What is archaeology

 What is Archaeology ?

 

Archaeology  

Archaeology is the study of cultural changes and human past through material remains which are closely connected with history. The term ‘’Archaeology’’ derived  from the Greek word ‘’Archaeos’’ means ancient and ‘’Logos’’ means discussion, reason, and science.  It is a discipline that studies in detail the complete life history of man by study of culture and their pattern of changes. Thus it deepens our understanding of humanity and society because the past isn’t dead but lives on with our customs. When human remains are generally in stratified deposits, which is known as cultural remains and culture.

Edward Taylor defines ‘’culture’’ as ‘knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society. According to anthropologist, archaeologist, and historians the culture is -

1. All patterns of people’s behaviour 

2. Way of thinking and doing things that they learnt from society 

3. Archaeologist use more specific it with artefact, industry, assemblage 

The culture is subject to change brought out by man in adaptation to environment, and these changes reflected in assemblage of artefacts 

Goals of archaeology 

The goal of archaeology gradually became broad to learn more about the relation between human behaviour and material culture. These man and material relationships were studied through ethnographic studies. The goals are-

1. Consider the form of archaeological material and its distribution of time and space 

2. Consider past function of that material and construct the model of ancient behaviour 

3. Determine how and why cultures change and delimit the process of culture                                                                                                                     

Archaeology and theories 

The theory is a statement by reasoned argument based on facts. it general principls and method for study of subject. But in archaeology theory and method are interwoven.Archeology is concerned with identification and interpretation of meterial remains left by ancient humans. It included both monvable and immovable objects. Among this physical remains, artfacts i.e portable man- made objects have great significance. Archaeologists are guided by a body of theory in assessing the meaning and exact use of these artefact. In the past archaeologists were to present just descriptive data to a site but gradually they started to develop the conceptual basis to understand the history much better sence. The theories are being applied greatly on excavated finds. Willey and Sabloff identified three phase of archaeological theory- 

1. Culture historical era 

2. Processual era 

3. Post processual era 

The culture 

Culture is a word with many meanings, usually  associated with patterns of thought and behaviour learnt by an individual from a larger social group, but in an archaeological sense it refers to recurring assemblage of material traits. When Archaeologists found exotic and distinct artefacts while excavation in a specific geographical region they labelled it as culture. According to EB Taylor, culture refers to that complex whole which include knowledge, law, art, moral, belief, custom, and other capability acquired by individual as a member of society in his book primitive culture 1871, such as Egyptian culture, greek culture, and harappa culture etc. but despite these attempts culture not adequately defined. In 1925, v gordon childe’s book the dawn of europeans civilisation, adopted the culture-historical approach and this archaeological culture became working tool of all europeans archaeologist . He adopted kossina’s basic concept of archaeology rather than racist connotation 

culture - historical approach 

In this approach, archaeology was seen as a way of simply showing history back into periods when there was on historical writing. It attempts to reconstruct the history of people and is dominated by testing theories by applying them to data, these cultural data representing different people and attempting to place the cultural traits in order by classifying different artefacts and sites. Archaeologists tend to define similarity and difference in material artefacts to refer to a specific culture, emphasising on collecting more and more tools and artefacts. By grouping them into cultural phases they identify cultural evolution and  gordon childe’s book social evolution, what happened in history, and man makes himself , also contributed in this regard but he failed to see internal dynamics of society. Gradually they started to advocate diffusion theory and also dated culture earlier and later. Few scholars tend to believe that all cultures diffused from some cultural centres. Among them were Gf smith, Wj perry, WHR.Rivers, boas, Ratzel played an important role in propagating diffusion theory. Archaeolgist tend to find similiarities of artfacts 

1. Archaeologist tend to emphasise to geographical distribution of cultural artefacts 

2. Started to believe in diffusion theory that all culture are diffused from some cultural centres 

3. Serve needs of ethnic-centre and diffusion based research and preoccupation with typology  

4. Couldn’t explain how society functioned 

Functionalism 

1. Sociologist Aguste comte and Durkgheim  emphasis to see society as a system and believe that no change could in a part of social system  without bringing changes in other part

2. Started to examine the artefacts with its functional value 

3. Social anthropologist, Malinowski, Radecliffe- brown and Grahme clark were pioneered this functional approach 

4. Insisted to see material remains as a part of society

5. The prehistoric europe, the economic basis (part of c line ) well reflected the idea, walter Taylor’ s book also reflected similar view

