Archaeology is a branch of historical science that studies river monuments from the Paleolithic to the early Middle Ages inclusively and reconstructs the ancient history of the society behind them.
Earlier, when archaeology was not a science, its definition differed from the modern one. For example, Plato uses the term in the sense of “an account of antiquity”. In his work Hippias the Greater, the sophist Hippias explains to Socrates that the Spartans listened to stories, “about the lineage of heroes and men, about migrations, that is, about how cities were founded in olden times, and generally about all archaeology.”
Until the 18th century, the term “archaeology” was not used at all. After that, European art historians began to designate by it “description of monuments of ancient art”.
In the XIX century, the concept of “archaeology” was not settled either. Under it was understood in general all information about antiquities, even not quite deep. So in 1809 the Moscow University offered its students a course of “archaeology and history of fine arts”. On the basis of this discipline later was created the department of “theory of fine arts and archaeology”.
Archaeology and history are closely connected and one science can hardly do without the knowledge of the other.
The main purpose of archaeology is to accumulate materials on different periods: Neolithic, Bronze Age, Middle Ages, the era of the Napoleonic Wars, etc. After the accumulation of archaeological facts and their statement, history is involved. On the basis of archaeological data, scientists reconstruct the historical process and formulate certain conclusions.
The interaction between archaeology and history is well illustrated by the following example. Flint arrowheads were found at several Paleolithic sites. The ages of the finds are 15, 22, and 30 thousand years old.
Stone tips are an archaeological fact. Can we conclude from it that bow hunting was widespread during this period? No, because there is no basis for that. Hunting conditions in the Old Stone Age did not presuppose the use of this type of weapon at all. Simply put, people at that time did not know how to hunt with it. At that time people went hunting with spears, axes, bolas, but not with a bow and quiver of arrows.
Arrowheads (arrowheads or darts), Paleolithic, Atheri culture of the Sahara (Algeria). ca. 50,000 years old.
It turns out that bows and arrows found at Stone Age sites were most likely used exclusively for ritual purposes, but not for domestic use. The bow found its economic use only in the Mesolithic period, having spread widely among the population of that time.
Human cultural evolution has been going on for a long time, but historians have access to only 0.02% of its data, because they operate with written sources. It is rather difficult, practically impossible and wrong, from the scientific point of view, to judge the regularities of human evolution from such a negligible amount of data. It is the same as judging the structure of the Earth (from the core to the surface) only on the basis of plowed soil.
Since 99.98% of human history is not recorded in written sources, only archaeology can reconstruct the patterns of societal development in the pre-written era.
The ancient time, information about which has not been preserved in the form of text, has been called the archaeological period in the history of mankind. The main driving force of human evolution during this period was nature. People interacted with different natural environments (mountains, forests, deserts, coastal plains), adapted to them and thus developed. Archaeology was able to find all this out.
Paleolithic dwelling. Reconstruction. Houses were often built of mammoth bones and covered with skins. In the middle was a hearth on which food was cooked.