Archaeology

Archaeology or archeology is a scientific study of human activity through the recovery in addition to analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, as well as cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In Europe it is for often viewed as either a discipline in its own right or a sub-field of other disciplines, while in North America archaeology is a sub-field of anthropology.

Archaeologists analyse human palaeontology, which is the examine of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learning approximately prehistoric societies, for which, by definition, there are no result records. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies around the world. Archaeology has various goals, which range from apprehension culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining score different in human societies through time. Derived from the Greek, the term archaeology literally means "the study of ancient history".

The discipline involves surveying, excavation, and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research.

Archaeology developed out of maritime archaeology, feminist archaeology, and archaeoastronomy, and many different scientific techniques hold been developed to aid archaeological investigation. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such(a) as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, and opposition to the excavation of human remains.

History

In Nabonidus, c. 550 BCE, who is thus so-called as the number one archaeologist. not only did he lead the first excavations which were to find the foundation deposits of the temples of Šamaš the sun god, the warrior goddess Anunitu both located in Sippar, and the sanctuary that Naram-Sin built to the moon god, located in Harran, but he also had them restored to their former glory. He was also the first to date an archaeological artifact in his attempt to date Naram-Sin's temple during his search for it. Even though his estimate was inaccurate by about 1,500 years, it was still a very return one considering the lack of accurate dating technology science at the time.

The science of archaeology from Richard Colt Hoare, "We speak from facts non theory". Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In Imperial China during the Song dynasty 960-1279, figures such(a) as Ouyang Xiu and Zhao Mingcheng defining the tradition of Chinese epigraphy by investigating, preserving, and analyzing ancient Chinese bronze inscriptions from the Shang and Zhou periods.p74p95 In his book published in 1088, Shen Kuo criticized contemporary Chinese scholars for attributing ancient bronze vessels as creations of famous sages rather than artisan commoners, and for attempting to revive them for ritual use without discerning their original functionality and intention of manufacture. Such antiquarian pursuits waned after the Song period, were revived in the 17th century during the Qing dynasty, but were always considered a branch of Chinese historiography rather than a separate discipline of archaeology.pp74–76p97

In Renaissance Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the gradual Middle Ages. Flavio Biondo, an Italian Renaissance humanist historian, created a systematic help to the ruins and topography of ancient Rome in the early 15th century, for which he has been called an early founder of archaeology. Antiquarians of the 16th century, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, drawing, describing and interpreting the monuments that they encountered.

The OED first cites "archaeologist" from 1824; this soon took over as the usual term for one major branch of antiquarian activity. "Archaeology", from 1607 onwards, initially meant what we would known "ancient history" generally, with the narrower innovative sense first seen in 1837.

12th century Indian scholar Kalhana's writings involved recording of local traditions, examining manuscripts, inscriptions, coins and architectures, which is subjected as one of the earliest traces of archaeology. One of his notable hold is called Rajatarangini which was completed in c.1150 and is refers as one the first history books of India.

One of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey 1626–1697 was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings. He attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes.

Excavations were also carried out by the Spanish military engineer Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, both of which had been covered by ash during the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ad 79. These excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, ready with utensils and even human shapes, as well the unearthing of frescos, had a big affect throughout Europe.

However, prior to the coding of sophisticated techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard; the importance of theory such as stratification and context were overlooked.

The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington 1754–1810. He undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington presents meticulous recordings of Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, and the terms he used to categorize and describe them are still used by archaeologists today.

One of the major achievements of 19th-century archaeology was the developing of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton and Charles Lyell. The a formal request to be considered for a position or to be allowed to do or have something. of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites. In the third and fourth decades of the 19th-century, archaeologists like Jacques Boucher de Perthes and Christian Jürgensen Thomsen began to increase the artifacts they had found in chronological order.

A major figure in the development of archaeology into a rigorous science was the army officer and ethnologist, Augustus Pitt Rivers, who began excavations on his land in England in the 1880s. His approach was highly methodical by the specifics of the time, and he is widely regarded as the first scientific archaeologist. He arranged his artifacts by type or "typologically, and within generation by date or "chronologically". This category of arrangement, intentional to highlight the evolutionary trends in human artifacts, was of enormous significance for the accurate dating of the objects. His almost important methodological innovation was his insistence that all artifacts, not just beautiful or unique ones, be collected and catalogued.

William Flinders Petrie is another man who may legitimately be called the Father of Archaeology. His painstaking recording and study of artifacts, both in Egypt and later in Palestine, laid down many of the ideas unhurried modern archaeological recording; he remarked that "I believe the true line of research lies in the noting and comparison of the smallest details." Petrie developed the system of dating layers based on pottery and ceramic findings, which revolutionized the chronological basis of Egyptology. Petrie was the first to scientifically investigate the Great Pyramid in Egypt during the 1880s. He was also responsible for mentoring and training a whole generation of Egyptologists, including Howard Carter who went on tofame with the discovery of the tomb of 14th-century BC pharaoh Tutankhamun.

The first stratigraphic excavation towide popularity with public was that of Hissarlik, on the site of ancient Troy, carried out by Heinrich Schliemann, Frank Calvert and Wilhelm Dörpfeld in the 1870s. These scholars individuated nine different cities that had overlapped with one another, from prehistory to the Hellenistic period. Meanwhile, the work of Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos in Crete revealed the ancient existence of an equally advanced Minoan civilization.

The next major figure in the development of archaeology was Sir Mortimer Wheeler, whose highly disciplined approach to excavation and systematic coverage in the 1920s and 1930s brought the science on swiftly. Wheeler developed the grid system of excavation, which was further reclassification by his student Kathleen Kenyon.

Archaeology became a able such as lawyers and surveyors activity in the first half of the 20th century, and it became possible to study archaeology as a subject in universities and even schools. By the end of the 20th century most all expert archaeologists, at least in developed countries, were graduates. Further adaptation and innovation in archaeology continued in this period, when maritime archaeology and urban archaeology became more prevalent and rescue archaeology was developed as a written of increasing commercial development.