitive processual, seemed more promising. It considers
the thoughts and actions of individuals and in this respect, also responds to some of the aims
of post processual archaeology but without the anti-scientific rhetoric and reliance upon
unbridled empathy that is sometimes advocated by exponents of the latter.
With the emergence of new archaeology, there was also a re-awakening of interest in
applying to archaeology some of the implications of the earlier works of Karl Marx and
Frederick Angels, who were influenced by Charles Darwin and Louis Henry Morgan.
Renfrew and Bahn present Marxist archaeology as one of the influential theoretical
perspectives that has contributed to the broader understanding of the relationship between
economic structures and cultural development in human societies. Marxist archaeology
applies the Marxist concept of the base-superstructure model to the study of past societies. It
focusses on class struggle and social inequality and analyses the dominant mode of
productions. Material culture, including artifacts and architecture, is seen as an ideological
expression of the prevailing economic and social structures. Some variations of Marxist
archaeology incorporate intersectionality, considering how factors such as gender, ethnicity,
and other social categories intersect with class dynamics. There are positive features that
Marxist analysis shares with functional processual archaeology and it includes a willingness
to consider long term change in societies as a whole and to discuss social relations with in
them.
Another processual approach is that of evolutionary archaeology which applies evolutionary
principles to the study of cultural change. It emphasizes the adaptive nature of cultural
evolution, the development of complexity, and the exploration of long-term trends in human
societies. It explores how cultural traits, such as technologies or social organizations, change
and evolve over time in response to environmental or social pressures. The approach often
employs concepts of cultural selection and transmission, similar to genetic evolution. It
investigates the factors that lead to the development of centralized political structures,
economic systems, and social stratification by identifying long-term trends and patterns in
cultural evolution. However, evolutionary archaeology has faced criticisms, including
concerns about oversimplification and the application of biological analogies to cultural
phenomena.
There are even newer forms of explanations like idealist, deductive, nomothetic,
historiographic, hypothetico-deductive, methodological, individualism and others, but after
1970's, the functional processual archaeology came under criticism. Bruce Trigger said that it
was too constraining while Kent Flannery proposed that more focus should be given to
ideological and symbolic aspects of societies. Tan Hodder stated that material culture and
actual objects are a large part of what makes societies work, and asserted that material culture
is meaningfully constituted as a result of deliberate actions by individuals whose thoughts
and actions should not be overlooked.
Archaeologists like Ian Hodder, Michael Shanks and Chistopher Tilley formulated a new
approach- the post-processual approach, which included many aspects like structuralist,
critical theory, neo-Marxist thought, feminist thought and others. This new approach in
archaeology represents a departure from the earlier processual approach and emphasizes the
subjectivity inherent in archaeological interpretation. Post-processual archaeology places a
strong emphasis on the role of individual agency and the actions of individuals in shaping the
archaeological record. It focuses on symbolic and meaning-laden aspects of material culture.
Scholars in this tradition examine how power relations are reflected in the archaeological
record and how ideologies influence the construction of social identities. In doing this, they
move away from generalizing about universal patterns and instead emphasizes the unique and
context-specific nature of different archaeological contexts. Renfrew and Bahn also discuss
how post-processual archaeology can be integrated with other theoretical perspectives, such
as evolutionary archaeology or Marxist archaeology. It recognizes that multiple approaches
may offer complementary insights into archaeological research.
From the above discussion, it emerges that archaeology as a discipline navigates a rich
tapestry of methodologies and theoretical perspectives. It emphasizes the importance of
flexibility, critical thinking, and a contextualized understanding of the past. Archaeology thus
can be said to be an ongoing exploration of human history and cultural evolution that
continues to evolve and adapt. New discoveries, technologies, and theoretical developments
contribute to an ever-expanding body of knowledge about human history.

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