Anthropology of the Archaeological PDF

Preview

Summary

Prehistory is a term used to refer to the period preceding recorded history. Paul Tournal (1833) coined the term Pre-historique to describe the discoveries he made in southern France's caves, and Daniel Wilson (1851) coined the term 'Prehistoric'. It is the period of human evolution prior to the inv...

Description

Anthropology of the Archaeological TERMS AND CONDITIONS PREHISTORY Prehistory is a term used to refer to the period preceding recorded history. Paul Tournal (1833) coined the term Pre-historique to describe the discoveries he made in southern France's caves, and Daniel Wilson (1851) coined the term 'Prehistoric'. It is the period of human evolution prior to the invention of writing and the keeping of records. The term 'prehistory' refers to all of man's cultural developments up to the start of the historical period, including his biological evolution. The historical period in India is commonly said to begin around the middle of the first millennium B.C., when Asoka issued the Brahmi edicts in various parts of the country. Prehistorians reconstruct the distant past through the examination of various types of material relics. In India, prehistory spans a time span of 0.6 to 0.7 million years. Recent dating of the Palaeolithic sites of Isampur in Karnataka and Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu places the age at 1.2 or 1.5 million years. The dates from Riwat and Uttarbaini in Punjab and Jammu's Siwalik hills extend the age of human culture to more than 2 million years. Throughout this period, man lived a nomadic lifestyle, subsisting primarily on hunting wild animals and gathering wild plant foods. The technology was founded on the preparation of tools on a variety of rocks, including quartzite, limestone, and siliceous stones such as chert and jasper. The prehistoric period is divided into three major phases or stages based on advancements in tool-making traditions and, to a lesser extent, changes in hunting-foraging methods. These phases or stages are referred to as the Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic. All three of these stages are dated to the Pleistocene geological period. Microliths, small stone implements, became fashionable in the early Holocene. This period is referred to as the Mesolithic. Along with stone, wood and bone were also used to make tools during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic periods. Tools for heavy work (heavy duty tools) and tools for light work are two broad categories of prehistoric stone tools (light duty tools). These were used for a variety of tasks, including hunting, root and tuber digging, cutting, scraping, flensing, and boring, all of which were associated with the acquisition, processing, and consumption of animal and plant foods. Lower Palaeolithic tools are large in size, such as handaxes, cleaners, chopping tools, and polyhedrons. The tools of the Middle Palaeolithic are smaller in size and consist of flake-tools such as scrapers, points, and borers. Upper Palaeolithic culture is associated with the Late Pleistocene and is defined by blade technology, which resulted in the production of long, slender-looking backed blades, points, penknives, and saw-edged blades, among others. The succeeding Mesolithic period sees the development of extremely small or tiny tools, typically measuring only a few centimetres in length. There are numerous types, including backed blades, lunates,

