Archaeology
4th Edition
Chapter 1
Meet Some Real
Archaeologists
Outline
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Introduction
The Western World Discovers Its Past
Founders of Americanist Archaeology
Revolution in Archaeology: An Advancing
Science
• Archaeology in the Twenty-First Century
• Conclusion: Archaeology's Future
First Archaeologist
• Most historians list Nabonidus, the last king of
the neo-Babylonian Empire as the “first
archaeologist”.
• Nabonidus rebuilt temples of ancient Babylon
and searched the foundations for inscriptions
of earlier kings.
• He looked for answers to questions about the
past in physical residues of antiquity.
The Western World
Discovers Its Past
• Fifteenth-century Italian scholar Ciriaco de’
Pizzicolli established the modern discipline of
archaeology.
• He translated the Latin inscription on the
triumphal arch of Trajan in Ancona, Italy.
• He devoted his life to studying ancient
monuments, copying inscriptions, and
promoting the study of the past.
Archaeology’s Alphabet Soup
• BC - “before Christ”
– Example: 3200 BC; letters follow the date.
• AD - anno Domini, “in the year of the
Lord”
– A year after the birth of Christ. Letters are
before the date - AD 1066.
– The earliest AD date is AD 1. There is no
AD 0 (use 0 BC to denote that date),
double numbering is not allowed.
Archaeology’s Alphabet Soup
• BP - “before present”
– Many archaeologists are more comfortable
using this age estimate with AD 1950
selected as the zero point.
• A date in lower case, such as 3200 b.c. ,
denotes a date derived by radiocarbon
methods and reflects radiocarbon years
rather than calendar years.
Boucher de Perthes
• In 1836, Perthes found ancient tools and
bones of extinct mammals in the gravels of
the Somme River.
• He believed these proved the existence of
ancient man.
• Current religious thought was that human
beings had only been on earth for 6000
years, so many didn’t believe him.
• Some suggested the tools were produced by
lightning, elves, or fairies.
More Discoveries
• More finds were made in the gravel pits at St.
Acheul and in southern England.
• Respected British paleontologist Hugh
Falconer and other scholars declared their
support for Perthes’ findings in 1859.
• This began the recognition that life was more
ancient than Biblical scholars argued and
human culture had evolved over time.
British Archaeology
• These discoveries led to two divergent
courses for British archaeology:
– The problems of remote geological time
and the demonstration of long-term human
evolution.
– The archaeology of ancient Greece and
Rome, a field now known as classical
archaeology.
Archaeology and Native
Americans
• American scholars saw living Native
Americans as relevant to interpretation of
archaeological remains.
• Many Europeans saw Native Americans as
“living fossils,” relics of times long past.
• New World archaeology became connected
to the study of living Native American people.
Elements Peculiar to New World
Archaeology
• Racist, anti–American Indian theories that
dominated early 19th century American
scholars.
• The form of antiquity legislation in North
America.
• The fact that many Native Americans still do
not trust conventional Western scholarship to
interpret their past.
Branches of Archaeology
• Classical archaeology - Studies civilizations
of the Mediterranean, such as Greece and
Rome, and the Near East.
• Ethnology - Deals with the comparative
study of cultures.
• Americanist archaeology - Evolved in
association with anthropology in the
Americas; it is practiced throughout the world.
C. B.Moore: Genteel
Antiquarian
• At age 40, Moore was introduced to American
archaeology and transformed himself from
gentleman socialite to gentleman
archaeologist.
• Moore was an antiquarian, more interested in
objects of the past than in reconstructing the
lives of the people who produced them or in
explaining the past.
Artifact
• Any movable object that has been used,
modified, or manufactured by humans.
• Artifacts include stone, bone, and metal
tools; beads and other ornaments;
pottery; artwork; religious and sacred
items.
Midden
• Refuse deposit resulting from human
activities, generally consisting of
sediment.
• Food remains such as charred seeds,
animal bone, and shell; and discarded
artifacts.
Nels Nelson: America’s First
“Working” Archaeologist
• Nelson learned largely by experience.
