Uncovering the Past: A History of Archaeology

1996 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 605
Author(s):  
Tim Murray ◽  
William H. Stiebing
Keyword(s):  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

The Role of Biography in Writing the History of Archaeology (1992)

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas R. Givens
Keyword(s):  
No Value ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
History Of Anthropology ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Past Work ◽  
The Past ◽  
Institutional Influences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Made In

The history of any discipline involves the explanation of its past and how the past has influenced its development through time. Its ‘objects are events which have finished happening, and conditions no longer in existence. Only when they are no longer perceptible do they become objects of historical thought’ (Collingwood 1946: 233). Writing the history of archaeology involves the analysis of past events and of the contributions that individual archaeologists have made to its development through time. The roles of individuals in archaeology are best seen in biographical accounts of their labours and in the contributions to the discipline that they have made. In general, historians of archaeological science, who are interested in explaining the roles of the individuals in its development, must focus their attention on three important items. First, the most important item is evidence that something has occurred. If individuals’ contributions have no basis in truth and cannot be justified, then they are of no value to the historian of archaeology. Second, the historical picture of individuals’ lives and work must have defined boundaries in space and time. These provide the area of focus for study and description of individuals’ activities. Third, the efforts of individual practitioners must be couched within the intellectual climate in which they are made. Individuals’ contributions are not made in an intellectual vacuum, apart from collegial or institutional influences. Biography, as a tool for writing the history of archaeology, must embrace all of these requisites. For those engaged in explaining archaeology’s past, historical evidence of event and period provide the foundation upon which we can trace our science’s development. Studying and evaluating past work can be helpful in separating useful and outdated methodologies of the field and laboratory. Moreover, the study of the history of anthropology may give the anthropologist needed ‘distance from their own theoretical and methodological preoccupations’ (Darnell 1974: 2). What we see anthropology today as being is certainly not what the ultimate science of humankind will be in the future.

Frank Calvert, Henry Austen Layard and Heinrich Schliemann

2001 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 169-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wout Arentzen
Keyword(s):  
Good Deal ◽  
High Time ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
Central Thesis ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

Within the past few years not a little has been written about the relationship between Heinrich Schliemann and Frank Calvert (see, for example, Traill, Calder 1986; Traill 1995; Robinson 1994; 1995; Allen 1999). The central thesis of these studies is that Schliemann mistreated Calvert in every possible way, not only financially, but also intellectually. For instance, ‘Schliemann's egotism and false claims have robbed Calvert of his proper place in the history of archaeology’ (Traill 1984).Such statements give the impression that Calvert was a better scholar than Schliemann and that there is still a good deal in his work, as there is in that of Schliemann, which can help us. From the above interpretation by Traill one could almost believe that it is a distinct loss that Calvert has become nothing but a footnote in the works of Schliemann and that it is high time for a revaluation. Robinson is the most ardent exponent of this attempted revision. She is of the view that the world was duped by Schliemann, and that everything would have been done much better by Calvert. If truth be spoken, Schliemann has robbed us of the knowledge that Calvert would have given.

scholarly journals ".. .wiser than he himself at the time knew" - The Histories of Archaeology and the Whig Problem

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-35
Author(s):  
Anders Gustafsson
Keyword(s):  
Vantage Point ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

The last decades have witnessed an increased interest in the history of archaeology, an interest which, unfortunately, has not always included theoretical and methodological issues. In this paper, therefore, the author focuses upon one vital problem in the historiography of archaeology the problem of anachronistic reasoning. One example put forward concerns how one textbook in the history of archaeology treats the question of how the existence of thunderbolts was explained by an early scholar, the Dane Ole Worm. As a general conclusion it is claimed that different forms of the history of archaeology need different foundations with respect to the question of how to assess the past from the vantage point of the present.

scholarly journals Balkan kao vremenska odrednica – Diskurs balkanizma u srpskoj arheologiji

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 539
Author(s):  
Staša Babić ◽  
Zorica Kuzmanović
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Past ◽  
Basic Framework ◽  
European Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

