{ahr-kee-ahl'-uh-jee} Archaeology is the branch of the humanities and social sciences that studies the material remains of humankind. Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase, "man is a tool-making animal"; archaeology is concerned with tools and other artifacts of human \Tculture\t. SCOPE OF ARCHAEOLOGY Archaeology is an immense and wide-ranging subject that covers a time span of at least 3 million years, from the first appearance of humankind to the present day. Writing, and therefore history in the strict sense, came into existence only 5,000 years ago in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and of the Nile in Egypt. Two archaeologies are immediately obvious: the archaeology of everything preceding the earliest period of recorded history, or prehistoric archaeology; and the archaeology from the appearance of writing onward, which is sometimes referred to as text-aided archaeology. For the first archaeology--that before writing--the French had already been using the term prehistoire in the early years of the 19th century, but the idea and the word were not commonly used in the English-speaking world until Sir Daniel Wilson (1816-92), a Scottish archaeologist, published The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland in 1851, and Sir John \TLubbock\t published Prehistoric Times As Illustrated by Ancient Remains and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages in 1865. Today, prehistoric archaeology, or \Tprehistory\t as it is sometimes called, is often viewed as part of the wider discipline of \Tanthropology\t. The borders between prehistory and history are extremely vague and differ chronologically from place to place. In parts of the Near East, prehistory ends around 3000 BC; in parts of Europe it continues until the beginning of the Christian Era and elsewhere even longer. Moreover, there is no immediate change from prehistory to history but rather a long transitional period, when both material and written sources form the raw data of archaeology. For this period the word protohistory is often used. The only source for knowledge of humankind during the prehistoric period of roughly 3 million years is archaeology--the material remains. Both archaeology and written sources are combined to produce an account of human culture during the protohistoric period, and during the historic period written sources become more and more important. For example, the study of the Paleolithic caves in southern France and northern Spain is strictly prehistoric, as is the study of the \TOlmec\t civilization of Mexico: archaeology is the only available source of knowledge about these topics. The development of city life out of peasant villages in Mesopotamia and Egypt from 3500 to 2500 BC and the subsequent establishment of two of the first civilizations are protohistoric subjects, the sources of which are twofold, namely, the archaeological remains and the inscriptions in Mesopotamian cuneiform writing and in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Norman conquest of England is well attested by written records; archaeological evidence from domestic, military, and religious sites acts as a valuable supplement to the historical record. METHODS OF ARCHAEOLOGY The archaeologist attempts to reconstruct the past by analyzing, dating, and comparing systematically excavated sites and artifacts. Within the field of archaeology and parallel to the traditional subdivisions of history are separate areas of research and specialization, such as the following: \TEgyptology\t, or the study of ancient Egypt; Mesopotamian archaeology; classical archaeology, or the study of ancient Greece and Rome; medieval archaeology; and American archaeology. As a methodology, however, archaeology has many more aspects in common with the natural sciences than with history. Excavation reports today would hardly be possible without the contributions of geologists, geophysicists, mineralogists, botanists, zoologists, physical anthropologists, chemists, physicists, and other specialists. Current developments in archaeological methods are reflected in the academic training the archaeologist receives and in the daily practice of the profession. Alongside the contemporary professional archaeologist, the amateur archaeologist--who for a long time was the only archaeologist--continues to play an important role in locating sites, searching for and passing on archaeological finds, and often in assisting at the "dig," or excavation site. Discovering the Site Many archaeological sites are discovered by accident. Sometimes layers of soil are exposed by natural causes such as erosion. Most accidental finds, however, are unearthed in the course of human activities such as plowing fields, dredging waterways, or constructing foundations for buildings, roads, and reservoirs. In recent years a specialized field called \Tsalvage archaeology\t has developed in response to the need for the quick recovery and research of finds resulting from urban expansion and modernization projects throughout the world. Sometimes indications on the surface of the earth suggest that an archaeological site is buried below. \Lmidden\ls, burial mounds, and earthworks such as