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ARCHAEOLOGY
ARCHAEOLOGY
ARCHAEOLOGY
Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from the Greek words αρχαίος – ‘ancient’ and λόγος –
‘word/speech/discourse’) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of
material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, 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.
Archaeology is the study of human culture through material remains from humans in the past. 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. Archaeology is more commonly devoted to the study of human societies and is regarded as one of the
four branches of anthropology. The other three branches 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, including palaeontology,
paleozoology, paleoethnobotany, paleobotany, geography, geology, art history. Archaeology has been described
as a craft that enlists the sciences to illuminate the humanities. According to American archaeologist Walter
Taylor in A Study of Archaeology, "Archaeology is neither history nor anthropology. As an autonomous
discipline, it consists of a method and a set of specialized 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 14th century and the equally lost layouts of 17th century parterre gardens swept away by a
change in fashion. In downtown New York City archaeologists have exhumed the 18th 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
cultures with some form of writing.
In the study of relatively recent cultures 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. 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.
1
to illuminate the branches of learning having primarily a cultural character;
antiquarianism to dig out of the ground; esp: to uncover and take out of the place of
burial;
humanities a usually simple prehistoric object showing human work;
artifact a portion of land that the eye can see in one glance; a scenery;
to exhume a skill or an occupation for making or doing something;
landscape to supply or brighten with light; to make clear;
craft a passion to collect and study things of earlier (sometimes ancient)
periods
OF IN ON UPON AT
Goals of archaeology
There is still a tremendous emphasis … the practice … archaeology … field techniques and
methodologies. These include the tasks … surveying areas … order to find new sites, excavating sites … order
to unearth the cultural remains therein, and classification and preservation techniques … order to analyze and
keep these remains. Every phase … this process can be a source … information. The academic goals …
archaeology are not universally agreed …, and there are … least three broad, distinct theories … exactly what
archaeological research should do. Nevertheless, there is much common ground.
Additional task
a) Some sentences have been extracted from the text and given below. Decide where they suit the best. There
is also an extra one.
A
Many thousands of cultures and societies and millions of people have come and gone across the millennia of
which there simply is little or no written record - no history - or for which written records may be
misrepresentative or incomplete. Writing as it is known and understood today did not exist anywhere in the world until about
5000 years ago, and only spread among a relatively small number of technologically advanced civilizations.
B
These civilizations 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 civilization that is
literate at some levels, many important human practices are not officially recorded. Any knowledge of the
formative early years of human civilization - the development of agriculture, cult practices of folk religion, the rise of the first
cities - must come from archaeology.
C
In many societies, literacy was restricted to the elite classes, such as the clergy or the bureaucracy of court or
temple. The literacy even of an aristocracy has sometimes been restricted to deeds and contracts. The interests
and world-view of elites are often quite different from the lives and interests of the rest of the populace. Writings
that were produced by people more representative of the general population were unlikely to find their way into libraries and be
preserved there for posterity.
D
As such, written records cannot be trusted as a sole source. The material record is nearer to a fair representation
of society, though it is subject to its own inaccuracies, such as sampling bias and differential preservation. In
addition to their scientific importance, archaeological remains sometimes have political significance to
descendants of the people who produced them, monetary value to collectors, or simply strong aesthetic appeal.
3
Many people identify archaeology with the recovery of such aesthetic, religious, political, or economic
treasures rather than with the reconstruction of past societies.
1. Even where written records do exist, they are invariably incomplete or biased to some extent.
2. However, these endeavours, real and fictional, are not representative of the modern state of
archaeology.
3. Often archaeology provides the only means to learn of the existence and behaviours of people in
the past.
4. Thus, written records tend to reflect the biases, assumptions, cultural values and possibly
deceptions of a limited range of individuals, usually only a fraction of the larger population.
5. In contrast Homo sapiens have existed for at least 200,000 years, and other species of Homo for
millions of years.
b). In each passage there is a word in bold italics. Provide antonyms for them.
e) Some expressions are underlined in the text. Try to explain how you understand them.