The term―prehistory was first used, in 1851, by Daniel Wilson, in his work “The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland”. Then it was popularised by Sir John Lubbock in his book Prehistoric Times (1865). Archaeological Anthropology deals with the origin and development of humankind prior to the invention of script. It is also known as anthropological archaeology or simply archaeology in America and as archaeological anthropology in the Europe and in India. Some scholars view anthropology and archaeology as separate disciplines with independent history of development and heritage. But many agree that both are interdependent, interrelated, interconnected subjects like double helix of DNA which are inseparable as both study about humankind, one deals with study of living cultures and the other deals with extinct or past cultures.
DEFINITION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Archaeological Anthropology is variously defined as “anthropology of the dead”, “the ethnography of extinct societies (palaeo-ethnography)”, “study of extinct cultures” or simply the study of human past based on past material objects recovered by systematic explorations and excavations which are classified, analyzed, described and interpreted based on various scientific methods and theories. Archaeology has been defined by Brian Fagon (2016) as “a special form of anthropology that uses material remains to study extinct human societies”. Major goals of this specialization is timeless and space less, the final aim is to generalize about all human beings in all times and all places. Very specifically three major goals are there: (i) the construction of cultural chronologies, (ii) the reconstruction of extinct life ways and (iii) the search for bio-cultural processes.
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
In European countries, the beginning of archaeology can be traced back to the time of the Renaissance in Italy, when there was a new curiosity in the past and in the recovery of information about ancient Greece and Rome. This curiosity rapidly extended from Italy to other European countries. At the end of the 16th century and during the 17th century there were many antiquarians, and collection of classical statuary had become a hobby of the rich. Then in nineteenth-century the development of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection was one of the most important achievements of science. The nineteenth century was the period when archaeology emerged as a clearly defined discipline. One of the major achievements of nineteenth-century archaeologists were the creation of the Three-Age system.
Three Age System
During the nineteenth century, prehistoric artefacts and other collections poured into museums. During this time it was the work of Danish Antiquarian Christian Jurgensen Thomsen who was given the job of cataloguing collections for the newly founded National Museum of Antiquity in Copenhagen. He systematically classified the collections into three periods; the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age-based on the material on which the artifacts were manufactured. Thomsen had arranged these periods chronologically, with the Stone Age being the earliest and the Iron Age the latest. This Three Age system formed the basis for all the Old World Archaeology. His guidebook to the National Museum( 1836), which introduced the idea of three age system to the academic world. Thomsen divided Stone Age into Old and New Stone Age. Lubbock replaced the terms by Palaeolithic for Old Stone Age and Neolithic for New Stone Age. Later on a cultural stage was found chronologically lying between Palaeolithic on the one hand and Neolithic on the other. This culture is known as Mesolithic culture because it lies in between the two cultures.
The dates in the figure are based on dates available in Europe. The date of the Palaeolithic culture goes farther back in rest of the old world. The entire prehistoric past has been divided in to the following cultural periods: Palaeolithic > Mesolithic > Neolithic > Chalcolithic or Copper Age > Iron Age or Early Historic Period . Of the above five chrono-cultural stages the earliest three stages are Stone Age) span a period of nearly 3 million years, because metal was first discovered only around 4000BCE. In other words, it states that 99 percent of our past cultural history is covered by only Stone Age.
SCOPE OF PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY / ARCHAEOLOGICALANTHROPOLOGY
Prehistory refers to the life of early hunter gatherers and subsequent farming communities. The subject provides evidences about human societies which gave rise to civilizations/ urbanizations (Renfrew and Bahn, 1991). Prehistory does not only study the life of early men before the advent of writing but also study the present day communities which are continuing as hunter gatherers, pastorals or primitive farmers. Study among such present day communities provide clue to the life style and cultural systems of comparable prehistoric societies.
Culture is a device of man for its survival on earth. Since it consists of materials taken out of the environment and is not a part of his body, it is known as extra-somatic behaviour of man. It is made of both tangible and intangible components. Tangibles are the material part of the culture and intangibles are of such behavioural aspects as, customs, beliefs and ideas. The latter may be reconstructed from the material remains.
According to Gordon Childe (1956) prehistoric archaeology studies all changes in the material world that are due to human action. Usually material remains are food, tools, weapons, dresses, ornaments, houses etc. of daily necessities for survival. Prehistory covers major part of human existence on earth. Writing dates on an average 5000 years from the present day.
Anthropologists have devised scientific methodology for reconstruction of life and works of early man. Culture is found over wide areas on earth and it varies in response to subsequent environment. Environment varies from one geographical location to other. Area wise location of culture is very important for an archaeologist. Environment changed through time. Geologists call the time of man as Quaternary, which has two divisions, Pleistocene, the earlier and Holocene the later, starting roughly around 10,000 years ago and is still continuing. Smallest unit of material culture is stone tool and artefact. Any object taken from the world surrounding man and used by him either in an unaltered or altered fashion is called artefact. Tools are artefacts, which are altered, fashioned and used by man (Childe, 1956). Tools give the prehistoric archaeologist clue to the purpose of its manufacture and understanding of the tool maker’s necessity and capability for making a tool.
We cannot set us apart from our past because development depends on the tradition on which a particular culture is built. It illustrates course of development of a culture and civilization. The reason for defining aim and objective is that the mode of exploration varies due to the specific problem prehistory wants to solve. Main aim is to fit the facts of prehistory into the perspective of world history (Hole and Heizer, 1969). Broadly aim of prehistoric Archaeology is as follows:
- reconstruction of culture history,
- reconstruction of past life ways,
- the study of culture process,
- building of sound chronology.
- Ethno-archaeology is included in prehistoric Archaeology. This provides for scope for study of settlement pattern.