• His first responsibility was to record what he
saw, then to conduct a preliminary excavation
where warranted, and finally to offer tentative
inferences to be tested by subsequent
investigators.
• Nelson typified the early 20th century
archaeologists, who strongly believed that
archaeology should be brought to the public.
A. V. “Ted” Kidder: Founder
of Anthropological Archaeology
• Helped shift Americanist archaeology toward
more anthropological purposes.
• Maintained archaeology should be viewed as
“that branch of anthropology which deals with
prehistoric peoples,” a doctrine that has
become firmly embedded and expanded in
today’s Americanist archaeology.
James A. Ford:
A Master of Time
• Refined techniques to place the stages of
pottery development in sequential order, a
process known as seriation.
• By assuming that cultural styles change
gradually, archaeologists can chart a style
through time and across space.
• Ford’s seriation technique established the
baseline prehistoric chronology still used in
the American Southeast.
Walter W. Taylor:
Moses in the Wilderness
• Combined lines of evidence to create a
picture of what the past was like and to
discuss the functions of artifacts, features,
and sites.
• Urged archaeologists to forsake temples for
garbage dumps.
• Proposed that archaeologists quantify their
data and test hypotheses that would refine
their impressions.
Culture History
• The kind of archaeology practiced in the early
to mid-twentieth century.
• It “explains” differences or changes over time
in artifact frequencies by positing the diffusion
of ideas between neighboring cultures or the
migration of a people who had different
mental templates for artifact styles.
Trait List
• A simple listing of a culture’s material and
behavioral characteristics, for example,
house and pottery styles, foods, degree of
nomadism, particular rituals, or ornaments.
• Trait lists were used primarily to trace the
movement of cultures across a landscape
and through time.
Conjunctive Approach
• As defined by Walter W. Taylor, using
functional interpretations of artifacts and
their contexts to reconstruct daily life of
the past.
Lewis R. Binford:
Visionary with a Message
• Binford argued that archaeologists should
acquire data that make samples more
representative of the populations from which
they were drawn.
• He urged archaeologists to look beyond the
individual site to the region so entire cultural
systems could be reconstructed.
New Archaeology
• An approach to archaeology that arose
in the 1960s emphasizing the
understanding of underlying cultural
processes and the use of the scientific
method.
• Today’s version of the “new
archaeology” is sometimes called
processual archaeology.
Kathleen A. Deagan:
Archaeology Comes of Age
• A curator at the Florida Museum of
Natural History, she specializes in
Spanish colonial studies.
• She is concerned with the people and
culture behind the artifact and with
explaining the social and cultural
behaviors that she reconstructs from
archaeology.
History of Archaeology:
A Summary
• In North America, archaeology began as the
pastime of the curious and the wealthy, who
lacked formal training.
• Archaeology as a formal discipline dates to
the mid nineteenth century and was
characterized by a scientific approach and
rigorous methods of excavation and data
collection.
History of Archaeology:
A Summary
• By the 1950s, archaeology began to move
beyond description and chronology to focus
on the reconstruction of past lifeways.
• This continued in the 1960s, with the addition
of efforts to employ a scientific approach
aimed at discovering universal laws and to
develop theories to explain the human history
uncovered by archaeology.
Archaeology Today
• Today, archaeology covers both
prehistoric and historic archaeology.
• The number of archaeologists has
grown dramatically since the 1960s.
• The field represents many different
theoretical perspectives and
acknowledges the need to communicate
results to the public.
Quick Quiz
1. Fifteenth-century Italian scholar Ciriaco
de’ Pizzicolli is considered the “first
archaeologist”.
A. True
B. False
Answer: B. False
• Most historians list Nabonidus, the last
king of the neo-Babylonian Empire as
the “first archaeologist”.
2. The earliest AD date is AD 0.
A. True
B. False
Answer: B. False
•
The earliest AD date is AD 1. Use
0 BC to denote AD 0.
3. Which of the following is an example of
an artifact:
A. Metal tools
B. Beads and other ornaments
C. Pottery
D. Religious and sacred items
E. All of the above
Answer: E
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Metal tools, beads and other
ornaments, pottery and religious
and sacred items are examples of
artifacts.