6. Emphasis on various internal and external factor in social change rather than diffusion and chronology

7. Stressed on underlying process which led formation of new archaeology 

New archaeology 

It was developed by Lewis Binford and termed it as new archaeology 

1. It was a school of thought in which much emphasis were given to science based approached 

2. Intended to look at internal dynamics of society 

3. Emphasised cultural trajectory means stressed on various factor involved in the process of social development

4. David clarke, was great proponent of this school, wrote analytical archaeology, later developed into processualism because it stress on cultural process 

Processual theory 

1. In 1959, joseph caldwell was great proponent of this school , his book the new american archaeology

2. All cultural facts are of great importance and equal in bringing change 

3. See changes in archaeological culture as cultural process 

4. Lewis binford popularised this concept, stressed need to become scientific 

5. Archaeology attains the status of science 

6. Sought to describe culture as a system and stressed on system thinking 

7. Looks culture as ‘man’s extrasomatic means of adaptation’’ this is out side body and viewed culture as humanity’s extrasomatic means of adaptation 

New archaeology

1. New archaeologist stressed the dynamic relation between social and economic aspects of culture and environment as basis of social change            

2.  Scientific techniques like faunal analysis, palaeobotany, carbon dating -14 developed  

3. See culture as a system, known as system thinking 

4. Some archaeologist tend to look into functionalism 

5. Emphasised on cultural process 

6. Interpretative thinking 

7. Emphasised to variability 

8. Placed man’s mind and thought in a theoretical framework, known as cognitive processual 

9. Attempt made for cultural changes in terms of general system theory 

General system theory 

1. In this, a culture view as an open system conditioned outside by stimuli 

2. It is another borrowed and modified concept in new archaeology 

3. Binfort defined three sub system - technology, social organisation and ideology

Behavioural archaeology  

1. Schiffer  developed the middle range theory and attempt to bridge the gap between theory oriented and data oriented , known as behavioural archaeology 

2. It is study of use of artefacts in actual human behaviour 

3. Emphasised that various process involves in in movement of artefacts  from systematic context to archaeological context 

4. The changes in methodology and technology stimulated by new archaeology necessitated change in field methods and strategies 

Critics of new archaeology 

1. The critics believe that new archaeologist just used and coined new terms and created jargon 

2. Believed that it is redefined form of processual archaeology 

3. It merely concentrated on subsistence pattern, trade, and to lesser extent on social organisation 

4. Its scope could not extend beyond ecological and settlement pattern 

Post- processual approaches 

1. In 1980, Ian hodder in his book postprocessual archaeology stressed on this idea and became great proponent of this approach 

2. See context of material remains and intention of deposition of material in ground, both in relation to each other 

3. The social and ideological factors recognised as active forces  of change 

4. Mental structure and belief of system  of society guide cultural adaptation 

5. The various theoretical argument were  placed in interpreting the past and different school of thought emerged , like neo-marxist, post-positivist, phenomenological approach and hermeneutic 

6. Neo marxist believe that past should be just describe but also to use such insight to change present 

7. Post -positivist reject systematic procedure of scientific method 

Contextual archaeology

1. This approach emphasis on need to examine all aspect of an archaeological material in order to understand the significance of all parts of it 

2. Believes that status, religion, belief or myth played prominent role 

3. Ian hodder main proponent 

4. Stressed the significance of cultural tradition as factor playing important role in cultural change 

Archaeology and gender 

1. Joan gero’s and Margaret conkey’s engendering archaeology and women and prehistoric provides wide perspective on gender 

2. Archaeology and gender comprised theme- correction of male bias 

3. Criticise  the androcentric assumption 

Conclusion -

John myres- archaeology consisted of discarded material and normally contains far from sample of material remains of past 

Grahame Clark- there were various factor influence the preservation factor 

David clarke - argued that archaeology would remains ‘an irresponsible art form’ unless a body of theory was systemised that related archaeology remains to human behaviour and believe that integration of social, biological and other physical science in background of metaphysical, epistemological, and logical inferences along could provide better idea on human past 

Michael schiffer - tried to understand behaviour pattern of material based on discarded material and named it as behavioural archaeology

thus , the cultural- historical archaeology sees  the material remains merely as archaeological evidence and place them in chronological frame but on the other hand processual archaeological sees as it carrying some ritual and symbolic value in addition to chronological and utilitarian value 