The idea of universal linear course of time is an important element of the basic framework of reference of the archaeological research into the past. However, even the fundamental theoretical premises of the discipline, such as the conceptualization of time, may be changed and differently interpreted, depending upon the social and cultural context of research. The history of archaeology in Serbia testifies that, contrary to the generally implicit linear course of time, the regional past is seen as a series of repetitions, stagnations and detours, implying the assumption of a different, a-historical course of time in the Balkans. This narrative is especially noticeable in the works dealing with the role of the Classical Greek-Roman civilization in the Balkan past. The ambivalence of the leading narratives in Serbian archaeology towards the presumed sources of the European culture corresponds to the images of the Balkans identified by M. Todorova as the discourse of Balkanism.

scholarly journals Archaeological sites as a historical source: historiographical overview

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
Y. M. Kariyev ◽  
◽  
D. B. Samratova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Historical Science ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
The Past ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Scientific Unit

As we know, the material objects of the past are the most important sources of historical science. Also, we are aware that material monuments were not immediately included in the orbit of interests of history. Archaeology is recognized as a field of history. It has come a long and difficult way from general evidence of the past and art history to an academic discipline with its base of sources, methodology and other inherent attributes of a full-fledged scientific unit. There are many works on the history of archaeology, archaeological thought and archaeological research of different scale and nature, where the material sources are historical, or this issue is ignored and the concept of «archaeological source» is openly emphasized. It reflects separative trends in archaeology. In the realities of the current day there is an urgent need to revise the prevailing views and perspectives in the understanding of material evidence as a historical source. It is more than obvious that it should begin with the historiography of the problem. In the present article the history of perception and use of material evidence as a source on the past of mankind is considered. For the completeness of the general presentation in the article a detailed historiographical excursus is carried out, which covers the period from antiquity to the present and considers facts of intentional, indirect, and contextual use of material remains in the reconstruction of the past.

The 1990s: North American archaeology with a human face?

Antiquity ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (245) ◽  
pp. 778-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce G. Trigger
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
North American ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
American Archaeology ◽  
The Past ◽  
North American Archaeology ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

The English reviewer for Nature (Renfrew 1990) declared that Bruce Trigger's new history of archaeology will become the standard account of our subject's history, and the French reviewer for ANTIQUITY also has a warm view (this issue, page 960). Having looked to the past, what does Trigger see for the future of archaeology in North America, as the reaction comes to the view of archaeology as, primarily, science that has dominated these last decades?

scholarly journals Digging deeper in the archaeological psyche

Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (336) ◽  
pp. 589-596
Author(s):  
Ewan Campbell ◽  
Rob Leiper
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Project Area ◽  
Identity Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nationalism And Identity ◽  
Multiple Accounts ◽  
The Individual

In the last 25 years the individual has increasingly come to the fore in archaeology, for example in phenomenology, agency and somatic archaeology, and more recently we have been encouraged to be reflexive in our methodology, and to hear multiple accounts of the past by other ‘stakeholders’ such as local communities. Alongside this focus on the individual in the past there has been a concomitant growth of interest in the history of archaeologists themselves (Murray 1999b: 871), most recently, for example, in the work of the Archives of European Archaeology Project (AREA n.d.), or the oral history of archaeology (Smith 2010). In the non-academic world the search by individuals and communities for a sense of identity in the remnants of the past has become a major issue in the fields of heritage, nationalism and identity studies (Hamilakis & Anagnostopoulos 2009).

On The Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia

1961 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. W. Small
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

It is generally accepted that history is an element of culture and the historian a member of society, thus, in Croce's aphorism, that the only true history is contemporary history. It follows from this that when there occur great changes in the contemporary scene, there must also be great changes in historiography, that the vision not merely of the present but also of the past must change.

Stellar Evolution

1962 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
M. Schwarzschild
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Stellar Evolution ◽  
Space Craft ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Individual Stars ◽  
The Past ◽  
Evolution Of Galaxies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fast Flow

It is perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the past decade in astronomy that the evolution of some major classes of astronomical objects has become accessible to detailed research. The theory of the evolution of individual stars has developed into a substantial body of quantitative investigations. The evolution of galaxies, particularly of our own, has clearly become a subject for serious research. Even the history of the solar system, this close-by intriguing puzzle, may soon make the transition from being a subject of speculation to being a subject of detailed study in view of the fast flow of new data obtained with new techniques, including space-craft.

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