the famous Celtic field systems are examples. A study of old records, place names, and local folklore may also lead to the discovery of archaeological sites. Archaeological Prospecting During the 20th century a separate branch of archaeology has developed that specializes in archaeological prospecting. The goal of this subfield is the systematic inventory of all sites in a given area. \Taerial photography\t has revolutionized this search. First employed on a limited scale during World War I, aerial photography was further developed by O. G. S. Crawford and others in England from 1920 to 1940. It received a strong impetus during World War II when many archaeologists, geologists, and geographers from Britain, the United States, Canada, and France were employed by military intelligence as air-photograph interpreters. During the past three decades the developments in aerial photography have made possible the discovery of thousands of previously unknown sites. Some of these are surface sites that could perhaps have been found by ordinary fieldwork, but most are visible only from the air, when shadows and crop and soil marks reveal partly destroyed earthworks and other types of archaeological evidence. With aerial photography, the landscape can be surveyed as a totality. The air photograph reveals certain details that cannot be seen from the ground, usually variations in soil color and differences in flora or crop densities that result from the influence of ancient construction on the drainage capacity of the soil. Aerial photography has revolutionized archaeological prospecting. For example, until the mid-1920s prehistoric stone circles in Britain were regarded as a particular category of archaeological site. In 1927 a military pilot interested in archaeology saw and photographed not far from \TStonehenge\t on the Salisbury Plain of southern England what he described as "a ploughed-out round barrow--burial mound--with measles." Excavation revealed a series of circular postholes surrounding an Early Bronze Age burial; Sir Thomas Kendrick (1895-1979) later coined the name \TWoodhenge\t for this monument. A few years later the same pilot found a similar monument in another location. As a result of these discoveries, archaeologists now define henge monuments as embanked and ditched circles of either stone or wooden pillars, and it is now widely understood that the famous stone circles of the British Isles are lithic, that is, stone translations of wooden circles. This piece of archaeology and prehistoric reconstruction could never have happened without the penetrating eye of the air camera. The photoperiscope furnishes archaeology with another prospecting tool. First used in 1957 to probe Etruscan tombs at the cemetery of Monte Abbatone, Italy, the periscope was inserted into the burial chamber in order to photograph the walls and contents of the tomb. Other prospecting techniques applied to archaeology employ geophysical methods such as electromagnetic and resistivity surveying. Magnetic methods of prospecting make use of instruments such as the proton \Tmagnetometer\t, which measures variations in underground magnetism caused by the presence of stone foundations, brick walls, kilns, ovens, and other structures. The important Etruscan town of \TTarquinia\t, Italy, was discovered in 1967 by magnetic prospecting. Excavating the Site The purpose of archaeological excavation is to discover as precisely as possible the basic sequence of occupation of a site and to examine various aspects of the artifacts and other remains found there. By combining horizontal and vertical cross-sections of the areas under examination, the archaeologist is able to study the structure, dimensions, and stratification of the terrain. In most cases, once a topographical survey has been undertaken, experimental borings made, and trial ditches cut to determine the approximate expanse of the site, the excavation pits are dug. Most of the digging must be done carefully by hand with a shovel and a trowel. Digging machines are generally used only to remove the uppermost layer of soil. All the data are registered as they are uncovered. Longitudinal and transverse cross-sections are drawn to scale and photographed, and the location and depth of various finds in relation to a fixed point are calculated. Often a contour line map of the elevation of the terrain is also drawn, and scale drawings of the site in the horizontal plane are made as the excavation proceeds downward. After the exact location of each find is registered as precisely as possible, the objects can be removed from the site, cleaned, analyzed, and stored for safekeeping. At excavation sites where the stratification is extremely complex, the digging is done layer by layer until the natural subsoil is reached. Often the completion of the excavation of visible monuments is followed by a process of restoration. When an important site is not menaced by general destruction, a part of the site is sometimes left untouched so that at some point in the future the conclusions that have been drawn can be reevaluated, possibly with the aid of improved methods. Underwater Archaeology Excavation is not confined to dry land. Underwater archaeology