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archaeology

Study of prehistory and history, based on the examination of physical remains. Principal activities include preliminary field (or site) surveys, excavation (where necessary), and the classification, dating, and interpretation of finds.

History

A museum found at the ancient Sumerian city of Ur indicates that interest in the physical remains of the past stretches back into prehistory. In the Renaissance this interest gained momentum among dealers in and collectors of ancient art and was further stimulated by discoveries made in Africa, the Americas, and Asia by Europeans during the period of imperialist colonization in the 16th–19th centuries, such as the antiquities discovered during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign in the 1790s. Romanticism in Europe stimulated an enthusiasm for the mouldering skull, the ancient potsherds, ruins, and dolmens; relating archaeology to a wider context of art and literature.

Towards the end of the 19th century archaeology became an academic study, making increasing use of scientific techniques and systematic methodologies such as aerial photography. Since World War II new developments within the discipline include medieval, postmedieval, landscape, and industrial archaeology; underwater reconnaissance enabling the excavation of underwater sites; and rescue archaeology (excavation of sites risking destruction).

Related disciplines

Useful in archaeological studies are dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), geochronology (science of measuring geological time), stratigraphy (study of geological strata), palaeobotany (study of ancient pollens, seeds, and grains), archaeozoology (analysis of animal remains), epigraphy (study of inscriptions), and numismatics (study of coins).

From treasure hunt to science In 1836 the Danish archaeologist Christian Thomsen put forward his Three Age System: the successive technological ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron. This provided a framework for the study of prehistory that survives to this day. The next major step came in the 1860s with the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and the subsequent controversies over the age of the human race. Earlier discoveries of worked flint implements (first described by John Frere at Hoxne, Suffolk, England, in 1797, and at Abbeville in the Somme, northern France, in 1845) now became firmly accepted as evidence of early humans. Other influences in Britain include the pioneer topographical work of John Aubrey in the 17th century and William Stukeley in the early 18th century, and the formation of county archaeological societies in the early part of the 19th century. The science of geology was also significant, especially the work of two Scottish geologists: James Hutton on stratification, described in his Theory of the Earth 1785, and Charles Lyell in his Principles of Geology 1833.

The mid-19th century also saw some major advances in the Middle East, where in 1845 Austen Layard worked at Nineveh, the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire. By 1871 the German Heinrich Schliemann had begun his excavation of Troy. Perhaps even more important was the work 1899–1935 of Arthur Evans at Knossos in Crete, where he brought to light the Minoan civilization.

Important work also took place in the 1880s in Dorset, England, where Augustus Pitt-Rivers began his excavations on his estate in Cranbourne Chase. His careful attention to stratigraphy laid the foundations of modern archaeology, turning it from a treasure hunt into a science.

Excavation The selection of a site for excavation usually involves extensive study, surveyal of the whole area beforehand for possible sites, and a consideration of sampling methods if total excavation is not to be carried out. This may include study of aerial photography; possible use of thermoprospection, a method of remote sensing; and searching through records and museum archives and collections. Other noninvasive techniques include resistivity surveys which may reveal post holes and ditches; bosing, the use of percussion to determine silted pits and ditches by striking the ground with a mallet; and site surface surveys from systematic field walking. In some cases core samples may be taken from lake beds, deep seafloors, or ice sheets to help reconstruct climate and environment as part of a project. Few sites remain to be discovered above ground today. Some are still visible as humps and bumps, whereas others are completely hidden and only discovered accidentally through ploughing or development. Aerial photography reveals where crops grow better over concealed ditches.

Excavations vary greatly in size. Some are merely a single trench designed to give a specific answer to a specific question; others are huge in area, uncovering a whole site layer by layer, each layer being carefully planned and photographed. If step-trenching is used, vertical sections present a stratigraphical profile at a deep site of many occupation levels. The position of each find is accurately measured, and the colouring of the earth carefully noted for traces of a decayed wooden post or the position of a stone wall which has been completely ‘robbed out’ (the stones removed for some other purpose), leaving behind a robber trench.

