Archæology

Archæology (Gr. archaios, 'ancient,' and logos, 'a discourse') is the science which deduces a knowledge of past times from the study of their existing remains. The materials of the science are the relics of the human life of all former ages. Its methods, like those of the natural sciences, are both deductive and inductive. It regards the products of human handicraft which it investigates as manifestations of the ability and purpose of the men who made them. When these products are compared among themselves, the investigation proceeds to the determination of types, and their arrangement in a classified system. Comparison of the classified groups discloses gradations of adaptation and development of character which determine the sequence of the types. These sequences are tested by the associations of characteristic examples in the deposits in which they are found; and the general result is the recovery of such a logical story of the progress of culture and civilisation as the surviving relics of bygone ages are capable of disclosing. But the story thus recovered is not history. It proceeds by simple sequences, and not by a chronological specification of dates and measurement of durations. History deals with events and incidents as manifestations of human motive and action; archaeology deals with types and systems as expressions of human culture and civilisation. The archaeology of a historic period may be capable of illustrating and supplementing the records of contemporary historians by disclosing a multiplicity of unchronicled details relating to the common life of the people, of which we should have been otherwise left in ignorance. The historic or non-historic character of the time to be investigated has, however, no bearing on the methods of its archaeological investigation. These are the same for all times and for all areas. But, as in other sciences whose materials are universally distributed, there is necessarily a limitation of its deductions to the special area investigated. The results of observation show that widely separated areas are characterised by widely different archaeological types. As in Zoology or Botany it cannot be predicated of a typical form that it may not vary, or cease to exist in other areas, so neither can it be affirmed of an archaeological type that it will necessarily be constant over any hypothetical area. The question which is always to be determined is, What is the area of the occurrence of the type?— and this is a question of observation, and not of induction. And as archaeological types not only differ in different areas, but are known to have differed widely at different times within the same area, it is clear that the science must necessarily imply a series of investigations carried to completely exhaustive results in many different areas of the earth's surface before they can be compared and combined to form a science of archaeology in its general or universal sense. But as no single area has yet been exhaustively investigated, the practical scope of archaeology, for the present, may be defined to be the prosecution of the investigation to exhaustive results on their own areas by the more cultured nations. The basis of all scientific knowledge of archaeology in every national area must be such a general collection of the remains of its human occupation as will be completely representative of all the various manifestations that have characterised the progress of its people towards the existing culture and civilisation. Hence in every country in which culture is not at a low level, a national collection of the monuments and relics of the progress and development of its national culture is now in process of formation. As the scientific knowledge disclosed by these national collections must necessarily increase in precision and value, according to the nearness of the approach of the collection to a thoroughly exhaustive representation of the area from which it is drawn, the science must be progressive in its results, and its conclusions can only be regarded as final when the collection of materials is complete. When the several national collections have reached this stage of representative completeness, a new departure of the science, in the direction, first, of comparative archaeology, and secondly, of general archaeology, will become possible.

In the meantime, the results of investigations have established, for the greater part of Europe and some parts of Asia, a series of stages of progress of industrial culture, marked by the successive use of stone, bronze, and iron, as materials for the fabrication of cutting tools and weapons. These stages of progress, when applied to a national area like that of Denmark, in which this division of prehistoric culture was first formulated, are spoken of as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age of the prehistoric inhabitants of that country. As these terms do not imply absolute divisions of time, and as they cannot be used unless with relation to the condition of a people, it follows that their succession was neither necessarily nor probably synchronous in different areas, and the same has to be inferred of their duration, which cannot be estimated by any known method of science. It has been conjectured that in Denmark the bronze age may have commenced from two to one thousand years B.C., and the iron age at some time close upon the Christian era. It is not at present known what are the definite areas upon the earth's surface, within which the progress of culture has been through these three successive stages. It is known that this succession has not been universal, as many peoples have passed directly from the use of stone to that of iron. An Age of Copper in place of, or in addition to, the age of bronze, has been suggested in some areas of Europe, Asia, and America; and if the observations on which this conclusion rests shall be confirmed by future investigations, the archaeological area of the age of copper will be an important element in the development of the science. It is also known that the succession which, in England, France, and some portions of Central and Southern Europe, is distinguished as from the palæolithic to the neolithic division of the stone age, has not been universal; but it is not known what are the definite boundaries of the area, or areas, within which it occurred; and this also will not be capable of determination until the different national areas have been exhaustively investigated.

