1 Definition, aim, genesis of Archaeology

D. K. Bhattacharya

Table of contents:

1.      Genesis

2.      Definition

3.      Aim

Learning Objectives

• To know about the genesis of Archaeology
• To know about its definition
• To know the definition of Archaeology

1.  Genesis

Man as a species has always been highly inquisitive about the origin of the planet as also his own origin. One of the earliest attempts at rationalising human past is known from a Chinese court historian named Ssuma Chien from the second century BC. He had a simplistic theory that man had passed through four stages. These are a period of stones, then jades and bronze. Finally he arrived in the then contemporary iron age with it the various associated techniques and also cultural features. It will not be difficult to see that he was not very far from what is now established scientifically. With the spread of Christianity in Europe all earlier philosophical conjectures and opinions were laid to rest. The book of genesis slowly started becoming the main explanation of origin of man. It was not only considered heretic to hold any other view but there were strong punishment given to such „non- believers‟. Dr. John Lightfoot from Cambridge University in 1654 concluded, after laborious family studies, that the earth was created on 23rd October, 4004 BC at the civilised time of 9 A.M. Obviously man came to dominate this planet after a whole series of creatures were created.

Geologists were the first to raise their doubts about such a young date ascribed to the origin of earth. Incidence of accidental finds of inexplicable objects and the courage and conviction of some brave individuals soon started raising doubts about this otherwise comfortable view. One such accident was the finding of several “weapons” associated with “extraordinary bones” which were unearthed when a church was being constructed in Suffolk during 1797. Thus, the foundation of Archaeology can be traced back to late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. Finding of fossils of pre- humans and stone tools from various regions of Europe and Africa within next fifty years could establish archaeology as a formal science closely pursued with human palaeontology. The word evolution was being used to mean gradual change through time. Darwin‟s work on the Origin of Species had finally legitimised the twin concepts of origin and evolution. For long the concept of evolution remained as the only explanative tool to argue for change of biological taxonomy. The tools that were found accompanying in many instances were just being collected as souvenir. Thomsen was one such collectors who proposed the names Palaeolithic and Neolithic tools meaning those which are older are called Old Stone Age or Palaeolithic and those which he felt are younger were termed Neolithic or New Stone Age. One can thus say that Thomsen laid the foundation of Archaeology. A French customs officer named Boucher de Perthes posted at Amiens along the river Somme, had been, in the meantime, making a fabulous collection of prehistoric tools from 1838 to 1841. He published the hand drawn facsimile of these tools in five volumes but unfortunately he could not convince the intellectuals that these represent tools of our prehistoric ancestors. In the meantime the fossil remains of prehistoric pre-humans kept on getting discovered. First the Neanderthal skeleton was discovered from Germany and then the Pithecanthropus from Java started throwing additional light to our prehistoric past. Creationists who were firm about the Biblical explanation of our past were by now given into the scientific evidences. However, there are still some who are adamant about the Biblical approach but this did not come in the way to look for more evidences worldwide and organising such data into taxons (when fossils) and tool types and their techno- morphology (when tools).

2.      Definition

Archaeology in an over simplistic way can be defined as the subject that studies antiquities. These may be in the form of ruined cities/ villages, pottery, stone and metal tools as also objects of personal adornment like beads or even figures carved out on stones or on baked clay. Studying such diverse variety of objects cannot be done with one methodological range of tools. Obviously, different archaeologists specialised in different varieties of antiquities. A completely different aspect about these antiquities happens to be their age of occurrence. Unless one can arrange the age of the discovered objects these cannot be viewed under the paradigm of change through time and hence concluding an evolution from simple to complex categories. Thus, all archaeologists have to be dependent on a large number of other disciplines which can help him obtain the age of the discovered object. This may require one‟s knowing geochronology, radio- carbon dating, and the host of other methods available to provide a date bracket for the antiquity. Thus, armed with date on the one hand and techno-morphological details on the other hand an archaeologist aims to make a statement about that specific human culture of which the antiquity is merely a product.

