Archaeology Archaeology.
Archaeology or archeology from the Greek words ancient and word speech discourse is the study of human cultures through the recovery documentation and analysis of material remains and environmental data including architecture artefacts biofacts human remains and landscapes.
The goals of archaeology are to document and explain the origins and development of human culture understand culture history chronicle cultural evolution and study human behaviour and ecology for both prehistoric and historic societies.
Ontology and definition
In the Old World archaeology has tended to focus on the study of physical remains the methods used in recovering them and the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings in achieving the subject's goals The discipline's roots in antiquarianism and the study of Latin and Ancient Greek provided it with a natural affinity with the field of history In the New World archaeology is more commonly devoted to the study of human societies and is treated as one of the four subfields of Anthropology The other subfields of anthropology supplement the findings of archaeology in a holistic manner These subfields are cultural anthropology which studies behavioural symbolic and material dimensions of culture linguistics which studies language including the origins of language and language groups and physical anthropology which includes the study of human evolution and physical and genetic characteristics Other disciplines also supplement archaeology such as paleontology paleozoology paleoethnobotany paleobotany geography geology art history and classics.
Archaeology has been described as a craft that enlists the sciences to illuminate the humanities Writing in the American archaeologist Walter Taylor asserted that Archaeology is neither history nor anthropology As an autonomous discipline it consists of a method and a set of specialised techniques for the gathering or 'production' of cultural information.
Archaeology is an approach to understanding human culture through its material remains regardless of chronology In England archaeologists have uncovered the long lost layouts of medieval villages abandoned after the crises of the century and the equally lost layouts of century parterre gardens swept away by a change in fashion In downtown New York City archaeologists have exhumed the century remains of the Black burial ground Traditional Archaeology is viewed as the study of pre historical human cultures that is cultures that existed before the development of writing for that culture Historical archaeology is the study of post writing cultures.
In the study of relatively recent cultures which have been observed and studied by Western scholars archaeology is closely allied with ethnography This is the case in large parts of North America Oceania Siberia and other places where the study of archaeology mingles with the living traditions of the cultures being studied Kennewick_Man is an example of archaeology interacting with modern culture In the study of cultures that were literate or had literate neighbours history and archaeology supplement one another for broader understanding of the complete cultural context as at Hadrian's Wall.Excavation is just one stage of archaeological research.
Importance and applicability
Most of human history is not described by any written records Writing did not exist anywhere in the world until about years ago and only spread among a relatively small number of technologically advanced civilisations In contrast Homo sapiens have existed for at least years and other species of Homo for millions of years see Human evolution These civilisations are not coincidentally the best known they have been open to the inquiry of historians for centuries while the study of pre historic cultures has arisen only recently Even within a civilisation that is literate at some levels many important human practices are not officially recorded.