Algemene Inleiding tot de Archeologie Les 1 PDF

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Aantekeningen van de eerste les Algemene Inleiding tot de Archeologie over de geschiedenis van de archeologie, gegeven door Jean Bourgeois....

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What is archaeology? Daniel: Branch of history that is busy with material objects (partially correct, but more than just a branch of history) Bloemers: Archeology is a science about all facets of ancient societies, also systematic searching and interpreting of material objects

History Archaeology:

Pre-renaissance: no archaeology

Pre-19th century: 2 main streams: -art history (middelandse zee) -antiquarism (NWEU)

Art history: Mainly 17th and 18th century Collect and describe/illustrate historical sources, “bring historical sources back to life,” mix of historical sources and objects, only art mattered (blank pots and such didn’t), intentional searching for places that are mentioned in classical sources Dilettanti: people interested in the past of people, collected and described objects, amateurs Joachim Winkelman: father art history, first person to do art history, Dilettanti group up into “academies” to collect and spread information Dilettanti collect objects

Antiquarism: Started in 16th century (john Leland), to 18th century Very important in England (also scandinavie and northern France), collections made and displayed, John Leland: royal archaeologist, has to describe ancient monuments in his country (England) with the purpose of illustrating non-classical history

Antiquaries: researchers John Aubrey & stuckley: research Stonehenge Ole Worm: made museum wormianum

19th century: Napeoleon takes learned people to research Egypt, find rosetta stone (francois champollion, steen van rosette) Art history continues in different forms, more academia built, art history and archaeology are combined (up to this day even), still a lot of research in mediterranean sea with more cultures being found. Heinrich Schliemann (troy and mycenian), Howard carter (Tutankhamun), Arthur evans (Knossos and minoan civilization) all further art history Louis & Henri Siret: Basically discovered the Spanish bronze age, really good digging and research, not as much art history, but same region

Antiquarism also continues, also in areas other than Europe (native americans) Three period system: people used to think history goes backwards (from golden age to silver, bronze, and gold, from good to bad), 19th century people believe it must have gone forward Thomsen: conservator museum kopenhagen, starts ordening objects based on logic that more complex is more recent, discovers it forms a stone-bronze-iron age (now more nuanced, but still used), Jens Worsaae proved it via excavations Oscar Montelius: invented typology (classifying of objects on the basis of form, production technique, and other things)

New science is developed: Geology, helps with archaeology, shows more and more that biblical creation is incorrect James hutton: first brings up idea of stratigraphy Charles Lyell: early geologist, creator of modern geology Stratigraphy: the lower the geological layer, the older Context: what is found in one/the same layer, is from the same time Thomas Jefferson: archaeologist that uses the concept of stratigraphy as one of the earliest Boucher & Schmerling: found things that show biblical history is wrong, Huxley: student of Darwin

20th century: Come to the realization they have info but they don’t know how to classify it Vere Gordon Childe: synthetized archaeological knowledge, culture and diffusionism Culture: group of artefacts that are similar and appear in the same geographical location and time Diffusionism: mechanism where cultures are influenced by other (superior) cultures Ex oriente lux: the light comes from the east, the east invented things first and it spread from there to other places Albert Egges van Giffen: invented quadrant method Quadrant method: divide a burial mound in 4 pieces, dig up 2 opposite quadrants, more likely to find objects if they aren’t perfectly in the middle, lot of info (including stratigraphical) Sir Mortimer Wheeler: Did a lot of work for the indus civilization, invented a box method for excavations (place pole every 5 meters, each 5x5 square you dig a 4x4m hole), has problems (if it’s deep you can’t use vertical walls, so the hole is smaller than 4x4, getting a total image is hard with the paths in the way, dangerous (you can fall into the holes), you don’t know the orientation of what’s under it so you may orientate it wrong) Archaeology became a world archaeology (still a archaeology of Europeans/western people until after world war) Post second world war: America becomes more important, natural sciences become more important as well (ecofacts vs artefacts) W Libby: invented C-14 technique Lewis Binford: “father” new archaeology, writes many books (including the blue book that would be very important) New archaeology: uses more ethnography and anthropology, against culture-historical (it’s descriptive, but doesn’t explain things, also focusses too much on important sites, and you can’t get enough from only pots and such), deductive (first make a hypothesis, then dig), project-oriented, quantitative data > qualitative data, interest in depositional and post-depositional processes (things that happened between when the site was made and now to explain certain reasons for things to be the way they are), optimistic (we can research all aspects of society if we answer the right questions), big patterns, not individual Ian Hodder: father contextual/post-processual archaeology Contextual archaeology: you have to put things in context so you can explain symbolic things and such, symbols and context, individual more important...