has been considerably developed in the 20th century. It involves many of the same techniques of observation and excavation required at land sites. In addition, of course, one must be trained as a diver. Sponge divers made the first great archaeological discoveries in the Mediterranean. In 1942, Jacques-Yves \TCousteau\t developed the self-contained breathing apparatus known as the \Tscuba\t, of which the most commonly used type is the aqualung. Cousteau's pioneering work near Marseilles and that of the American archaeologists George Bass (1932- ) and Peter Throckmorton (1928- ) off the coast of Turkey demonstrated the amazing possibilities of archaeology under the sea. Work on a Byzantine shipwreck near Yassi Ada, Turkey, from 1961 on led to the development of the photogrammetric mapping of shipwrecks and the launching in 1964 of the Asherah, a two-seated submarine specially designed for archaeological exploration. Interpreting the Finds Discovering and excavating the site, although primary and essential aspects of archaeology, are only part of the archaeologist's task. After the excavation work has been completed, the archaeologist must evaluate and interpret the results. In analyzing certain finds, the contemporary archaeologist often must rely on specialists in the natural sciences and other disciplines. The work of the British geologist H. H. Thomas (1876-1935) in the early 1920s showed that many of the "bluestones" used in the construction of Stonehenge in southern England came from the Preseli Mountains in southwestern Wales 320 km (200 mi) away. Petrological analysis of Neolithic stone axes in western Europe has enabled archaeologists to determine some of the sites where they were made. Using spectroscopic techniques, it is now possible to "fingerprint" geological sources of obsidian by their trace-element composition. Obsidian is a volcanic glass highly prized for the manufacture of tools in prehistory. Elemental analyses of the artifacts themselves have shown that obsidian was widely traded in the Mediterranean and Near East, possibly as early as the 8th millennium BC. Archaeologists view the sites they have excavated or the objects that arrive in their museums not as isolated finds but as material remains of the past that must be fitted into the appropriate environmental picture. The ecological approach to archaeology is one of the most important and interesting developments in the last quarter century. The information in the specialized branch of botany called palynology (see \Tpollen stratigraphy\t) is indispensable to the archaeologist in this regard. By taking pollen samples at the excavation site, it is possible to reconstruct the natural environment of the site at the time it was inhabited. Similarly, a zoologist can offer information about the types of animal that were hunted or domesticated by studying bones found on the site. Archaeology today is also closely linked to \Tpaleogeography\t, the physical geography of the geological past. ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATING A key problem in archaeology is dating. When studying Egyptian and Greek remains, or cathedrals and castles in medieval Europe, archaeologists have written dates to which they can refer. But in prehistoric Europe and Africa no written dates exist before the arrival of the Romans, and for North America and Australia, there are none before the explorations of Columbus and Captain Cook. Thus, a major problem for the archaeologist has been how to date the prehistoric remains of the world--how to put Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, Mohenjodaro, or the giant statues of Easter Island in meaningful temporal perspective. Two different types of archaeological dating have been devised, one based on relative chronology and one based on absolute chronology. Relative chronology refers to the dating of archaeological matter in relation to other phenomena so that artifacts can be arranged in a chronological sequence. With this method, one can say that a certain object is older than another object, but one cannot say how much older in years. Absolute chronology, on the other hand, is the calculation of the actual age of archaeological objects in years. In the late 19th century Sir Flinders \TPetrie\t invented the technique of cross-dating, relating undated materials to times that were dated in the Near East by written records. He found Egyptian artifacts in Mycenae and Mycenaean pottery in Egypt, and thus was able to suggest dates for the Mycenaean civilization of Greece based on the historical Egyptian chronology. This technique of cross-dating prehistoric southeastern Europe with historic Egypt was later extended by the Swedish archaeologist Oscar MONTELIUS and the British archaeologist V. Gordon \TChilde\t to include central, western, and northern Europe. The establishment of a relative chronology through cross-dating had great limitations. The dates given in the 1930s and 1940s for the beginning of agriculture and, for example, the construction of megalithic monuments, 3000 to 2000 BC, were to a certain extent the result of guesswork by archaeologists. The first absolute chronology based on nonhuman history was obtained by counting \Lvarved deposit\ls, or geochronology as it was called by its inventor, the Swedish geologist and archaeologist Baron Gerard de GEER. This method was based on counting the layers, or varves, deposited by the melting glaciers as the Ice Age came to an end. It gave a chronology of 18,000 years, which was more than three times as long as the chronology based on Egyptian and Mesopotamian king lists. The dating of trees by counting their annual growth rings, called \Tdendrochronology\t, was first applied to archaeology in 1929 by the American scientist A. E. \TDouglass\t. The technique depended on the use of trees in the construction of buildings in ancient times. Willard F. \TLibby\t's discovery in 1948 of \Tcarbon-14 dating\t brought about a revolution in archaeological dating. By this method the radioactive carbon-14 (C-14) content of organic material is measured, and absolute dates as far back as 50,000 years ago can be obtained. Other techniques of absolute dating have been developed, among them thermoluminescence (see \Tluminescence, mineral\t), used in dating earthenware products, and \Tpotassium-argon dating\t, by which it has been established that early humans existed in East Africa at least 3 million years ago. HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGY The obvious material remains of the past, such as the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, and Hadrian's Wall, had been noticed and discussed for centuries and were the object of antiquarian speculation. The medieval and later antiquaries, however, were not archaeologists. They tried to explain antiquities with reference to written sources, and this is why they attributed the existence of ancient monuments to biblical events such as the Flood or to the explanations that appeared in classical sources such as Caesar and Tacitus. The classical writers who described the pre-Roman inhabitants of France and Great Britain often referred to the \Tdruids\t--an ancient people who seemed to have been priests, judges, teachers, and sages. Therefore, it is not surprising that antiquarians of the 17th and 18th centuries attributed to the Druids the great megalithic monuments of France and Britain such as the \TCarnac\t alignments, \TAvebury\t Circle, New Grange, and Stonehenge. The essential feature of archaeology is that the material remains are studied directly, by excavation and comparison, and answers concerning the name, nature, and date of these remains are sought from the remains themselves. Archaeology in this modern sense of the word began not more than 150 to 200 years ago, when carefully conducted excavations began to take place in England, France, and Denmark, and surveys of antiquities were being made, such as the exhaustive, brilliantly illustrated Description de l'Egypte (Description of Egypt) published by French scholars in 1809-13. Origins in Classical Archaeology The word archaeology, which comes from two Greek words meaning to talk about ancient things, seems to have been first used extensively in the 16th and 17th centuries. Although the material remains of past civilizations have always been sought after, the search was usually restricted to objects of intrinsic value, such as gold and silver utensils and ornaments and coins. During the Renaissance a growing interest in the classical world of Greece and Rome was primarily concerned with art, both the written works of classical authors and the material works of classical sculpture and architecture. The search for and collection of these works of art gave rise to the oldest branch of archaeology, classical archaeology. As early as the 15th century, Italian humanists collected antique statues. The \TLaocoon\t group by Agesander (fl. 1st century BC), discovered in Rome in 1506, attracted much attention. The first systematic collection of classical antiquities was started in the Collegium Romanum in 1635. The art-historical phase of classical archaeology reached a peak in the exact precision of the work and commentary of J. J. \TWinckelmann\t, known as the father of classical archaeology. In 1711 antique statuary was found at the site of ancient \THerculaneum\t, which, along with \TPompeii\t, had been destroyed during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. In 1748, Charles IV, king of Naples (later \TCharles III\t of Spain), initiated excavation work at Pompeii, and for many years excavations were pursued there but without any systematic plan. A new era of serious scientific exploration in Pompeii and Herculaneum began in 1861 with the activities of Guiseppe \TFiorelli\t. He was the first to note the location of the finds and make efforts to have them carefully and conscientiously restored. Other important large-scale excavations were undertaken in other areas of the Mediterranean during the mid-19th century. The ruins of the temple of Artemis, one of the \TSeven Wonders of the World\t, were excavated in 1869-74 at \TEphesus\t. In 1878, Karl Human (1839-96) began excavations at \TPergamum\t, which yielded the famous Zeus altar and frieze, now in the Pergamon Museum, East Berlin. In 1873 a team of French archaeologists began excavations on the island of \TDelos\t, and the German archaeologist