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TOEFL Directory > TOEFL writing > 11 Archaeology
11 Archaeology
Archaeology is a source of history, not just a bumble auxiliary
discipline. Archaeological data are historical documents in their own
right, not mere illustrations to written texts, Just as much as any
other historian, an archaeologist studies and tries to reconstitute the
process that has created the human world in which we live - and us
ourselves in so far as we are each creatures of our age and social
environment. Archaeological data are all changes in the material world
resulting from human action or, more succinctly, the fossilized results
of human behavior. The sum total of these constitutes what may be called
the archaeological record. This record exhibits certain peculiarities
and deficiencies the consequences of which produce a rather superficial
contrast between archaeological history and the more familiar kind based
upon written records.
Not all human behavior fossilizes. The words I utter and you hear as
vibrations in the air are certainly human changes in the material world
and may be of great historical significance. Yet they leave no sort of
trace in the archaeological records unless they are captured by a
dictaphone or written down by a clerk. The movement of troops on the
battlefield may "change the course of history," but this is equally
ephemeral from the archaeologist's standpoint. What is perhaps worse,
most organic materials are perishable. Everything made of wood, hide,
wool, linen, grass, hair, and similar materials will decay and vanish in
dust in a few years or centuries, save under very exceptional
conditions. In a relatively brief period the archaeological record is
reduce to mere scraps of stone, bone, glass, metal, and earthenware.
Still modern archaeology, by applying appropriate techniques and
comparative methods, aided by a few lucky finds from peat-bogs, deserts,
and frozen soils, is able to fill up a good deal of the gap.
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