Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The Searchers: The History of Archeology
Chapter 2 - What is Left? The Variety of Evidence
Chapter 3 - Where? Survey and Excavation of Sites and Features
Chapter 9 - What Contact Did They Have? Trade and Exchange
Chapter 10 - What Did They Think? Cognition, Art, and religion
, Chapter 1 - The Searchers: The History of Archeology
The Beginnings of Modern Archeology
The discipline of archaeology became truly established around the mid-nineteenth century,
building forth on significant achievements in geology. The Scottish geologist James Hutton,
in his Theory of the Earth, had studied the stratification of rocks (arrangement in
superimposed layers, or strata, establishing principles that became the basis for
archeological excavation. Hutton showed that the stratification of rocks was due to
processes still ongoing in seas, rivers, and lakes. This is the principle of uniformitarianism.
Three Age System
C. J. Thomsen proposed that the collections of artifacts could be divided into those from a
Stone Age, a Bronze Age, and an Iron Age. The division in the Stone Age was refined to
the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age). By classifying
prehistoric artifacts one could produce chronological sequences and say something about
the time periods in question. The ideas of the antiquity of humankind, Darwin’s principle
of evolution, and the Three Age System offered a framework for studying the past.
Discovering Early Cities and their Writing
The Midwestern Taxonomic System, devised by W. C. McKern, correlated sequences in
the Midwest by identifying similarities between artifact collections. Gordon Childe,
meanwhile, made the same sort of comparisons between prehistoric sequences in Europe.
Both methods aimed to order the material to answer two questions: To what period do the
artifacts date? And with what other materials do they belong? The latter question highlighted
an assumption that a constantly recurring collection or assemblage of artifacts (or a culture,
or aspect) could be seen as the material equipment of a particular group of people.
The Rise of Archeological Science
The period immediately after World War II witnessed the rapid development of scientific
techniques for archeology, for example alliances between pioneers of ecological approaches
and environmental scientists, and the application of physical and chemical sciences.
Chemist Willard Libby invented radiocarbon dating, a method for directly
determining the age of undated sites and finds without recourse to complicated
cross-cultural comparisons with areas dated by historical methods.
Another development in artifact studies contributed to understanding early trade:
trace-element analysis, which measures elements present in the material in tiny amounts,
making it possible to identify the raw materials of certain artifacts and the sources from
which the materials had come.
Developments in biochemistry and molecular genetics have underpinned the major
new disciplines molecular archeology and archaeogenetics. Sensitive organic chemistry
techniques allow the precise identification of organic residues, while isotopic studies
support insights into diet and nutrition in the past.
Chapter 1 - The Searchers: The History of Archeology
Chapter 2 - What is Left? The Variety of Evidence
Chapter 3 - Where? Survey and Excavation of Sites and Features
Chapter 9 - What Contact Did They Have? Trade and Exchange
Chapter 10 - What Did They Think? Cognition, Art, and religion
, Chapter 1 - The Searchers: The History of Archeology
The Beginnings of Modern Archeology
The discipline of archaeology became truly established around the mid-nineteenth century,
building forth on significant achievements in geology. The Scottish geologist James Hutton,
in his Theory of the Earth, had studied the stratification of rocks (arrangement in
superimposed layers, or strata, establishing principles that became the basis for
archeological excavation. Hutton showed that the stratification of rocks was due to
processes still ongoing in seas, rivers, and lakes. This is the principle of uniformitarianism.
Three Age System
C. J. Thomsen proposed that the collections of artifacts could be divided into those from a
Stone Age, a Bronze Age, and an Iron Age. The division in the Stone Age was refined to
the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age). By classifying
prehistoric artifacts one could produce chronological sequences and say something about
the time periods in question. The ideas of the antiquity of humankind, Darwin’s principle
of evolution, and the Three Age System offered a framework for studying the past.
Discovering Early Cities and their Writing
The Midwestern Taxonomic System, devised by W. C. McKern, correlated sequences in
the Midwest by identifying similarities between artifact collections. Gordon Childe,
meanwhile, made the same sort of comparisons between prehistoric sequences in Europe.
Both methods aimed to order the material to answer two questions: To what period do the
artifacts date? And with what other materials do they belong? The latter question highlighted
an assumption that a constantly recurring collection or assemblage of artifacts (or a culture,
or aspect) could be seen as the material equipment of a particular group of people.
The Rise of Archeological Science
The period immediately after World War II witnessed the rapid development of scientific
techniques for archeology, for example alliances between pioneers of ecological approaches
and environmental scientists, and the application of physical and chemical sciences.
Chemist Willard Libby invented radiocarbon dating, a method for directly
determining the age of undated sites and finds without recourse to complicated
cross-cultural comparisons with areas dated by historical methods.
Another development in artifact studies contributed to understanding early trade:
trace-element analysis, which measures elements present in the material in tiny amounts,
making it possible to identify the raw materials of certain artifacts and the sources from
which the materials had come.
Developments in biochemistry and molecular genetics have underpinned the major
new disciplines molecular archeology and archaeogenetics. Sensitive organic chemistry
techniques allow the precise identification of organic residues, while isotopic studies
support insights into diet and nutrition in the past.
