ARCHAEOLOGY (from Gr. ἀρχαῖα, ancient things, and λόγος, theory or science), a general term for the study of antiquities. The precise application of the term has varied from time to time with the progress of knowledge, according to the character of the subjects investigated and the purpose for which they were studied. At one time it was thought improper to use it in relation to any but the artistic remains of Greece and Rome, i.e. the so-called classical archaeology (now dealt with in this encyclopaedia under the headings of [Greek Art] and [Roman Art]); but of late years it has commonly been accepted as including the whole range of ancient human activity, from the first traceable appearance of man on the earth to the middle ages. It may thus be conceived how vast a field archaeology embraces, and how intimately it is connected with the sciences of geology (q.v.) and anthropology (q.v.), while it naturally includes within its borders the consideration of all the civilizations of ancient times.
In dealing with so vast a subject, it becomes necessary to distinguish. The archaeology of zoological species constitutes the sphere of palaeontology (q.v.), while that of botanical species is dealt with as palaeobotany (q.v.); and every different science thus has its archaeological side. For practical purposes it is now convenient to separate the sphere of archaeology in its relation to the study of the purely artistic character of ancient remains, from that of the investigation of these remains as an instrument for arriving at conclusions as to the political and social history of the nations of antiquity; and in this work the former is regarded primarily as “art” and dealt with in the articles devoted to the history of art or the separate arts, while “archaeology” is particularly regarded as the study of the evidences for the history of mankind, whether or not the remains are themselves artistically and aesthetically valuable. In this sense a knowledge of the archaeology is part of the materials from which every historical article in this encyclopaedia is constructed, and in recent years no subject has been more fertile in yielding information than “archaeology,” as representing the work of trained excavators and students of antiquity in all parts of the world, but notably in the countries round the Mediterranean. It is for its services in illuminating the days before those of documentary history and for checking and reinforcing the evidence of the raw material (the “unwritten history” of architecture, tombs, art-products, &c.), that recent archaeological work has been so notable. The work of the literary critic and historian has been amplified by the spade-work of the expert excavator and explorer to an extent undreamt of by former generations; and ancient remains, instead of being treated merely as interesting objects of art, have been forced to give up their secret to the historian, as evidence for the period, character and affiliations of the peoples who produced and used them. The increase of precise knowledge of the past, due to greater opportunities of topographical research, more care and observation in dealing with ancient remains and improved methods of studying them in museums (q.v.) and collections, has led to more accurate reading of results by a comparison of views, under the auspices of learned societies and institutions, thus raising archaeology from among the more empirical branches of learning into the region of the more exact sciences. This change has improved not only the status of archaeology but also its material, for the higher standard of work now demanded necessarily acts as a deterrent on the poorly equipped worker, and the tendency is for the general result to be of a higher quality.
The archaeological details concerning all subjects which have their “unwritten history” are dealt with in the separate articles in this work, including the ancient civilizations of Assyria, Egypt and other countries and peoples, while the articles on separate sites where excavations have been particularly noteworthy may be referred to for their special interest; see also [Anthropology]; [Ethnology], &c. It remains here to deal generally with the early conditions of the prehistoric ancient world in their broader aspects, which constitute the starting-place for the archaeologist in various parts of the world at different times, and the foundations of our present understanding of the primitive epochs in the history of man.
The beginning of archaeology, as the study of pre-documentary history, may be broadly held to follow on the last of the geological periods, viz., the Quaternary, though it is claimed, and with some reason, that traces of man have been found in Quaternary period. deposits of the preceding or Tertiary period. Although there is no valid reason against the existence of Tertiary man, it must be confessed that the evidence in favour of the belief is of a very inconclusive and unconvincing kind. The discussion has been mainly confined to the two questions (1) whether the deposit containing the relics was without doubt of Tertiary times, and (2) whether the objects found showed undoubted signs of human workmanship. Vast quantities of material have been brought forward, and endless discussions have taken place, but hitherto without carrying entire conviction to the minds of the more serious and cautious students of prehistoric archaeology. A chronic difficulty, and one which can never be entirely removed, is our ignorance of the precise methods of nature’s working. It is an obvious fact, that natural forces, such as glacial action, earthquakes, landslips and the like, must crush and chip flints and break up animal remains, grinding and scratching them in masses of gravel or sand. If it were possible to determine with precision what’ were the peculiarities of the flint or bone, thus altered by natural agencies, it would be easy to separate them from others purposely made by man to serve some useful end. Our present knowledge, however, does not allow us to go so far in dealing with the ruder early attempts of man to fabricate weapons or implements. Even the one feature that is commonly held to determine human agency, the “bulb of percussion,” cannot be considered satisfactory, without collateral evidence of some kind. Flint breaks with what is called a conchoidal fracture, as do many other substances, such as glass. Thus on the face of a flint flake, at the end where the blow was delivered to detach it from the nodule, is seen a lump or bulb, which is usually regarded as evidence of human workmanship. To produce such a bulb it is necessary to deliver a somewhat heavy blow of a peculiar kind at a particular point of a flattened surface; and the operation requires a certain amount of practice. The fulfilment of all the necessary conditions might well be a rare occurrence in nature, and the bulb of percussion has come to be regarded as the hall-mark of human manufacture; but recent investigations have shown that the intervention of man is not necessary and that natural forces frequently produce a similar result. When, therefore, it is a question whether or no a group of rude flints are of human workmanship, evidence of design or purpose in their forms must be established. If this be found, and in addition if a number of flints, all having this character of design, be found together, then and then only is it safe to admit them into the domain of archaeology. There can be no doubt that much time and energy have been wasted, and a number of intelligent workers have been fruitlessly occupied in following up archaeological will-o’-the-wisps, through neglecting this elementary precaution.
