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Archaeology, 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.
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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 behavior and ecology,
for both prehistoric and historic societies. It is considered in North America to be one of the four sub-fields of anthropology.
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.
In the the
United States and, increasingly, in other parts of the world, archaeology is
more commonly devoted to the study of human societies and is treated as one of the four subfields of Anthropology.
The other subfields of anthropology supplement the findings of archaeology in a holistic manner. These subfields 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, such as paleontology, paleozoology, paleoethnobotany, paleobotany, geography, geology, art
history, and classics.
Archaeology has been described as a craft that enlists the sciences to illuminate the humanities.
The American archaeologist Walter
Taylor asserted in his major work "A Study of Archeology" (1948, American
Anthropological Association) that "Archaeology is neither history nor
anthropology. As an autonomous discipline, it consists of a method and a set of
specialised techniques for the gathering, or 'production' of cultural
information".Archaeology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archaeology - Wikipedia, |