Alexander Conze (1831-1914) dug at \TSamothrace\t. The work begun by the German archaeologist Ernst \TCurtius\t in 1875 at \TOlympia\t is considered one of the first truly scientific full-scale archaeological projects. Archaeology's Heroic Age A series of remarkable finds were made by the brilliant, wealthy German merchant-scientist Heinrich \TSchliemann\t, assisted by his friend and advisor, Wilhelm \TDorpfeld\t. Schliemann helped shape certain basic principles of good excavation work. He preserved everything he found, realizing the importance of everyday objects in supplying an accurate archaeological picture of the past. He recorded carefully the levels at which all finds were made, had drawings or photographs made of every important find, and published his results quickly. His untiring efforts to prove that Homer's story of the battle of \TTroy\t was based on fact were rewarded in 1870 with the discovery of the Trojan fortress on the mound of present-day Hissarlik in Turkey. At \TMycenae\t he discovered the famous royal shaft graves in 1874, and in 1884 he excavated \TTiryns\t. These discoveries greatly enriched the knowledge of \TAegean civilization\t. He was unable to realize his plans for excavations at Crete, which he had to relinquish to the English archaeologist Arthur \TEvans\t. Early in the 20th century, Evans discovered the labyrinthlike great palace at \TKnossos\t and an ancient civilization he called Minoan. In 1952 an English architect and cryptographer, Michael \TVentris\t, deciphered \TLinear B\t, one of the two types of hieroglyphic script that appeared on the clay tablets discovered by Evans at Knossos. The foundation for the study of Egyptology was laid by experts and draftsmen who came to Egypt in the wake of Napoleon in 1798. During this expedition, a stone tablet was found at the town of Rosetta in the Nile delta; it bore the same inscription in three different kinds of writing: \Thieroglyphics\t, demotic characters, and Greek. The \TRosetta Stone\t enabled the French Egyptologist Jean Francois \TChampollion\t to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics in 1822. The first scientific excavations were undertaken in 1880 at Giza under the supervision of Petrie. In 1919 excavations were conducted in the \TValley of the Kings\t, led by Howard \TCarter\t. This undertaking culminated in one of the most sensational finds of the 20th century: the discovery (1922) of the almost completely intact tomb of the pharaoh \TTutankhamen\t. Archaeological expeditions to the Near East began in the early 17th century, when Pietro della \TValle\t visited \TPersepolis\t. Later, Jean Chardin (1643-1713) and Engelbert Kempfer (1651-1716) studied the ruins of that ancient Persian capital. Georg Friedrich \TGrotefend\t provided the basis for the decipherment of clay tablets containing \Tcuneiform\t writing at Persepolis--copied by Karsten \TNiebuhr\t --by comparing them with the decipherment of inscriptions in three languages found at \TBehistun\t in Persia. The decipherment of cuneiform was completed in 1846 by H. C. \TRawlinson\t. The first systematic excavations in the Near East took place in the 19th century. In 1843, Paul Emile \TBotta\t began archaeological research at \TKhorsabad\t. In 1845, A. H. \TLayard\t did the same at \TNimrud\t. From 1890 to 1900, an American expedition undertook excavations at \TNippur\t; from 1899 to 1914, a German expedition led by Robert KOLDEWEY worked at \TBabylon\t. Important research was also conducted by Leonard \TWoolley\t at \TAlalakh\t (Tell Atchana; 1912-14) and at UR in Mesopotamia (1922-34). Among the most important discoveries of the 20th century were the Hebrew \TDead Sea Scrolls\t (1947). Development of Prehistoric Archaeology The ideas underlying prehistoric archaeology originated in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. According to long-standing antiquarian notions, human beings had existed for a very short time; calculations made from the dates given in the Bible suggested that the world and the human species were created in 4004 BC. The geologists of the 18th century firmly believed in this short chronology and explained the layering of rocks as a result of the Flood. This was the geologist William \LBuckland\ls's view when he wrote Reliquiae Diluvianae; or Observations on the Organic Remains Contained in Caves, Fissures, and Diluvial Gravel and on Other Geological Phenomena Attesting the Action of an Universal Deluge (1823). His pupil, Charles \TLyell\t, reacted against this \Tcatastrophism\t interpretation of geology, although James \THutton\t, in his book Theory of the Earth (1785), had already realized that the layering of rocks was due to ongoing processes in rivers, lakes, and oceans. "No processes are to be employed that are not natural to the globe," he wrote, "no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle." This was the beginning of the theory of \Tuniformitarianism\t, which held that early geological processes do not substantially differ from those currently observable. A leading figure among the Fluvialists, as they were called, was Lyell, whose Principles of Geology, first published in 1830-33, was regarded by Charles \TDarwin\t as a book that helped