triangles, and points, all of which are used to shape composite implements such as arrowheads, spearheads, and harpoons. The Mesolithic stage also sees the rise of rock art and intentional burial of the dead. PROTOHISTORY The French coined the term 'la Protohistorique' to refer to a transitional period between prehistory and true history. It is ideal for India. To begin, there is evidence of writing prior to the historical period in the Harappan or Indus valley scripts, though they remain untranslated. Second, though the Vedic literature was oral until the fourth century, "Its antiquity dates all the way back to the second millennium B.C. Additionally, it is a critical source for reconstructing our country's early social, political, religious, and literary histories. This is a unique feature in the history of the world. As a result, this period should legitimately be classified as protohistory. Additionally, contemporaneous with much of the Vedic literature, there is evidence of early metal-using communities throughout India. This is undoubtedly prehistory in one sense, as there is no evidence of writing in any case, but because this period coincides with the Vedic literature, it has been classified as protohistory. It has been customary in India for the last 60 years or so to introduce this period as a buffer between the ill-defined prehistoric period and the more precisely defined historical periods covering the archaeological record of post-Mesolithic and pre-Mauryan cultures between 3500 or 3000 B.C and 300 BC (Sankalia, 1973). Protohistory in India began with the Neolithic period in seven geographical zones, namely northwestern India, which includes the Kashmir and Swat valleys, the Vindhyan plateau of Belan valley, the Kaimur hills and the Chhotanagpur plateau, northern Bihar, the north-eastern region, which encompasses all north-eastern states and adjacent sub-Himalayan regions, the central-eastern region, which encompasses the Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa It is the first settled way of life, defined by permanent settlements based on geographical convenience, pottery production, plant and animal domestication, pecked and ground stone and blade tool industries, and some reliance on hunting, gathering, and fishing. The discoveries in Mehrgarh, Baluchistan, and Lahuradeva, eastern Uttar Pradesh, indicate that the Neolithic phase began around 6000 B.C. Not only the Indus civilization is included in protohistory, but so are the various Late Harappan cultures of Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana, the Late Harappan, Black-and-Red, and Ochre-painted pottery cultures of the Ganga-Yamuna Roap, and the various Chalcolithic cultures of Rajasthan, central India, the middle and lower Ganga valleys, and the Deccan. This Chalcolithic stage is exemplified by the Banas, Kayatha, Malwa, Savalda, and Jorwe cultures. Additionally, the iron-using painted Grey-ware culture of the Ganga Valley and the Megal thicculu f Vidarbha and South India may be classified as part of this protohistoric phase. CIVILIZATION The term 'Civilisation' refers to a developed state of human society that possesses a high level of culture, including urban life and state-level government. We may recall

that Gordon Childe proposed the following elements of civilization as constituents: large urban centres; full-time specialist occupations; primary producers of food. paying surplus to deity or rulers; monumental architectures; a ruling class exempt from manual labour; a system for recording information; the development of precise, practical sciences; advanced metallurgy; internal and external trade; the independence of peasants, craftsmen, and rulers; state religion/ ideology; and persistent state structures. All of these criteria are met by the Indus civilization, which ranks alongside the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. It occupied an area comparable to that of both of these civilizations and flourished between the third and second millennia B.C. Harappa, Mohenjodaro, Dholavira, Surkotada, Lothal, and Kalibangan are just a few of the civilization's major sites. According to evidence from sites such as Mehrgarh, this civilization evolved out of the indigenous agropastoral way of life. Its origins were also influenced by the Mesopotamian civilization. By about 1500 B.C., the Indus civilization had declined, most likely due to a lack of external trade. According to conventional wisdom, this decline is due to the invasion of Indo-Aryan speaking groups from central Asia. Initially centred on the IndoGangetic divide, Aryan culture was a rural way of life based primarily on cattle pastoralism and primitive agriculture. It quickly spread eastward to the Ganga valley, resulting in significant changes in religion, economy, and social organisation. By the second millennium B.C., heterodox religions such as Buddhism and Jainism had emerged, as had a new phase of urbanisation (dubbed second urbanisation), which resulted in the growth of cities such as Pataliputra, Kavsambi, and Ujjain. These ultimately paved the way for the Mauryan empire's rise. CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENTS IN ARCHAEOLOGY Archaeology is the study of antiquarian remains, collectively referred to as the archaeological record. It is composed of three or four primary components. Individual objects include stone tools, pots and pans, metal objects, beads, pendants, and other ornaments, as well as seals and coins. The second category includes a range of features, structures, and monuments, including fireplaces, house floors, religions, military and commercial structures, and burials and burial monuments. Then there are some unique creations, such as painted or incised designs on pottery, terracotta or metal figurines, or rock fragments. However, the archaeological record includes materials and remains that were not created by humans but are inextricably linked to archaeological sites, such as soils and sediments, plant and animal remains, ore and slag fragments, and rocks and siliceous stone fragments. On the landscape, we notice that these various types of antiquarian remains are frequently clustered together. These clusters are referred to as sites and can range in size from small to large, such as the Mohenjodaro and Harappa mounds. Archaeological sites are further classified according to the type of human activity