Here again there are several operational problems. For instance, an antiquity of a particular region or country of a specific age may not have direct relationship with another antiquity of the same age from another region or country. Thus, the aim of creating unilinear progression needs to be changed to include all regions in the form of a multiple branched tree where one branch can have connection with more than one other branch. In fact, the aim of a working archaeologist gets progressively complex as one move from a regional plane to areas for macro generalisation.

3.  Aim

To a beginner archaeologists merely study antiquities, but as we get more involved we realise that antiquities in themselves carry very little information. Every antiquity is the product of a cultural imperative. Obviously one needs to understand what does essentially constitute culture. If culture is defined as the thought and behaviour of a community it goes without saying that every individual member of the community will have certain sets of behaviour which will be identical and also will be passed on to the next generation. That is why culture cannot be the characters of a passing generation but characters that continue within a group through time. Thus, an archaeologist tries to log all technical and morphological features of a discovered antiquity and give it a name, like a handaxe or a cleaver for the stone age and Painted Grey Ware or Black-and-Red Ware etc., for the younger age. These terms are more or less comparable to a cluster of taxons in palaeontology. When found repeated through time they are taken as cultural traditions for each of the broad slab of time. For instance in palaeontology one can identify a species or a sub-species within a genus. In the same way in Lower Palaeolithic period one can identify such cultural traditions as Acheulean, Stellenbosch, Oldowan etc. In metal age likewise we can identify a Painted Grey Ware or Black-and-Red Ware tradition or the like.

Another aim of archaeology is to describe the internal heterogeneity of a cultural tradition. This again is done on the basis of technological peculiarity of the tools manufactured. Here an example might make it easy to understand. The homogeneity of Acheuleans is not found repeated at La Micoque and hence it had to be given a name- Micoquian. Another important component of archaeological studies is to understand under what circumstances the cultural attributes change. If at one side „A‟ culture does not show any major changes for a long time it was traditionally accepted as a group who had poor technology and social structure. In the same light if another site „B‟ shows rapid changes it is accepted as more progressive and better endowed. In fact a close look at the process of change will show that until a community experiences acute survival stress it will normally not undertake any change. That is lack of change should be read as the continued presence of rich biodiversity and not as much lack of progressiveness. Likewise rapid changes can be taken to indicate unstable biodiversity. Looking more closely one can also see that population density plays a cardinal role in driving one to change. The above situation, as such, can further be taken to indicate that at site „A‟ besides a rich biodiversity there was no population stress. That means infant mortality must have been very high so that population remain more or less stable. In the same light the population at „B‟ must be growing rapidly and on the top of it has chosen to adapt in an eco-zone which has unstable biodiversity, hence the need of rapid change.

The above discussion will amply demonstrate that an archaeologist does not merely study technology and/ or morphology of the antiquities. Yes he does study these attributes but he does it with an aim to understand the culture that produced it and reconstruct the life ways of the community. Here again we will like to give an example. It has been argued that man was not able to forage like other primates because of two important issues. Firstly having attained erect posture the birth canal of the females became narrow and human child was to be born much before the head of the child attains the actual size. Thus, human child is dependent on mother for a long time which could be as much as 4- 5 years. Secondly man had recognised the advantage of fire but he was unable to create fire. As a result of this fire brought from some natural sources as forest fire or even volcanic flow had to be kept alive by periodically feeding it with dry twigs or leaves. That is why man had to change to what is called “Home-base foraging”. That is, every night he had to come back to the same camp for a considerable period. This enabled human being to co-operate and work together for making tools or even decide on strategies of hunting etc.

The aim of archaeology, as such, does not limit itself only on studying stones and bones but goes much beyond this in order to construct the life ways of past mankind and hence understand their culture. There is, however, a simple catch, which is to mistake any activity as ethnicity, but there can be no denying the fact that in order to delineate ethnicity one has to progress through activities only.