Worsaae gives the following approximate chronology of periods for the Scandinavian north: (1) The early Stone Age, at least 3000 B.C. (2) The later Stone Age, about 2000 to 1000 B.C. (3) The early Bronze Age, about 1000 to 500 B.C., when a stone age existed to the north, and an iron age had already come in to the south. (4) The late Bronze Age, about 500 B.C. to the time of Christ's birth, when a pre-Roman age of iron was developed in Central and Western Europe. (5) The early Iron Age, from 1 to 450 A.D., when bronze was still in use in parts of the Scandinavian peninsula. (6) The middle Age of Iron, about 450 to 700 A.D., when foreign Romano-German influence predominated. (7) The later Iron Age, or viking period, about 700 to 1000 A.D., when a stone age still lingered in the extreme north of Finland and Lapland.

The study of archaeology in any given area is thus a study of all the remains of man and his works occurring within that area, with the view of determining their relations to each other in time, and ascertaining their typical relations with corresponding remains in other areas. It includes the history of industry and art, and the development of human culture from its lowest to its highest manifestations; and also the history of civilisation, or the progress of aggregate communities, from the first simple principles of combination for mutual helpfulness, to the highest manifestations of social and political organisation.

Applied to the British area, archaeology reveals that Scotland, like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, discloses no evidence of its occupation by man in the palæolithic period of the stone age, when the human species was, in certain other areas of Europe, contemporary with a group of extinct animals; these earliest remains being confined to England south of the Humber. But the whole area of England and Scotland presents traces of the cairn-builders of the closing portion of the stone age, who buried their dead in chambered cairns, and possessed the domestic animals still common in these countries. Their urns, or funereal pottery of fire-baked clay, were wide, shallow, round-bottomed vessels, decorated with rectilinear ornamentation, or pitted with the finger-nail. Their weapons were bows and arrows, tipped with well-made triangular or lozenge-shaped points of chipped flint, and axes of different varieties of polished stone. The bronze age is represented by a different set of burial customs, in cairns that are not chambered, the bodies being deposited singly, in cists of slabs, and accompanied by flat-bottomed urns, tall, and tapering to a narrow base, with rectilinear ornamentation encircling the exterior surface in bands. This system of single burial in cists, in place of aggregate burial in the chambers of a cairn, which distinguishes the bronze age sepulchral deposits from those of the stone age in Britain, prevails not only in the unchambered cairns, but in the barrows or artificial mounds of earth, and common cemeteries, or groups of interments in natural mounds and ridges of gravel and sand, as well as in the monumental cemeteries surrounded by circles of standing stones. The customs of cremation and unburnt burial appear to have existed side by side throughout the bronze age; cremation, however, being the more frequent form in the chambered cairns of the age of stone. The implements and weapons of the bronze age were made of an alloy of copper and tin, in the proportion of about nine parts of copper to one of tin, and were cast in moulds of stone or hardened clay, and their edges hammered fine and planished with a whetstone. They consist of knives of several varieties of form, daggers, swords, spear-heads, shields, axes of three varieties of shape—flat, flanged, and socketed—chisels, gouges, sickles, &c. The personal ornaments were made of bronze, but frequently also of gold, and consisted chiefly of ring-shaped bracelets, necklets, diadems, and earrings. Throughout the bronze age, flint arrow-heads continued to be used; and polished stone ornaments, such as bracers to protect the wrist from the recoil of the bow-string, and beads and necklaces of jet and amber, were common. The iron age introduces a system of curvilinear ornamentation of peculiar character for the surface decoration of objects of personal use and ornament, which still continue to be made of bronze or gold, though silver is now also common; and all the cutting implements and weapons are made of iron. The burial customs of the iron age are not yet disclosed for Scotland; but in the neighbouring area of the north of England, the custom of burial in barrows, without cists of stones or sepulchral urns, but accompanied by horses and chariots and their harness and furniture, is shown to have prevailed. In the early Christian period, when grave-goods ceased to be buried with the dead, the archaeological interest is transferred from the underground phenomena of the burial, to its overground manifestations in monumental symbolism and memorial sculpture. The symbolism appears to have been developed into a system peculiar to the Scottish area; but the art of the memorial sculpture corresponds with that of the illuminated ornamentation of the early Celtic manuscripts of Gospels and Psalters, and with the decorative patterns of such articles of Celtic metal-work, as chalices, crossers, book-covers, and brooches of the same period. After the 12th century, the Celtic style of decorative art gave way to the European styles, introduced by freer contact with continental influences; but the national style exerted a strong influence upon the monuments of the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland until the Reformation, and lingered in the decoration of brooches of brass and silver, the carving of dirk-handles and powder-horns, and the tooling of leather-coverings for targets, till after the Rebellion.