Other specialists are often brought in; for example, botanists to carry out pollen analysis to determine whether the site was originally an open field or dense woodland. Snail shells are collected for the same reason. Soil scientists, using such methods as geochemical analysis and phosphate analysis, are able to locate areas of human activity. Finds will often be extremely fragile when they emerge from the ground, and will need prompt specialist cleaning and chemical treatment. Waterlogging, or extremely dry conditions, will often preserve wood or leather, but exposure to air will cause them to disintegrate within hours unless properly treated. Metal artefacts may be cleaned by electrolysis.

The actual excavation is only a comparatively small part of the archaeological process. The writing-up and analysis of the results will normally take much longer than the excavation. A range of techniques may be employed to analyse remains and establish chronology. Plans must be studied and redrawn in a final form; artefacts must be studied and analysed to determine material component and derivation, and placed in various type series for dating.

Metallographic examination can aid determination of manufacturing techniques, and chemical composition analysed using a wide range of scientific techniques including x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, atomic absorption spectrometry, neutron activation analysis, infrared absorption spectrometry, trace-element analysis, spectrographic analysis, and X-ray diffraction analysis. Timber may be dated using dendrochronology. Samples of organic material such as bone and teeth will be sent for radiocarbon or other analysis, and bones studied by a bone specialist. Isotopic analysis of bones can reconstruct ancient diet, and other medical techniques may be used such as the CAT scan (computerized axial tomography) for noninvasive investigation of remains. Finally a chronology of the site can be determined from the various lines of evidence, and a whole story built up and published in a report, which may also include presentation to the public.

The proper treatment of archaeological evidence has always suffered from ‘treasure hunters’ and the problem has intensified today with the use of metal detectors. Often in contravention of the law, sites are looted and coins and metal objects divorced from their context and stratigraphy, rendering them virtually worthless to the archaeologist.

Dating In the classical period, dating can be obtained from inscriptions and coins, and from historical events recorded by ancient authors such as Herodotus, Tacitus, and Julius Caesar. For prehistory, dates were initially only ‘relative’, the principles of seriation and stratigraphy being used to build up a relative sequence, such as Flinders Petrie demonstrated for predynastic Egypt.

Stratigraphy studies the layers found on an ancient site and the artefacts, features, and phenomena within them. The basic principle of superimposition establishes that upper layers or deposits have accumulated later in time than the lower ones. By carefully observing these layers, relative dating can be determined. The principles for this method came from 19th-century geology, but Pitt-Rivers made them the basis of archaeological excavation.

Typology is the systematic organization of artefacts into types on the basis of their shared attributes. It derives from a technique of art history going back to the German Johann Winckelmann in the 18th century and possibly earlier. Rare and valuable objects are less interesting in typology than the common objects – pottery and flints – that may be found on any archaeological site. Pottery, though easily broken, is very difficult to destroy, and shards of pottery are found in the dwelling places of all pottery-using peoples, making it particularly useful in typology.

Seriation is a relative dating method that orders artefacts in a series according to development or degeneration of technological and stylistic attributes. The greater the similarity, the closer in age artefacts are to each other. Pottery, being so commonly found, is particularly valuable in seriation, and dating becomes more difficult in those periods when pottery was less used, such as the Anglo-Saxon era.

The first means of obtaining absolute dates and pinning down the relative sequence was by cross-dating with the literate civilizations of the Middle East and ultimately Egypt, where the first dynasty dates back to 3100 BC. The Danish scholar Oscar Montelius was a proponent of cross-dating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His typology of bronze implements across Europe firmly established the chronology of the Bronze and Iron ages in northern Europe.

Scientific means of absolute dating have now revolutionized archaeological chronology, most notably since 1958 with the advent of radiocarbon dating for organic objects, such as wood or bone, used to establish the age of archaeological strata and associated materials. Other methods include accelerator mass spectrometry, thermoluminescence, potassium-argon dating, electron spin resonance, fission-track dating, archaeomagnetic dating, varve analysis, dating by amino acid racemization, and obsidian hydration rim dating. Cation ratio dating involves the analysis of varnish on rock carvings.