Whether or no man produced flint implements before Quaternary times, it would seem to be a necessity that he should have passed through an earlier stage, before arriving at the precision of workmanship and the fixed types Eolithic. found in the old Stone Age deposits known as palaeolithic. It is now claimed that this earlier and ruder stage has actually been discovered in what are known as the Plateau-gravels of Kent, in Belgium, and even in Egypt, and the name of eolithic (ἠὠς, dawn, λίθος, stone) has been bestowed upon them. The controversy as to the human character has been very keen, some alleging that the fractured edges and even the definite and fairly constant types are entirely produced by natural forces. Sir Joseph Prestwich in England, and Alfred Rutot in Belgium, the latter arguing from his own discoveries in that country, have strongly supported the artificial character of the relics. On the other hand it is pointed out that the existence of these implements on the high levels of Kent furnished confirmation of Sir Joseph Prestwich’s theory of the submergence of the district, and that his support was thus somewhat biassed, while the geological conditions in Belgium are not quite comparable with those of the Kent plateau; and the Belgian evidence, whatever it may be worth in itself, is of no avail as corroboration of the Kentish case. It is to be regretted that the conditions are not more convincing, for, as stated above, they agree fairly well with the evolution theory of man’s handiwork, and if they could be accepted, would carry back the evidences to a more remote time when the physical features of Kent were of a very different character. The critics of eoliths have brought forward some facts that at first sight would seem to be of a very damaging nature. It was observed that in the process of cement manufacture the flints that had passed through a rotary machine in which they were violently struck by its teeth or knocked against each other, possessed just those features that were claimed as indisputable proof of man’s handiwork, and that even the forms were the same. These statements have, of course, been met by counter-statements equally forcible, and the matter may still be considered to be in suspense. The great struggle, therefore, is now more closely restricted to the nature of the chipping than as to the quasi-geological question, and if the solution is ever to be found, it will be by means of a closer examination and a better understanding of the difference between intentional and accidental flaking.
On reaching the Palaeolithic period we come to firmer ground and to evidence that is more certain and generally accepted. This evidence is fundamentally geological, inasmuch as the age of the archaeological remains is dependent Palaeolithic. upon that of the beds in which they are found. That they were deposited at the same time is now no longer questioned. The flints are found to have the same colour and surface characteristics as the unworked nodules among which they lie, and are generally rolled and abraded in the same way. This in itself suffices to show that the worked and unworked flints were deposited in their present stratigraphical position at the same time. The remote age of the beds themselves is demonstrated by the presence of bones of animals either now extinct or found only in far distant latitudes, such as the mammoth, reindeer, rhinoceros, &c., and in some cases these bones are found in such relative positions as to prove they were deposited with the flesh still adhering to them, and also that the animal was contemporary with the makers of the flint implements. Evidence of a somewhat different kind is provided for the palaeolithic period by certain caverns that have been discovered in England and on the continent. In these limestone caves palaeolithic man has lived, slept, eaten his food and made his tools and weapons. Much of his handiwork has been left, with the bones of animals on which he lived, scattered upon the floor of the cave, and has been sealed up by the infiltration of lime-charged water, so that the deposit remains, untouched to our own day, below an impermeable bed of stalagmite. In such circumstances there can be no doubt of the contemporaneous character of the remains, natural or artificial, if found on the same level. Moreover, so far as type is a criterion of age, the flint tools found in the cave deposits tend to confirm the date assigned to those of the river-gravels.
