Archæology as a Science

Abstract

THE antithesis between history and science as central disciplines in education for citizenship can be resolved by making history more archæological and recognizing that archæ is a science. Mr. Hansel's just complaint¹ that the humanities specialize in inhumanity instruction in the accumulated evil, strife and intrigue of the ages does not apply to prehistory, which is exclusively archæological-and archæology does not stop short when written history begins. For archæology, evil is not cumulative one might be tempted to say, is what is not cumulative. In the archæological record (in a Mesopotamian tell, for example) the destruction wrought by strife is overshadowed by reconstruction. What archæology reveals is precisely the progress of mankind of art, science and industry from the painted caves of mammoth-hunters not only to the early cities of Sumer and Crete but also right down to Manhattan and Magnitogorsk. Flint axes and rotary querns, the history of which is provided by archæology alone, are just as much embodiments of science as the cyclotron. The cowrie shells from the Mediterranean adorning a Cro-Magnon skeleton in central France 30,000 years ago and the seals imported from India to Ur 4,500 years ago are just as reliable indexes of intercourse (and so of the pooling of ideas) as Board of Trade lists.