Archaeology between the two world wars Having developed into a scientific discipline in the 19th century, archaeology was greatly advanced in the 1920s and 1930s. In Britain stratigraphic excavations at Hadrian's Wall revealed three major destructions and provided the basis for dating Romano-British pottery. Studies in prehistory based on pottery styles and bronze implements, combined with studies of burial customs and everyday life, gave insights into cultures dated by cross-reference to the Mediterranean. New features were the use of geographical distribution maps to show the spread of different cultures, and a more international aspect of archaeology developing among archaeologists like Grahame Clark, who studied the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) hunter-fishers on a worldwide basis. The novel concept of a Neolithic Revolution, occurring during the most recent Stone Age when hunting and fishing were replaced by farming and herding, was introduced by the Australian Gordon Childe.

Post-war developments While the study of prehistory has been revolutionized by scientific absolute dating methods, the introduction of medieval archaeology has been one of the most significant new directions for archaeology. Previously it had been thought that the Middle Ages were so well covered by historical evidence that archaeology would have little to offer, but as archaeology developed new techniques, it was able to provide a valuable complement to frequently biased historical sources. The most impressive work has been done on deserted medieval villages abandoned because of the Black Death or the introduction of sheep farming at the end of the medieval period. Towns have also been studied, in particular to detect their origins in the late Saxon period. Church archaeology is also studied; although the fabric of many churches goes back to the medieval or Norman period, excavation will often reveal the remains of earlier Saxon stone churches or even an original timber church.

The introduction of postmedieval landscape and industrial archaeology has further extended the scope of archaeology. the use of experimental archaeology and reconstructive archaeology, such as the Butser Iron Age Farm, Hampshire, England, and cognitive archaeology on the development of the mind in relation to tool use, has extended archaeology into other disciplines such as psychology and geography.

Underwater archaeology The development of underwater archaeology began with the introduction of the aqualung and has grown to include a number of underwater reconnaissance techniques. It began in the Mediterranean, where wrecks were often looted but rarely properly excavated. One of the earliest investigations was the examination 1907–13 of a sunken galley off Mahdia, a small Tunisian port, and the recovery of many works of art forming part of its cargo. In 1951, a large number of blocks of Carrara marble, the remains perhaps of a temple being carried by sea in the 2nd century AD, were recovered at St-Tropez, France. The layout of the Roman port at Cherchel on the coast of Algiers, and the Roman harbour installations at Tyre and Sidon, have also been investigated. The Ulu Burun cargo, from a Bronze Age shipwreck off Caş, Turkey, has been studied to map the ship's trade route around the Mediterranean from Lebanon to Crete.

The warm water of the Mediterranean is unsuitable for the preservation of ships' timbers, these being rapidly eaten away by worms, whereas in the colder waters of northern Europe wooden ships often survive. As early as 1912 the Society of Antiquaries in London employed a diver to investigate a Roman vessel wrecked off the Pudding Pan Rock near Whitstable in the Thames estuary while carrying a cargo of Samian pottery. In Sweden the Wasa, which sank on its maiden voyage 1628, has been raised and is now a museum. Wooden wrecks of the Tudor and later period have been located in England, such as the Mary Rose which sank 1545 and the Dutch East Indiaman Amsterdam which sank 1748.

Rescue archaeology This major new development is the archaeological equivalent of environmentalism: the realization that much of the evidence for our past is being rapidly destroyed by gravel quarries, deep ploughing, new roads, and new towns, and that archaeology should concentrate on rescuing this evidence whenever possible. Today the majority of excavations are rescue excavations, varying from the salvaging of material from a bulldozer at work, to investigations planned sufficiently far in advance to be carried out to the standard of a research excavation.

Bass, George Childe, V Gordon Clark, Grahame Crawford, Osbert Guy Stanhope Daniel, Glyn Edmund Dohan, Edith Hayward Hall environmental archaeology Garstang, John Hawkes, Christopher Hawkes, Jacquetta

Heizer, Robert F historical archaeology Kenyon, Kathleen Mary Marshall, John Hubert rescue archaeology Spaulding, Albert C Taylor, Walter W Wheeler, Mortimer Willey, Gordon R More results