It is fairly certain that about the middle of the Tertiary period the northern hemisphere possessed a temperate climate, such that even the polar regions were habitable. But the physical aspect of northern Europe was very different from that of Quaternary times. North of a line drawn roughly from southern England to St Petersburg all was sea. It was during the latter half of the Tertiary period that the continent assumed its present general form, though even in Pleistocene (Quaternary) times England and Ireland formed part of it. The great change of climate from temperate to arctic conditions during the latter half of the Tertiary period has been interpreted in various ways, no one of which is yet universally accepted. There can be little doubt, however, that no single cause was responsible for so complete a change. There may have been some alteration in the relative positions of the earth and the sun, which would conceivably have produced it; but what is practically certain is that the physical geography of northern Europe was affected by considerable difference in level, and it is clear that the raising of mountain ranges and the general elevation of the continent must necessarily have reacted on the climatic conditions. If in the later Tertiary time we find that the Alps, the Carpathians and the Caucasus have come into existence, it is not surprising to find that these huge condensers have brought about a humid condition of the continent to such an extent that this phase has been called the Pluvial Age. The humidity, however, was in some ways only a secondary result of the protrusion of high mountain ranges. The primary cause of the physical conditions that we now find in the valleys and plains was the formation of glaciers. These rivers of ice descending far into the lower levels during the winter months, melted during the summer, causing enormous volumes of water to rush through the valleys and over the plains, carrying with it masses of mud and boulders which were left stranded sometimes at immense distances. The intensity and force of the rivers thus formed would depend upon two factors, first the extent of the watershed, and secondly, the height of the mountains from which the water was derived. The result of increasing cold was that in course of time the northern hemisphere was surmounted by a cap of ice, of immense thickness (about 6000 ft.) in the Scandinavian area and gradually becoming thinner towards the south, but at no time does it seem to have extended quite to the south of England. This is proved by the absence of boulder-clay (glacial mud) in the districts south of London. These arctic conditions were not, however, continuous, but alternated with periods of a much less rigorous temperature during what has been called the Ice Age. Remains both of mammals and plants have been found, under conditions that are held to prove this alternation.
Such being the natural forces at work remodelling the surface of the earth; forces of such gigantic power as to be almost inconceivable in these more placid times, it can easily be understood how, in the course of the many thousands of years before the Quaternary period, when the surface of the globe attained its present aspect, the powerful river-systems of Europe wore their beds deep into the solid rocks. In some cases in Europe the erosive power of the river has worn through its bed to such an extent that the present stream is some hundreds of feet lower than its forerunner in palaeolithic times. From various causes, however, the rivers did not always wear for themselves a deep channel, but spread themselves over a wide area. This seems to have been the case with the Thames near London: the river-bed is not of any great depth, but at various periods it has occupied the space between Clapton on the north-east and Clapham on the south-west. It must not be assumed that the whole of this area of 7 m. or more was filled by the river at any one time, but rather that during the course of the palaeolithic period the river had its bed somewhere between these two limits. For instance, it is probable that at one period the bank of the Thames was at a point nearly midway between the northern and southern limits, where Gray’s Inn Road now stands. It was here that the earliest recorded palaeolithic implement (now in the British Museum) was found towards the close of the 17th century in association with mammoth bones. But it is safe to say that the Thames was a very much wider and more imposing river in palaeolithic times than it is now, when its average width at London is under 300 yds. As, in the course of ages, it changed its bed and by degrees lessened in size and volume, it would leave, on the terraces formed on its banks, the deposits of brick-earth and gravel brought down by the stream, and it is on these terraces that the relics of palaeolithic man are found, sometimes in great quantities. It will be obvious from the nature of the case that the highest terraces, and those farthest apart, should contain the earliest implements; but it is by no means easy in the present state of the land surface and with our present knowledge, to place the remains in their relative sequence. More accurate observation, and a better understanding of the conditions under which these deposits were made, should solve many such problems. Much light has been thrown upon many points by Worthington Smith, who has excavated with great care two palaeolithic floors at Clapton and at Caddington near Dunstable. The latter discovery was of quite exceptional interest as confirming the geological evidence by that of archaeology. In this case the original level at which palaeolithic man had worked was clearly defined, and was prolific of dark-grey implements, which had evidently been made on the spot, as Smith found that many of the flakes could be replaced on the blocks or cores from which they had been struck by palaeolithic man; there were also the flint hammers that had been used in the operation. Above the floor was a layer of brick-earth, again covered by contorted drift, in which also implements occurred, but of a very different kind from those found below. In place of being sharp and unabraded, and with the refuse flakes accompanying them, they were rolled and disfigured, of an ochreous tint, and evidently had been transported in the drift from a much higher level now no longer existing, as the site where they occurred is the highest in the vicinity, about 500-600 ft. above sea-level. Here then we have a clear case of palaeolithic man being compelled to abandon his working place on the lower level by the descent of the waters containing the products of his own forerunners, probably then very remote. In this case the sequence of the various strata may be considered certain, and the remains thus accurately determined and correlated are naturally of extreme value and importance. But even this does not enable us to diagnose another discovery unless the internal evidence is equally clear and conclusive. One point of importance that may be noted is that the older abraded implements were mostly of the usual drift type, while the more recent ones from the “floor” contained forms more highly developed and elaborated, such as occur in the French caves. Explorations of this kind, carefully conducted in a strictly scientific spirit by men of training and intelligence, are the only means by which real progress will be made in this puzzling branch of archaeology.