History of Archaeology 

The beginning of archaeology reflects the human quest and curiosity to know their past. As it is well known that curiosity and need gives birth to new inventions, and the beginning of archaeology is just like this. The history of archaeology was associated with the discovery. Such as the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt, the lost city of Mexico, prehistoric human remains Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and the great city of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro of Indus valley civilization. These discoveries encouraged the nation’s integration and reflected the glorious past of the nation . That's why such studies are valued and used for nation’s integration by emphasising the common cultural heritage. It also helped in protecting and preserving the cultural heritage and antiquities of historic importance. The archaeology also enhances our understanding related to human development while it is interpreted with literary sources. It also shown that past was not like the present at all and it should not be judge on the basis standard of past, this further led to the study of artefact from different-different angles, gradually it also reached in the field of art and architecture and paved the way for ‘’classical archaeology’’

Classical archaeology 

In the 14th century, Cyriacus of Ancona, who travelled in Greece and Mediterranean for 25 years for documenting the archaeological monuments, collecting books and documents and copying of inscriptions, was considered the first archaeologist. From this point of time the interest of collecting the antiquities started and spread to different parts, leading to the establishment of art history as a separate branch. German scholar Johann Winckelmann’s work history of art 1764, provided the first periodization of classical art 

Antiquarianism 

It is a study of antiquities in sequence to know its age and function. This systematic antiquarian research developed in scandinavia as a part of political rivalry that followed the separation of sweden and denmark in 1523

The three age theory 

The historians believed that humans in the prehistoric society developed progressively through ages of stone, bronze, and iron technology.The three age technological sequence is the first historical scheme widely used in the archaeological interpretation.

Michel Mercati, suggested in his book that before the use of iron, stone might have been used. Nicholas Model also supported the idea and advocated the progressive use of stone, bronze and iron. The Danish scholar C.J. Thomsen well established the three age concept through archaeological remains. The influence of culture evolutionary thought changed structure of antiquarian research and paved the way for scientific archaeology 

Scientific archaeology 

It developed in the middle part of the 18th century, with the invention of stratigraphy techniques for dating techniques for dating archaeological finds. The Danish scholar CJ Thomsen was invited by the Danish royal commission for preservation and collection of antiquities in 1816. His work led to the foundation of stone for Scandinavian archaeology. The development of prehistoric archaeology depended on the emergence of an evolutionary perspective in geology and biology, such as Charles Darwins’ s path breaking work ‘’ the origins of species’’ and Charles Lyell’s ‘’principle of Geology’’ , revolutionised archaeology. The term ‘’prehistory’’ comes after the publication of John Lubbock’s book ‘’prehistoric times’’ in 1865 and divided the stone age further. Edouard Lartet and Gabriel de Mortillet also made such developments in the fields of archaeology 

 HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN INDIA 

The Indian has preserved its tradition without any breakdown to present that makes it different from the rest of world civilization, like Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome and Greece. Although hardly any attempts were made to write down proper historical chronicles, except Kalhana's Rajatarangni, which gives historical background of Kashmir of his period. Therefore, many historians, like -Romila Thapar, DD Kosambi,RC Majumdar,and RS Sharma believe that Indians lack the sense of history and labelled as ahistorical people. However  many kings of ancient and mediaeval time attempt to collect historical antiquities but Europeans took great interest in this regard in order to understand past so that they work effectively 

FOUNDATION FOR THE INDOLOGICAL STUDIES 

The Europeans came to India learnt about the existence of sanskrit from the correspondence of the first jesuit in India, like St Francis Xavier, Fr Thomson Stephens i.e who was the author of konkani grammar, Fillipo Sasseti, Fr Robert de Nobilli. But they didn’t attempt to understand the historical background of India rather they tried to link Indian with the descendants of Noah and vanished empire of Bible 

The formal beginning of archaeology can be seen in the 18th century, when the father John Ernst Hanxleden compiled the first Sanskrit grammar in latin and also prepared a Sanskrit Portuguese dictionary from 1699 to 1732. Gaston coeurdoux finds similarity in Sanskrit and Latin and Greek and suggests the brahmins of India were descendants of sons of Japheth. Shah jahans’s eldest son Dara-Shikoh, translated the 51 upanishads of sanskrit into persian, under title of Sirr-e-Akbar in 1656-57 and send it to French scholar Anquetil Du Perron who again translated it from persian to French under title of Oupnek’ hat 

WILLIAM JONES 

Sir William Jones was a great man, judge of supreme court under the governorship of Warren Hastings, linguistic genius and knew different languages like- arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, and came to India at Calcutta in 1783. He learnt Sanskrit as well with the help of bengali pandits and charles wilkins. Jones believed that Persian and European languages were derived from common ancestors and rejected the myth that all languages were derived from hebrew. 