form his own thinking. Prehistoric archaeology could not have been born had not the short chronology of the antiquarians disappeared and the new fluviatile geology gained acceptance. During the early years of the 19th century, in addition to a new geology, archaeology developed a new approach to artifacts that was provided by Scandinavian archaeologists. Excavators in the late 18th century had complained that although they found in their excavations objects of stone, bronze, and iron, they did not know in what sequence to place them. The ancient Greeks already had a vague notion that there had been a stone age in the past, but it was the Scandinavian archaeologists who created a complete revolution in antiquarian thought by postulating, on technological grounds, successive stages in the past. C. J. \TThomsen\t classified the material in the Copenhagen Museum, opened to the public in 1819, on the basis of three successive technological ages of stone, bronze, and iron. His pupil and successor, J. J. A. \TWorsaae\t, demonstrated the truth of this hypothesis by his excavations in the peat bogs and barrows of Denmark. The same was shown to be true in Switzerland, when low lake-levels revealed prehistoric \Llake dwelling\ls. Thomsen had demonstrated the succession of cultures and produced the three-age system. Worsaae demonstrated stratigraphy as applied to human remains. Geology was based on stratigraphy; now archaeology could also benefit from stratigraphical observation. More than a quarter of a century before the opening of the Copenhagen Museum, Thomas Jefferson had excavated a burial mound in Virginia and correctly observed its stratigraphy and the lessons to be drawn from it. Prehistoric archaeology began with the three-age system. Lubbock, in his book Prehistoric Times (1865), invented the terms \TPaleolithic\t and \TNeolithic\t and turned the three-age system into a four-age system. Hodder Westropp (d. 1884) in 1866 proposed the term \TMesolithic\t, and thus European prehistory became a fivefold system of Old Stone Age (Paleolithic Period), Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic Period), New Stone Age (Neolithic Period), Bronze Age, and Iron Age. General Augustus \TPitt-Rivers\t instituted the use of highly refined excavation methods in prehistoric archaeology. His numerous excavations of sites in Britain from 1880 to 1900 were notable for the emphasis he placed on precise stratigraphic observation and recording; detailed sectional drawings and plans of all his excavations were made, and scale models were constructed of major sites. His sumptuous 4-volume work, Excavations in Cranborne Chase, produced from 1887 to 1898, set a high standard for archaeological publications. Pitt-Rivers's approach was later adapted and perfected by the English archaeologist Mortimer \TWheeler\t, as set forth in his book Archaeology from the Earth (1954). Other Areas In the Americas, the first reports concerning ancient civilizations date from the time of the Spanish conquistador Hernan \Tcortes\t. The famous expedition (1799-1804) to South and Central America headed by Alexander von \THumboldt\t led to renewed interest in the ancient American cultures. Count J. F. M. de Waldeck (1766-1875) and J. L. \TStephens\t were among the first to study the Mayan cities. In 1912, Hiram \TBingham\t discovered in the Urubamba valley of Peru the Inca town of \TMachu Picchu\t, spectacularly situated on a saddle in the Andes Mountains with a drop of 457 m (1500 ft) on either side. In Africa, the state of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) is named after a great fortified site located on the plateau between the Limpopo and Zambesi rivers. It was formerly argued that the \TZimbabwe Ruins\t could not have been built by the local population but rather by an intrusive group of superior foreigners. Excavations, particularly those of Dr. Gertrude \TCaton-Thompson\t in 1929 and Peter Garlake in 1964-70, have shown, however, that this site was built and inhabited from AD 330 to 1450 by a prosperous farming and trading people indigenous to southern Africa. For a long time archaeology was primarily concerned with the most ancient human past in the Old World. Gradually, however, archaeological interests and scholarly competence moved into diverse geographical regions and throughout the historical field. Now Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian archaeologists, medieval archaeologists, and postmedieval archaeologists are practicing members of the profession; a genuine interest has developed in the archaeology of the past 200 years, particularly in the development of industry, a discipline called \Tindustrial archaeology\t. Everything from the first stone tool to the garbage in yesterday's trash can is now a legitimate archaeological subject. Archaeology in Perspective How can the amount of energy, activity, and money now spent on archaeology in all parts of the world be justified? First, the cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira, the temples of the Maya, the megalithic monuments of the Maltese, classical Greek architecture (even if the urban pollution in Athens is steadily destroying what remains of the masterpieces on the