A Little History of Archaeology

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How I came across this book: The British Museum

Favorite Line from the book:

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently.

Archaeology is about people. We know more about the Ice Man than he knew himself.

How old is the human history? When did we transform from hunters to farmers? Where and when did the oldest civilization begin? An archaeologist has changed from being an antiquarian to an excavator, and recently to a scientist who studies human behavior from the past. Brian Fagan sketches the timeline of how archaeology has transformed over the last two hundred years. In the course of forty chapters, he has paid tribute to giants in archaeology such as Laylard, Schliemann, and Leakey, who have changed it into a science. Some chapters are as thrilling and adventurous as watching the 'Indiana Jones' movie. While the book goes back and forth in the historical timeline as it follows the order in which discoveries were made, let me summarize some of the important civilizations in chronological order.

Ice Man

There is a lot of crossover between the three ages depending upon different regions. These are all approximate figures. I have rounded off some of them so it is easier to get a broader outlook. Farming began around 10,000 BC (some recent evidence is pointing as back as 20,000 BC)

Stone Age:Approximately 3 million years to 6000 BC.

1. Mesopotamian Civilization: 6000 BC (Iraq, Syria, Iran).

Bronze Age: Approximately 6000 BC to 1200 BC.

2. Indus Valley: 4000 BC (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Northwest India).

3. Ancient Egypt: 3000 BC.

4. Mayan: 2500 BC (Yucatan, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras).

5. Ancient China: 2000 BC.

6. Greek: 1200 BC.

Iron Age:Approximately 1200 BC to 800 AD

7. Persia: 500 BC (Egypt & Turkey).

8. Rome: 100 BC.

Angkor Wat

Archaeology started two hundred years ago with excavations and startling discoveries. It has transformed into much more advanced science with radiocarbon dating, DNA testing, and recently remote sensing with laser technology. LIDAR (light detection and ranging) uses a laser to map the whole landscape without any excavation. Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the Stonehenge in England recently revealed new secrets with this technology. Archaeology continues to change the way it is practiced, and it continues to change the way we look at human history. Human history is older than 3 million years when our ancestors jumped from the trees and started walking in eastern Africa (Australopithecus). Throwing light at our history will give us a crystal ball to predict our future. The famous astronomer Carl Sagan chronologically arranged the 14 billion years of the universe’s age into a single calendar year. In this cosmic calendar, dinosaurs appeared on 25th December and became extinct on 30th December. Primitive humans were born on 31st December at 14:24 hrs and the Egyptians built the Pyramids at 23:59 hrs and 48 seconds. When we look at such a grand scale, then we realize archaeologists have just scratched the surface.