Kinds of archaeology

Dr.AGHALYA.,M.A.,M.Ed.,M.PHIL.,Ph.D.,
Head & Asst.Professor
Department of History
Bon Secours College for Women
Thanjavur

Introduction
Objectives
Kinds of Archaeology
Archaeology on the Basis of Work
On the basis of Historic Time
Period

Kinds of
Archaeology
Archaeology
on the Basis
of Work
On the basis
of Historic
Time Period

Archaeology
on the Basis of
Work
Marxist
Archaeology Contextual
Archaeology
Household
Archaeology
Forensic
Archaeology
Commercial
Archaeology
Battlefield
Archaeology
Experimental
Archaeology
Industrial
ArchaeologyAerial
Archaeology
Aviation
Archaeology
Underwater
Archaeology
Cognitive
Archaeology
Settlement
archaeology
and spatial
analysis
Marine
Archaeology:
Environment
al
Archaeolog
y:
Ethno-
Archaeology:

 Ethno-archaeology has become a chief specialization
in modern archaeology
 Ethno-archaeology is the study of living people and
their material culture conducted with the aim of
improving our understanding of the archaeological
remains or records.
 Ethno-archaeology is the science that deals with the
study of past societies, focusing on material remains
rather than culture.

It is sometimes called anthropological
archaeology as it involves extensive application
of anthropological methods.
By applying ethno-archaeological methods,
archaeologists, in a way, try to link the past with
the present.
 It can provide insight into how the ancient
people in a given region may have lived.

 Environmental archaeology is another major
specialization of prehistoric archaeology.
 It involves three sub-disciplines of archaeology,
viz.,
Environmental
archaeology
zooarchaeology that
deals with the study of
ancient animal remains,
geoarchaeology that
deals with the study of
soil, sediments, rocks,
natural deposits
archaeobotany that
studies ancient plant
remains.

 Thus, it is an interdisciplinary approach where
archaeologists and scientists study the human use of
plants and animals and how societies adapted to the
ever-changing environment.
 Environmental archaeology is a subfield of archaeology
and is the science of reconstructing the relationships
between past societies and the environments they lived
in.
 Environmental archaeology includes field studies along
with laboratory experiments.

 Marine archaeology, or maritime archaeology,
or underwater archaeology, is another field
of specialization of prehistoric archaeology.
It demands great courage as well as skill.
 There is a lot of danger involved when
working at low depths and with little
visibility.
 The use of robotic divers, armed with strong
lights and cameras, helps greatly in the
safety of underwater archaeology.

 It specifically studies human interaction with
the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of
associated physical remains like vessels,
shore-side facilities, port-related structures,
cargoes, human remains and submerged
landscapes.
 A specialty within marine archaeology is
nautical archaeology, which studies ship
construction and use.


 Landscape archaeology is a broad division in
archaeology that deals with the study of the
ways in which past people constructed and
used the environment around them.
 It is the study of the various changes
occurring in different landscapes, both
naturally as well as due to human
intervention.

 For archaeological purposes, landscapes have
been categorized into natural and cultural
landscapes.
 The study of how landscapes and natural
habitats are interconnected with human
behaviour and cultural changes is extensive.

 Household archaeology is a relatively recent
development in archaeology that occurred
between the late 1970s and early 1980s.
 It involves a small-scale excavation within a
specified area on an archaeological site.

 Gender classification in the social order is an
interesting aspect that can be studied by this
kind of archaeological method.
 Different kinds of evidences are taken into
consideration in the study of household
archaeology, which include floral and faunal
remains, pottery, processes of site formation
and so forth.


 Contextual archaeology is an approach to
archaeological interpretation proposed by Ian
Hodder in the mid-1980s in which stress is
laid on methods of identifying and studying
contexts to facilitate understanding of its
meaning.
 This includes two lines of enquiry.


 The first is to consider the environmental and
behavioural context of action; understanding an
object, for instance, by placing it in relation to
the larger functioning whole from which it is
drawn.
 Second, look at the networks of links that
objects were placed within in the past and
attempt to read meaning from such groupings as
if the objects were words in a text.


 Marxist archaeology is an archaeological
theory that interprets archaeological
information within the framework of
Marxism.
 It is a move towards archaeological
interpretation and explanation that is based
on the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels to explore materialist models of social
change and the central questions of social
relations.

 Gender archaeology is a method of studying
past societies through their material culture
by closely investigating the social
construction of gender identities and
relations.
 It is the study of the roles, activities,
ideologies and identities of men and women,
and the differences between them.


 Cognitive archaeology is a theoretical point
of view in archaeology which focuses on the
ways ancient societies thought and the
symbolic structures that can be perceived in
past material culture.
 Cognitive archaeology is interested in the
material expression of human ways of
thinking about things, such as gender, class,
status, and kinship.


 Underwater archaeology is also known as
marine archaeology or maritime archaeology.
 It is a discipline within archaeology as a
whole that particularly studies man’s
interaction with the sea, lakes and river.

 Aviation archaeology is concerned with
discovering historical remains of aircraft, air-
borne weaponry, abandoned air bases or
runways.
 In brief, it deals with everything that has to
do with the history of aviation.


 Aerial archaeology is the investigation of
archaeological remains from the sky.
 This concept gained momentum after aerial
survey and photography were considered to
be important during the two World Wars.
 Archaeologists attempted to gain a bird’s eye
view of archaeological sites to get a better
outlook.