that occurred on them, including habitation sites, animal penning stations, factory sites, religious sites, commercial sites, and military sites. Throughout the last four to five centuries, significant changes have occurred in the objectives and methods for dealing with the archaeological record. In his seminal 1973 article 'Archaeology: The Loss of Innocence,' the late David Clarke defined these transitions as successive stages of consciousness, self consciousness, critical selfconsciousness, and self critical self-consciousness. During the antiquarian period, which lasted until the early decades of the nineteenth century "In the nineteenth century, amateurs from various walks of life took an interest in their countries' cultural heritage and travelled to the landscape to gather firsthand information about palaces, forts, paintings, sculptures, and other striking antiquarian remains dotting the landscape. They compiled concise descriptions of the relics, as well as sketches and drawings. These studies were conducted at random and were motivated by universal human desires such as curiosity about one's surroundings, romanticism and adventure, pleasure instinct, and reverence for ancestors. If knowledge existed at all, it was of an imple nature. There was no such thing as a generally accepted methodology. Rather than that, amateurs were free to use their common sense in describing and illustrating the ancient remains. Only in the second quarter does the element of acquiring knowledge about past societies through their discarded items not only enter the picture, but also undergoes three or four abrupt shifts in perspective. The terms "culture history," "reconstruction of lifeways," "new or processual archaeology," and "ideational or interpretive trends" refer to these knowledge-seeking perspectives. We will discuss these briefly below. History of Culture C.I.Thomsen, curator of the Royal Danish National Museum of Antiquities in Copenhagen, deserves credit for introducing the knowledge perspective by dividing Europe's pre-literate (pre-Christian) past. Thomsen was tasked with cataloguing the museum's vast collection of stone and metal objects, ceramics, and other antiquities. Through a combination of common sense and ethnographic parallels, Thomsen arrived at a three-tier classification of the collection's objects. This is the well-known three-Age system first published in 1836. According to this scheme, three major eras or periods existed in northern Europe's pre-Christian past, namely the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. The second significant contribution made by Thomsen is that he was almost certainly the first antiquarian to emphasise the importance of antiquarian remains in providing knowledge or information about ancient human societies. He made a point of emphasising that these remains could provide insight into ancient cultures and burial practises, as well as ancient environments and even past human migrations. The division of the prehistoric past into phases and the pursuit of information about each phase became a strong trend in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1865, Sir John Lubbock classified the Stone Age into two periods: the Palaeolithic and

the Neolithic. Soon after, thanks to discoveries in the French Caves, the Palaeolithic was divided into three stages (Lower, Middle, and Upper). Similarly, distinct stages were identified within the Bronze and Iron Ages. Thus, archaeologists were able to identify several stages in the development of human culture and also obtain some basic information about each stage. Reconstruction of Ways of Life Even a cursory examination of the archaeological discoveries from the final quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century reveals that this period saw numerous large-scale excavations in various parts of the Old World. These developments resulted in the recognition of all significant Bronze Age civilizations that exist today. Heinrich Schliemann's excavations at Troy (now known as Hiissarlik in Turkey) uncovered the Mycenaean civilization. Arthur Evans' excavations at Knossos resulted in the discovery of the Cratan or Minoan civilization. Leonard Woolley uncovered the ruins of Mesopotamia. Flinders Petrie and others are credited with establishing the Egyptian civilization. John Marshal and his colleagues unearthed the Indus civilization's ruins. One thing you will notice is that these civilizations were identifiable due to the large scale of the excavations and the exposure of nearly entire towns. Town layouts were uncovered, revealing imposing structures such as palaces, temples, and elaborate burial tombs containing treasure. Thus, the ways of life of these city dwellers could be reconstructed. Archaeology in the Modern Era or Archaeology in Process The first explicit attempts to develop archaeology's theoretical structure were made in publications such as Gordon Childe's piecing. The Past in Context, Grahame Clark's Archaeology and Society, and Stuart Piggott's Approach to Archaeology were all published in the second quarter of the twentieth century. Against this backdrop, two major developments emerged that continue to dominate contemporary theoretical archaeology: New or Processual Archaeology and Post-Processual or Interpretative Archaeology. We'll now discuss the fundamental tenets of these two trends. Lewis R. Binford of the United States and David Clarke of England were instrumental in establishing New Archaeology in the 1960s. Both emphasised culture's systemic nature and argued that archaeologists should identify not only its constituents but also their interconnections, as these alone provide insight into past cultural processes. Additionally, processual archaeology emphasised the environment's role in the functioning of human cultures. Indeed, Binford defined human cultures as extra-somatic modes of adaptation to particular environmental conditions. Beyond the traditional tasks of describing and classifying antiquarian remains, he emphasised the anthropological objective of explaining cultural change through the use of lawlike formulations or broad generalisations that span time and space. Binford argued that a regional approach to archaeological sites was necessary for achieving archaeology's anthropological goals of identifying past human behavioural patterns.