Acropolis), the art of the Celts and the Scythians, the cathedrals and the castles of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance are all part of the universal heritage of humanity that must be guarded and understood. Second, humans' curiosity about their past and their remote origins justifies the search. Through the now well-dated record of the material past, the following facts about human history have been revealed: (1) humans themselves, the tool-making animals, have existed for at least 3 million years; (2) humans of the same physical type as modern humans, namely Homo sapiens sapiens (formerly called \TCro-Magnon man\t), have been in existence for at least 50,000 years, and cultural features associated with modern humans, such as careful burial of the dead, the production of art, and the decoration of objects of everyday use, date from this period; (3) humans moved slowly from being hunters, fishers, and food-gatherers to domesticators of animals and cultivators of foodstuffs in many different parts of the world, achieving what V. Gordon Childe called the Neolithic Revolution; (4) some agrarian communities brought into existence by the Neolithic Revolution went through a process whereby they became complex urban societies and developed into the first civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, northwest India, and China in the Old World, and the Olmec, the Maya, and the Andean civilizations in the New World. This process, sometimes known as the Urban Revolution, took place 5,000 years ago in the ancient Near East. In America the oldest civilization, that of the Olmec, dates from about 1200 BC. This is the pageant and perspective of human history now revealed by archaeology, and without doubt the last decades of the 20th century will make it more detailed and better documented. New discoveries are continually being made: only recently it has been learned that pottery in Japan dates from about 10,000 BC and that humans reached Australia by about 40,000 years ago. In the 19th century endless discussion centered on the nature of change revealed by archaeology. Was the advancement from a Stone Age to a Bronze Age, and from a Bronze Age to an Iron Age, something natural for all humankind? Did cultural evolution thus follow biological evolution, or were new ideas and techniques spread from one center? The battle between the proponents of independent evolution and of diffusion from a single cultural center was waged in archaeological books and meetings of learned societies for many years. Some scholars argued that nothing could be invented twice, and others, like Elliot \TSmith\t, proposed that all post-Stone Age discoveries and inventions came from ancient Egypt. This Egyptocentric hyperdiffusionist dogma is no longer fashionable. It was replaced in the 1920s and '30s by a modified diffusionism advocated by V. Gordon Childe, in which most of the post-Paleolithic advances in human culture (such as the Neolithic Revolution and the Urban Revolution) were seen as coming from a number of centers in southwest Asia. Accurate dating and the study of prehistoric African, Chinese, and American archaeology have established that, although some ideas and processes were diffused--and undoubtedly extensive movement of peoples took place in prehistoric times--parallel cultures developed in many parts of the world. What is referred to as the origin of agriculture was in fact the discrete development of crop raising in many parts of the world; and what is referred to as the origin of civilization is the independent growth of literate urban communities in many different parts of the world. Archaeology has made human history far more interesting and understandable. GLYN E. \TDaniel\t Bibliography: \TGeneral\t INTRODUCTIONS: Clark, Grahame, Archaeology and Society, 3d ed. (1957; repr. 1969); Hawkes, Jacquetta, ed., Atlas of Ancient Archaeology (1974); McIntosh, J., The Practical Archaeologist (1987); Piggott, Stuart, ed., Approach to Archaeology (1959; repr. 1965); Wheeler, Mortimer, Archaeology from the Earth (1954); Woolley, Leonard, Digging Up the Past, 3d ed. (1973). \Lhistori\les: Bibby, Geoffrey, The Testimony of the Spade (1956; repr. 1974); Ceram, C. W., Gods, Graves, and Scholars, rev. ed. (1967; repr. 1976); Daniel, Glyn E., A Hundred and Fifty Years of Archaeology (1975) and A Short History of Archaeology (1981). SPECIALIZED STUDIES: Barker, P., Understanding Archaeological Excavation (1986); Bass, G. F., Archaeology Under Water (1966; repr. 1974); Brothwell, D., Digging Up Bones (1981); Brothwell, D., and Higgs, E. S., eds., Science in Archaeology, 2d ed. (1969; repr. 1971); Clark, Grahame, World Prehistory in New Perspective, 3d ed. (1977); Fowler, Peter J., Approaches to Archaeology (1977); Parkes, P. A., Current Scientific Techniques in Archaeology (1986); Piggot, Stuart, Ancient Europe (1966); Renfrew, Colin, Approaches to Social Archaeology (1984) and Archaeology and Language (1988); St. Joseph, J. K., ed., The Uses of Air Photography (1966); Tite, M. S., Methods of Physical Examination in Archaeology (1972). See also: \TAfrican prehistory\t; \TChinese archaeology\t; \TNorth American archaeology\t; \Tradiometric age-dating\t.