ASIATIC SOCIETY 

The asiatic society of bengal was established on 15th jan 1784 and indology was formalised as an academic discipline and its study institutionalised. In 1785, wilkins translated the bhagavad gita into english and Hitopadesa in 1787. Jones translated kalidas’s play Sakuntala and gita govinda in 1792 and manu smriti in 1794 under title of the institution of hindoo law. The french govt established the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes, alexander hamilton was one of it founding member. German took interest in Sanskrit. Thus from these time 19th century witnessed scholarly activity on Indological front-                                                                                                                                                                 a) The great achievement was sanskrit-german dictionary by german scholar otto bohtlingk and rudolf roth 

b) the splendid edition of Rig Veda by Max Muller at oxford 

   The french society asiatique in paris in 1821  and Royal asiatic society in London also contributed in this regard 

JAMES PRINSEP AND ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM

James prinsep was secretary of the asiatic society of bengal, initiated the field based research and rose as the legend in Indological studies by decipherment of two most important ancient script of India - kharosthi and brahmi  in 1837 which helped in understanding of ashoka edict and pushed date of indian history by 3rd century this also helped in the field of numismatics and epigraphical studies and understanding the proper chronology 

Alexander Cunningham was military engineer and first archaeology surveyor of the archaeological survey of India established under lord canning, governor general of India in 1861. Took great interest in historical archaeology. Two works of chinese traveller and pilgrims faxian and Xuanzang were translated into french in 1830, using this he identifies numerous sites like - taxila, saraswati, kausambi, and barhut. Due to his great achievement he was considered as founder of early archaeology in India and also published the first volume of Corpus inscriptionum indicarum in 1877. James Burgess founded two archaeological publications - INDIAN ANTIQUARY in 1872 and EPIGRAPHIA INDICA. 

 

ROBERT BRUCE FOOTE 

Foote served in geological survey of india from 1858 to 1891, pushed the date of indian archaeology many million years back and collected first palaeolithic tools and find many prehistoric sites in south india, his collection were placed in madras museum, and he published them in two volumes title the foote collection of indian prehistoric sites and protohistoric antiquities, that’s why considered as father of indian prehistory 

JOHN MARSHALL 

In 1901 the archaeological survey was reorganised by initiative of viceroy lord curzon, and john marshall appointed as director general, during his tenure 

1. Enunciation of the basic principles and techniques of conservation 

2. Attempt to specialised studies of sites and other archaeological theme 

3. Excavation of early and new sites 

4. Appointed indian scholar on superior post 

5. Ancient monument and preservation act 1904 enacted 

6. Discovery of harappa and mohenjodaro made, assisted by daya ram sahni and rd banerjee 

7. Excavation at taxila, sravasti, vaishali, rajagriha, sarnath, sanchi, patliputra, and nalanda

8. Work at adichanallur in tamil nadu by alexander rea and at nagarjunakonda in andhra pradesh by AH longhurst 

9. Slow down research activity due to world war 

10. Revival of research activity after world war in mid 20th century with the recovery of world economy

MORTIMER WHEELER

Moetimer wheeler appointed as director general of archaeological survey of india in 1944, his famous work-

1. Introduced scientific method in archaeology 

2. Establishment of training school at taxila 

3. Emphasised principle of stratigraphy 

4. Insisted problem oriented excavation

5. Placed south indian archaeology in definite chronology by excavation at arikamedu and brahmagiri

6. Started a journal ancient india 

7. Established school of archaeology in 1960 as model training institute like of london 

Thus, he played significant role in development of archaeology in india 

CONCLUSION 

 Gradually , the archaeological survey of India bagan to share its responsibility with other notable institutes and archaeological departments. Many universities in India started archaeology as an academic discipline. The school of archaeology renamed as institute of archaeology. Recently  ASI discovered a great importance site - senauli in baghpat, UP in 2018. Thus archaeology made significant progress since its beginning and received scientific inputs from different discipline of science