In former days our knowledge of past times was wholly derived from history and tradition. Their remains were regarded as the work of the gods, or assigned conjecturally to some race or order of historic fame, as the stone circles of Britain were given to the Druids, bronze weapons and implements to the Romans or Phœnicians, and the sculptured monuments of Scotland to the Danes. The professed antiquary of the 18th century, bound by the traditions of scholarly research, did little in the way of original investigation; but he unconsciously laid the foundation of the science by his passion for collecting. When the articles were brought together, classification suggested itself, and general deductions became for the first time possible. Thus flint axes and arrow-heads, stone whorls and variegated beads, ceased to be credited with superstitious attributes as thunderbolts, elf-shot, amulets, and adder-stones, and came to be recognised as materials of science, capable of being utilised for the increase of knowledge. The formation of societies for the promotion of the study was a great step in advance. The Society of Antiquaries of London was incorporated in 1751, and the Scottish Society in 1780. The number of provincial and local societies has increased enormously in recent years, and their publications form an extensive body of archaeological literature. The first systematic researches among the actual remains of antiquity were made by Rev. Bryan Faussett among the Anglo-Saxon tumuli of the Kentish Downs from 1757 to 1773. He was followed by Rev. James Douglas, who published his Nenia Britannica, or a History of British Tumuli, in 1793. Sir Richard Colt Hoare issued an account of his explorations of the tumuli of the Wiltshire Downs in 1820. More recently, the investigations of the tumuli of Derbyshire by Bateman, and of the barrows of Yorkshire and the north of England by Greenwell and Rolleston, have supplied much authentic information of the burial customs of primitive times.

An extraordinary impetus was given in another direction by the announcement in 1847 of the discovery by M. Boucher de Perthes, in the valley of the Somme, of certain rude types of implements of flint in river-gravels inclosing remains of extinct animals. Though at first received with incredulity, these discoveries were afterwards amply verified, and the river-drifts of England, from Salisbury Plain in the south to the Yorkshire Ouse in the north, were found to yield the same forms of implements in similar association with remains of such extinct animals as the mammoth and woolly-haired rhinoceros; thus extending the antiquity of man far beyond the period of the tumuli and the surface finds, to which his remains had been hitherto supposed to be confined. Dr Schmerling, in 1833, had published his researches in the caves of Liège, in which he had found flint implements of similar types, also associated with remains of extinct animals; and his discoveries were subsequently confirmed and extended by those of M. Dupont in the caves of Belgium, of Messrs Lartet and Christy in the caves of Dordogne in France, and of Mr Pengelly and Professor Boyd Dawkins in those of England. More recently, similar implements of quartzite have been found by Mr Bruce Foote and others in the laterite beds of Madras, and occasional discoveries of the same nature have been made in Spain, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. From the similarity both of the implements and of the associated fauna of the drift and of the caves, they are attributed to the same period, and have been styled Palæolithic, or of the older division of the stone age, in contradistinction to the relics of the Neolithic, or later division of the stone age. The discovery of the Swiss lake-dwellings in 1854, and their systematic description by Dr Keller, gave another impulse to investigation which extended the area of this phase of primitive life to Italy, Germany, and Austria. Lake-dwellings had been previously known and described by their Celtic name of crannogs in Scotland and Ireland, although their character and contents had been but little investigated. To elucidate the ancient modes of life, the habits and customs of modern savages have been studied, and the results applied to archaeology by Lubbock, Tylor, and Burton. Sociology, or the phenomena and methods of the development of civilisation, have been investigated by Herbert Spencer and Sir Arthur Mitchell. The exploration of historic sites, of which Layard was the pioneer at Nineveh, has been recently continued, with very important results, by Schliemann in Asia Minor and Greece, by Flinders Petrie in Egypt, and by Captain Conder in Palestine and Syria.