 Early investigators used hot air balloons,
scaffolds, and cameras tied to the kites.
 After the invention of airplane and the
military significance placed on aerial
photography during the World Wars,
archaeologists were more effectively able to
use the technique to discover and record
archaeological sites.


 Industrial archaeology is the methodical
study of material evidence concerned with
the industrial past.
 The evidence, collectively referred to as
industrial heritage, comprise buildings,
machinery, artefacts, sites, infrastructure,
documents and other items related to
production, manufacture, extraction,
transport or construction of a product or
range of products.

 The field of industrial archaeology
encompasses a range of disciplines including
archaeology, architecture, museology,
technology and urban planning and other
specialties, in order to piece together the
history of industrial activities.

 Experimental archaeology is a type of
archaeology in which the archaeologists
attempts to figure out how the
archaeological deposits are formed.
 In the course of this search, they experiment
with different processes that they believe
people in the past have applied to
manufacture all those things which make the
archaeological deposit.

 It has been part of archaeology since the
beginning of the discipline.
 Some of the most methodical experiments in
pre-historic agriculture were conducted in
Denmark in the first half of the twentieth
century, but the concept became more
formally recognised as an archaeological tool
in the 1960s.

 Battlefield archaeology, also called military
archaeology, is one of the most exciting types of
archaeologies.
 It is concerned with excavating battlefields of the
past and recovering evidences associated with
military activities, which may have been
responsible for subsequent changes in the social,
political and economic fields of the society.

 Archaeological evidences obtained from battlefields
have the potential to change those historical
viewpoints which have been widely accepted and
acknowledged.
 Evidences on such sites comprise remains of war
implements, skeletal remains, and various artefacts
related to military history.

 Commercial archaeology is a branch of
archaeology that deals with everything that is
associated with trade and commerce.
 This comprises evidences regarding the
commodities that were traded and bartered,
numismatic finds, ancient means of
transportation that were used for commercial
purposes, and others.
 The study of ancient trade routes and sea ports,
harbours and marketplaces is also incorporated
in commercial archaeology.

 Forensic archaeology is a recently developed branch
of archaeology.
 It is concerned with the use of archaeological
methods in finding evidences on crime scenes.
 Forensic archaeologists are generally engaged by
the security services with the purpose of
investigating crimes and catching the offenders.

 Forensic archaeologists collect evidences like human
burials, artefacts, footprints, tool marks, etc., and
attempt to understand the situation in which a
particular crime might have happened; and to
determine the influences on the remains of external
factors that may have disturbed the crime scene.
 The discoveries of forensic archaeologists prove to be
very valuable in the court of law, and help the police to
a great extent in the investigation of the committed
crime.

On the
basis of
Historic
Time
Period
Historical
Archaeology
Prehistoric
Archaeology
Medieval
and Modern
Archaeology
Proto-
historic
Archaeology
Classical
Archaeology

 Prehistory is the study of past before the
invention of writing.
 Since there are no written records or
historical accounts from the prehistoric time,
whatever we know about prehistory is purely
on the basis of physical archaeological finds.
 It has very close links with biology, biological
anthropology and geology.

 On the basis of the developments that took place
over a period of time in the human lifestyles,
prehistory has been classified into Palaeolithic,
Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods.
 Prehistory also comprise periods before the
Stone Age, which preceded the human existence.
 Thus, prehistoric archaeology is a vast discipline,
and there is a lot of scope for original research,
as there are numerous prehistoric mysteries that
are to be yet unravelled.


 Proto-history is the period or stage of human
development or of a particular culture
immediately before the emergence of
writing.
 It is the period that lies in between
prehistory and history.
 Though this is a period that emerged after
the invention of writing, many of the
evidences have not yet been deciphered.

 Proto-history includes the Bronze Age and
Iron Age, and sometimes even the copper
age, but this vary from region to region.
 Determination of dates of this period is a
difficult job for an archaeologist, as this
again depends on regional and cultural
aspects.

 Historical archaeology is a form of
archaeology which studies that period of the
history of mankind from which we have
ample written records and oral traditions.
 So, historical archaeology involves the study
of not only the artefacts obtained from the
archaeological sites but also of the
documented evidences that have been left
behind.

 A large number of sites associated with
historical archaeology are spread across the
world, and each of these helps reconstruct
different kinds of aspects of human past,
such as industries, trade, art and
architecture, social and cultural history and
military history.
 However, it should be kept in mind that
historical records are not always accurate,
and for this reason, it should be
supplemented with other evidences.

 Classical archaeology is a sub-field of
archaeology which is related only to Greece
and Rome.
 It deals with an in-depth study of the ancient
civilizations of Greece and Rome.
 The Grecian Empire, the Roman Empire and
the transitional period between the two, the
Greco-Roman Period, together permit an
almost 2,000-years long era of classical
history.

 The period between 500 BC and 300 BC was
known as the Classical period or Golden age of
Greece.
 These short years have given us the great
monuments, philosophy, art, literature and
architecture that are now the building blocks of
western civilization.
 Classical archaeology not only studies these two
civilizations independently, but also in relation
to other contemporary civilizations of that
period.

 Medieval archaeology is concerned with the
study of material remains of human culture
belonging to the middle ages.
 Likewise, modern archaeology pertains to
the study of the colonial and post-colonial
periods in history.
 Material remains of these periods, in most
cases, help only to establish firmly the facts
from the written records of these periods,
which are available in large numbers.

Kinds of archaeology

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