Welcome back! Congrats on making your way
through the first round of archaeology
101. Today we're going to go further into
our topic from last time and talk about
the history of archaeology. This is
probably going to be the shortest
history lesson ever and I'm only going
to get to about the 20th century as so
much has changed in archaeological
practice over the last century in terms
of scientific development, ethics and
best practices.  This is more of the
exciting stuff and how we as a species
came to investigate our past. When most
people think about archaeology and its
history all of the really big finds come
to mind. The adventures of the old white
rich men just bounding into countries
and taking whatever they can find. We've
got the lost city of the Maya and Inca
the discovery of King Tut's tomb, that
guy who found the cave paintings in France,
Heinrich Schliemann blasting his way
through Troy... but there's so much more
to delve into because when the earliest
form of modern archaeology as we know it
today came into existence the world had
a very different view on history.
Archaeology as we know it developed in
the Western world where at the time most
of the population was a devout Christian.
Most of what people knew came from
fragments of the written word of past
historians and civilizations. That's
right, attention was only really paid to
the historical record because a pre
historical one wasn't even fathomable to
them. The historical timeline appeared
very differently to them as the world
was only expected to have been created
in 4000 BC it wasn't as important to ask
some of the questions that we do now.
But don't blame them guys our view of
history and the way we look at things is
always changing. It took a long time for
humanity to get where it is today and
we're still evolving and improving. It's
a process y'all... okay I just said y'all
on camera... that's a low. As I stated in
the video before archaeology is one of
the most human things in the world as
creatures humans are always thinking
about where we came from. Historians from
the beginning of time have been
fascinated with what people did before
them. You know that feeling from when
you're a kid and you're exploring your
grandparents basement and examining all
these unfamiliar things? I used to spend
hours in my grandparents crawlspace
looking through their old memories and
carefully examining all the things I
could take home. Well, archaeology began
very simply because of this. People would
be going about their daily lives and
coming across mounds or old monuments
that were still standing in ruins. When
they would break ground to build
something new, other things would also be
found and
would add to the mystery. Most of it was
treasure hunting at first you know
finding the shiniest thing to keep
himself, looting graves and pyramids etc.
But even as early as the Babylonians, we
can see archaeology emerging. King Nabonidus
who lived in the 6th century BC- E.
BCE before Common Era. King Nabonidus
was known for his interest in the past.
He had been recorded to having excavated
and restored monuments in both what is
now modern day Turkey and Iraq. He even
collected some of those things he found
and displayed them. You can kind of think
of him as the father of archaeology. We
even have a mother of archaeology! That's
right take that all you other sexist
professions! St. Helena or otherwise
known as Flavia Julia Helena Augustus
probably Flavia Yulia Helena Augustus...
you know the mom of that Roman Emperor
who like Christianized the entire empire?
Yeah, her. Come on guys never forget the
mom. On that note: mom, mom I'm on the
internet machine! Let's see if she
actually finds this thing. Anyway St.
Helena was obviously a Christian and
oversaw a lot of fieldwork in Jerusalem
in the quest to uncover more about the
life of Jesus. Yeah so we've got a patron
saint y'all!
Now obviously there are what we call
fathers or founders of all types of
archaeology. The people I mentioned above
are just some of the oldest recorded to
perform activities that saw the birth of
this notion that the earth had something
to say about our past. From there you get
the antiquarians who pillaged and threw
scientific process to the wind... damn they
were lucky... an others like Heinrich
Schliemann the father of Bronze Age
archeology, the famous guy I mentioned
earlier who found Troy and then dug
right through it. Then we have Sir
Flinders Petrie the father of modern
archaeology. These and a few others
were the "OG'S" as I like to call
them and we'll be learning about them
and their crazy antics in due time don't
you worry. Let's get back to our timeline.
As we move from ancient times to the
Renaissance, you can see an influx of
interest in the classical civilizations
of Greece and Rome. And this study
helped them look deeper into their home turf
too. Soon all the mysterious mounds and
old ruins became popular to study and
examine. Eventually people started doing
systematic studies of these places. They
started obviously with the extremely
visible ones like Stonehenge and other
old stone monuments. Stone is the best
and I'm not even
saying that just because I'm a stone
conservator (yes I am). Obviously of course as can
be seen in history, this started with the
elite classes first. This whole study can
be seen as the sort of evolutionary
development in humanity. When
civilizations became more
self-sufficient and people could
devote themselves to other endeavors
besides farming, we were able to then
start to investigate and attempt to
understand our past selves. By the 18th
century people were getting really
excited about what they could find. This
is when the real adventure starts. You have no idea what I would give to be a rich
British man in the 18th and 19th
centuries. I could have done whatever I
wanted! It was wrong and extremely
disrespectful to other countries I know, but
boy did they have some great adventures
just slashing through the jungle wearing
amazing khaki outfits and looking for
lost cities. The dream.  Timeline again!
Pompeii was discovered and began to have
proper excavation conducted. Thomas
Jefferson was involved as well. He dug a
trench in a section of a burial mound on
his property and officially thus
producing the first scientific
excavation. It wasn't until the middle of
the 19th century though when archaeology
became a full-on discipline. We were
learning more about science and geology,
everything was coming up roses for us.
Darwin came up with his theory of evolution
which changed our way of thinking
forever and CJ Thompson published his
concept of the three-age system.
Egyptian archaeology exploded with all
of its amazing riche,s and ordinary
everyday people started getting really
excited about what we could pull from
the ground. We started to understand that
human history stretched much further
back in the biblical timeline let on
and because of that we have a French man
named Jacques Boucher de Perthes to thank
for that. These ideas opened so many
doors for archaeologists and gave way to
us discovering so much about our human
past and in a tiny window of time which
in which we've been studying it. All of
these new ideas and developments were
slowly consolidated and refined to give
us all of the knowledge of fieldwork and
regional chronologies that we have today.
After World War two we see a huge change
of pace in scientific techniques and
ecological approaches and new schools of
thought for not just what happened when,
but why and how an event occurred. We're
now trying to add meaning to these
events and human activities. Obviously I
could go on for hours about the
evolution of human ideas and exploration
the development of archaeology but let's
give our brains a break for now.  Have a
question? Ask it the comments below or
shoot me an email. Like always for a
short write-up or some extra resources,
click on the link in the description.
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Stay dirty, my friends!