There are lectureships of archaeology at Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, and English and American schools of archaeology have been recently founded at Athens. Nearly all European governments have taken measures for the protection of ancient monuments; and in Denmark, Holland, and France, the government has provided for the purchase of the sites of such monuments from the owners, in order to preserve them as national property. Special pro- vision has also been made for the ingathering of prehistoric relics to the different museums of national antiquities. The Royal Museum of Old Northern Antiquities at Copenhagen, established in 1816, and classified by Thomsen and Worsaae on the basis of the succession of the three ages now universally adopted, contains a completely representative series of the prehistoric antiquities of Denmark, one of its special features being the remains from the Kjøkkenmøddings of the Baltic coast. The National Museum of France at St Germain, near Paris, has for its special feature the extensive collections from the river-drifts and the Dordogne caves. The national museums of Norway and Sweden, on the other hand, exhibit the remains of the iron age as they are nowhere else represented; while the museums of Zürich and Constance are specially rich in the lake-dwelling remains so characteristic of Switzerland. At Rome, the new Archaeological Museum, under the direction of Pigorini, is rapidly filling with the prehistoric remains of Italy; while the Vatican collection is rich in the remains of the Early Christian period. At Naples, the objects disinterred from the buried cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii are gathered into a museum of unrivalled interest. At Athens, the discoveries of Schliemann, and the explorations of the Archaeological Society of Greece, have created a national museum of special importance. In Egypt, the museum at Boulak, a suburb of Cairo, contains the results of the explorations of the tombs of the kings of the early dynasties, and an extensive collection of general antiquities from the valley of the Nile. At Washington, the United States National Museum already rivals the largest establishments of the Old World in the extent and variety of its ethnological collections. The British Museum in London, established in 1755, though rich in its general collections, possessed no department of British antiquities till a full century afterwards. The Scottish National Museum, founded by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1780, and maintained by them till 1856, when it was gifted to the nation and established as a national institution, and the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy at Dublin, both possess fairly representative collections of national antiquities. For American Archaeology, see AMERICA.

The following books of reference on the archaeology of the special areas, or on the special branches of which they treat, may be usefully consulted: GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND—Evans, Stone Implements, Ornaments, &c. of Great Britain and Ireland; and Bronze Implements, &c.; Davis and Thurnam, Crania Britannica, 2 vols.; Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain. ENGLAND—Greenwell, British Barrows; Boyd Dawkins, Cave-hunting in England; Kemble, Horæ Ferales. SCOTLAND—Wilson, Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, 2 vols.; Anderson, Scotland in Early Christian and Pagan Times, 4 vols.; Stuart, Sculptured Stones of Scotland, 2 vols.; Drummond, Sculptured Monuments of Iona and the West Highlands; Munro, Scottish Lake-dwellings. IRELAND—Wilde, Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy; Wood-Martin, Lake-dwellings of Ireland. FRANCE—Chantre, Âge du Bronze en France, 3 vols. 4to, and 1 vol. folio, plates; Lartet and Christy, Reliquiæ Aquitanice, or the Archaeology and Palæontology of Southern France and the Caves of Périgord; and the various works of De Mortillet. BELGIUM—Dupont, Temps Préhistorique en Belgique. DENMARK—Worsaae, Pre-history of the North (trans. 1887); Industrial Arts of Denmark from the Earliest Times (South Kensington Handbook); Madsen, Afbildninger af Danske Oldsager, 3 vols.; Engelhardt, Denmark in the Early Iron Age. SWEDEN—Hildebrand, Industrial Arts of Scandinavia in the Pagan Time (South Kensington Handbook); Montelius, La Suède Préhistorique. NORWAY—Rygh, Antiquités Norvégiennes. FINLAND—Aspelin, Antiquités du Nord Finno-Ougrien. CENTRAL GERMANY—Lindenschmidt, Alterthümer unserer Heidnischen Vorzeit, 3 vols. SWITZERLAND—Keller,

Lake-dwellings of Switzerland. AMERICA—Rau, Archæological Collections of the United States National Museum, Washington; Nadailiac, Prehistoric America. GENERAL ARCHÆOLOGY—Lubbock, Prehistoric Times; Wilson, Prehistoric Man, 2 vols.; Stevens, Flint Chips; Matériaux pour l'Histoire de l'Homme, 20 vols.; the publications of the Archæological Societies at home and abroad; and the Reports of a long series of International Congresses of Archæology (at Paris, Bologna, Vienna, &c.).

Amongst the numerous archæological articles in this work are the following: