History and Archaeology

Question 1

Bahn - definition of Archaeology

Answer 1

The study of the human past through the material traces of it that have survived

Question 2

M. I. Finley - historians’ interest in archaeological evidence

Answer 2

Historians have become increasingly aware of archaeological evidence, however they have not kept up with the huge advancements that archaeology has undergone

Question 3

Limits of archaeology - Great Mother Goddess fable

Answer 3

For Jacquetta Hawkes, that goddess was so omnipresent/omnipotent in Bronze Age Crete that she labelled it as a ‘predominantly feminine force’

Shattered by Peter Ucko’s book on figurines showing only 28 of 103 recovered could be identified as female, only two from any house and none from a shrine

Large breasts and buttocks (power) observed by Hawkes was entirely subjective

Question 4

Finley - contribution of archaeology to history

Answer 4

Roughly inversely proportionate to the quantity and quality of available written sources, although this is not always the case

Question 5

Finley - archaeology for early periods

Answer 5

For centuries after the introduction of writing, the historian’s evidence remains almost exclusively archaeological

For the earlier periods, huge complications are introduced by oral tradition and historical legends

In this case, archaeology is used to assess whether the literature has any worth at all

Question 6

Finley - difficulty of comparison

Answer 6

Akragas in Sicily famed for wealth due to 10 temples being built in the 5th Century

But what is a fair standard for temple construction in this period?

Question 7

Archaeology in Roman history

Answer 7

Much of it (e.g. Livy) was written very late, and as such archaeology is used to back this up chronologically

Therefore it could paradoxically be argued that the use of archaeology increases with more sources

However this is only up to a certain point - modern times make it virtually unnecessary