Archaeology with a Purpose Since the 1980s, a number of reactions have emerged, casting doubt on and raising objections about New Archaeology's functionalist and behavior-oriented approaches. Ian Hodder of Cambridge University pioneered this reaction, which has evolved into interpretative archaeology over the last quarter-century. A central tenet of this trend is that it is the internal, innovative elements of human culture, rather than external environmental factors, that drive cultural change. The second significant aspect of this new trend emphasises the critical nature of connecting behaviour to human minds. As a result, interpretative archaeology has earned the moniker "archaeology of the mind." It emphasised the cognitive abilities, sentiments, feelings, and emotions of humans. This resulted in the development of distinct archaeological trends such as cognitive archaeology, symbolic archaeology, structuralist archaeology, and hermeneutical archaeology, among others. In contrast to New Archaeology's emphasis on scientific method, postprocessual archaeology views the archaeological record as a text whose meanings in terms of human minds must be retrieved through interpretive methods. We can now conclude our discussion of conceptual developments in archaeology by emphasising that (I) these developments are yet another manifestation of the progression of all social sciences from description and classification to explanation and interpretation; and (2) these various trends are, in the end, mutually complementary rather than contradictory. ARCHAEOLOGY: METHODOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTATION In the preceding section, we discussed how archaeology evolved from a practical task of collecting and classifying antiquarian remains to a full-fledged discipline that seeks to elicit information about past human behaviour and its roots in human minds. We will now discuss how, in parallel with these theoretical advances, significant changes occurred in the field of methodology. Field investigations have shifted away from ad hoc and selective recording and study of antiquarian sites toward a systematic and intensive survey of all categories and sizes of sites within a given region. This work may require the use of maps, aerial photographs, and satellite images, among other resources. Vertical or horizontal excavations are then conducted, which require detailed documentation of evidence in the form of site and trench maps, three-dimensional recording of finds in the trenches, and photography. While excavation destroys original evidence, the site record is preserved through maps, plans, stratigraphical sections, and photographs. Apart from these archaeology-specific field methods, the discipline also employs a number of broad methodological strategies for studying and interpreting archaeological evidence. Environmental archaeology, settlement archaeology,

ethnoarchaeology, experimental archaeology, and ethology are all subfields of archaeology. Archaeology of the Environment Environmental archaeology is the study of human interactions with the natural world in the distant past. It is concerned with the environment's impact on past cultures and its effect on the social and economic aspects of previous societies. The significance of these studies is such that Karl Butzer coined the term "archaeology" to refer to the study of past human ecology. Environmental archaeology is divided into two major branches: geoarchaeology and bioarchaeology. Environmental archaeology frequently makes use of the following types of evidence: (a) animal remains such as bones, eggshell fragments, insects, ostracods, foraminifera, molluscs, parasite eggs, and cysts; (b) plant remains such as wood, charcoal, pollen and spores, phytoliths, and diatoms; and (c) archaeological and geological stratigraphy, chemical and physical analyses of sediments and soils, soil micromorphology The two central issues in environmental archaeology are how human societies shaped themselves in response to their respective landscape settings and how human groups altered the physical and biologic a1 components of their landscapes directly or indirectly. Environmental archaeology entails extensive fieldwork and laboratory analysis. Archaeology of Settlements Settlement Archaeology is the study of ancient societies' societal relationships as revealed by the spatial distribution of archaeological sites on the landscape. In the 1940s, Gordon Willey of Harvard University began studying settlement patterns in Peru's Viru valley. Willey (1953) defined settlement pattern as "the way in which man arr...