Question

Discuss what the archaeological record can tell us about past societies?

Answer 1

• The archaeological record is the body of physical (not written) evidence about the past. It is one of the core concepts in archaeology,the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record.The archaeological record is the physical record of human prehistory and history, of why ancient civilizations prospered or failed and why those cultures changed and grew. It is the story of the human world.
• Components of the archaeological record include: artifacts, built structures, human impact on the environment, garbage, stratigraphy, mortuary practices, plant remains, or animal remains. Artifacts from the archaeological record are usually found in the ground, and once dug up, archaeologists put data such as photographs and exact location of the artifact into the archaeological record.
• Bones are sometimes found and included in the archaeological record. Bones can be from both animals and humans that have died and been preserved. Bone fragments and whole bones can be a part of the archaeological record. Plant and organic material found can also become a part of the archaeological record. Seeds are a common plant material that are found and included in the archaeological record. The seeds that archaeologists find are usually those that were burned during cooking, which helps to preserve them.
• Features are also part of the archaeological record, and are material culture that usually archaeologists are unable to take and study inside a lab. Features can include burn marks in the ground from fire pits or mounds and other structures constructed long ago. Features can also include mounds or other monuments that have been constructed by other civilizations.
  A careful examination of an archaeological site, and the artifacts and ecofacts it contains, will also tell us much about the prevailing environmental conditions at the time the society occupied the site. A careful study will often yield enough data to indicate the average annual climate, the prevailing flora and fauna, the farmable crops, and the building materials available to the culture being studied.
• We know that the prehistoric hunters of the West Russian planes had limited access to raw materials and lived in a cold climate because they lived in houses made of mammoth skins and bones. Similarly, we know that early African farmers also had a lack of building materials in lived in a hot, dry climate as they lived in pole-and-mud huts with thatched roofs.
• Not only can a well preserved archaeological site tell us about the climate, flora, fauna, and available building materials, but it can even tell us the time of year a certain event happened. For example, we know that the funeral of the Eighteenth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Tutenkhamun, who ruled from 1333 BC to 1324 BC, took place in the spring by way of the bouquet of wildflowers laid on his inner coffin, exceptionally preserved by the dry climate of the Nile Valley.
• An illustration of this kind of preservation is provided by the discovery in 1991 of the 5,300-year-old frozen remains of a Bronze Age man by hikers in Italy’s Tyrol Mountains.With the body were a wooden backpack, a wooden bow, fourteen bone-tipped arrows, and fragments of clothing. In other instances, a waterlogged environment, very dry climate, or rapid burial may create conditions for excellent preservation. Such unique instances provide archaeologists with a much more complete record than is usually found.
  
• The soil of a site is also an important record of past activities and the natural processes that affected a site’s formation. Fires, floods, and erosion all leave traces in the earth for the archaeologist to discover. All of these data may yield important information about the age, organization, and function of the site being examined. These nonartifactual organic and environmental remains are referred to as ecofacts.
• The archaeologist takes special care to record the contexts in which archaeological materials are found, the artifacts’ specific location in the ground, and associated materials.
• By itself, a pot may be identified as something similar to other finds from a specific area and time period, but it provides no new information. If, however, it and similar pots are found to contain offerings of a particular kind and are associated with female burials, a whole range of other inferences may be made about the past. By removing artifacts from sites, laypersons unwittingly cause irreparable damage to the archaeological record.
• The sophistication of the artifacts and structures uncovered will indicate a lot about the culture being studied and the time period in which it thrived. Since the earliest known pottery has been dated to circa 10,000 BC, if we find pottery, we immediately know that the site is likely not older than 12,000 years.
• Similarly, since cold-hammered metal artifacts only appeared in the archaeological record about 9,000 years ago, and since fired metal artifacts only started to appear in the archaeological record about 6,000 years, at the beginning of the copper age, the presence of a cold-hammered metal artifact indicates that the site is likely at most 9,000 years old and the presence of fired metal artifacts decreases the maximum age of the site to about 6,000 years, 5,000 years for bronze, and about 4,000 years for iron.
• In addition to the presence of tools, and the material used in the tool construction, we can gain insights into the technological advancement of a society from the structures they built. A society without a basic understanding of mathematics and engineering cannot build multi-level free-standing structures or develop precise astronomical calendars.
• Probably the best known example of the ability of archaeological artifacts to aid us in the decipherment of religious beliefs is the elaborately decorated and extravagantly filled Egyptian pyramids that demonstrated the ancient Egyptian's beliefs in multiple gods and their belief that the pharaoh, who at one point in Egyptian history was considered to be the incarnation of Horus in life and of Osiris in death, was the bridge between the people and the god (Osiris).
• The structures and artifacts found at a site can tell us a lot about the daily lives of the population. Prehistoric rock art in caves and shelters such as Tsoelike River rock shelter in Lesotho (South Africa) depicts fisherman in their boat and hunters wearing ostrich skins, demonstrating that early people in this region spent a lot of their time fishing and hunting for food. Studies of early smudge pits from 1,000 AD in the middle and lower Mississippi Valley, by Binford, tell us that the Native Americans of the region smoked their animal skins to dry and toughen them for use in their clothing.
• Archaeological records have taught us much about civilizations from the Paleolithic up until the twentieth century. Cave paintings and kill sites have told us much about the early hunting and fishing activities of stone age man and the importance of the activity in their daily life as it was key to their vary survival.