Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/353

Rh 333 AECH^EOLOGY A RCH^EOLOGY, from dp^aio?, ancient, and Aoyos, a jLA. description. The term Archaeology, like that of Antiquities, has been employed, until a very recent period, in a sense so restricted and arbitrary as strikingly to con trast with the latitude admissible according to the original derivation of the word. Literally it signifies the study of antiquity or ancient things; but its precise significance has been determined from time to time by the range of study and research most in favour. To some extent it has always been recognised as embracing whatever pertained to the early history of any nation, but in its details it was applied almost exclusively to the study of Greek and Eonian art, or of classical antiquities generally. The pro gress of geology, and the application of sound principles of induction to the study of primitive antiquities, have wrought a great revolution, and few studies now rival archaeology in comprehensive interest. In looking at the succession of strata of the earth s crust it was assumed till recently that the student of man and his remains is limited to the latest superficial formation of post-tertiary strata. To the palaeontologist was assigned all ancient animal life of the fossiliferous strata, while the archaeologist treated of man and his works as things essen tially distinct. The diverse functions of the two sciences are still clearly recognised; but the archaeologist is no longer supposed to be excluded either from quaternary or tertiary strata in his search not only for the remains of human art, but for the osteological evidences of man s pre sence contemporaneous with the fauna of such geological periods. One class of archaeologists, accordingly, confi dently anticipate the recovery not only of works of art, but of the fossil remains of man himself, in the pliocene, or even the miocene strata. So far, however, as any reliable evidence can guide opinion, it scarcely admits of question that neither has hitherto been found in older deposits than the later tertiary, or quaternary. The actual remains of man, the specific form of his osseous structure, and above all of his skull, now receive the minutest attention; and the department of anthropo logy to which such investigations are specially assigned has latterly acquired a fresh interest from the inquiries suggested by novel theories as to the possible evolution of man from lower animal organisations. Nevertheless, the researches of the palseontologist and of the archaeologist are based on essentially distinct evidence. The life of geological periods is investigated by means of the fossil bones and teeth which alone survive. Or if to these have to be added .such illustrations of habits, food, and struc ture as are furnished by means of footprints, coprolites, and the like subsidiary evidence, still all are traceable, directly or indirectly, to the living organism. Man, on the contrary, in times altogether preceding histoiy, is chiefly studied by means of his works. Archaeology thus forms the intermediate link between geology and history, though the reaction, at the revival of learning in the 1 Gth century, which tended for a time to subordinate arts and science alike to classical authority, reduced it within greatly nar rower limits. Nevertheless, the fitness of the term for the most comprehensive definition in relation to all which per tains to the past could not be entirely overlooked, and it is even employed repeatedly by Dr Prichard as nearly synonymous with palaeontology. In this, however, he has not been followed, and the name is now universally adopted to designate the science which deduces the history of man from the relics of the past. So comprehensive a subject necessarily admits of great subdivision. The most im portant general division will be treated of separately in the article on CLASSICAL ARCHEOLOGY (p. 343, sqq.), while in teresting branches of the study will be reviewed under the heads of Egyptian, Etruscan, Assyrian, Mexican, and Indian antiquities. Numismatics, pottery, heraldry, hieroglyphics, palaeography, and other subdivisions in like manner deal with important details, and help to illustrate the compre hensiveness of the subject. The innate cravings of the human mind for an insight into the future have shaped themselves into many forms of divination and astrology. But this desire is not more uni versal than that which prompts man to aim at a recovery of the secrets of the past. The question Whence? even more than that of Whither? is found to give shape to the mythic legends of the rude barbarian, and to constitute an im portant element in the poetry and mythology of every nation s oral and written history. With the progress of society such indices of the past are subjected anew to- critical analyses; and we accordingly find abundant traces- of an archaeological spirit in the literature of every civilised nation. The influence of the same craving for a mastery of the past is seen adapting itself to the spirit of the age at every epoch of great progress. The revival of art and letters in the 14th and 15th centuries was signalised by a renewed appreciation of Greek and Roman models; and while the progress of opinion in the 16th century was accompanied by an abandonment of mediaeval for classic art, the tendency of Europe in our own day, amid many elements of progress, has been singularly consentaneous in the return not merely to mediaeval art, but to mediaeval modes and standards of thought, and in the attempt to&amp;gt; attain to higher excellence than has been yet achieved by a more perfect development of the ideal of the middle ages. The alliance of archaeology with geology, and the direc tion of geological research to the evidences of the antiquity of man, have largely contributed to its expansion, until in its comprehensive unity it embraces the entire range of human progress from the infantile stage of primeval arts to the earliest periods of written records. It has thus been developed into a systematic science, by which the intelli gent investigator is enabled to pursue his researches with the aid of evidence older than all written chronicles, and to recover chapters of national infancy and youth heretofore- deemed beyond recall. The geologist, with no aid from written records, follows out his inquiries through succes sive periods of the earth s history, and reveals the changes it has undergone, and the character of the living beings which animated epochs of the globe ages before man was- called into being. Beginning with the traces of life in the primary fossiliferous strata, he passes on from system to system, disclosing a vast succession of long extinct life, until in the latest diluvial formations he points to the re mains of animals identical with existing species, and even- to traces of human art the evidence of the close of geo logical and the beginning of archaeological periods. Here- archaeological science ought to be ready to take up the narrative, and with a more comprehensive minuteness of detail and greater certainty as to the conclusions arrived at. Such, however, until very recently, has not been the case. The geologist himself long confused the records of the transitional period by his mistaken reference of all diluvial traces to the Noachian deluge; and when, pausing, as he thus believed, at the dawn of the historic period, he turned to the archaeologist for the subsequent chapters of the history of life on our globe, it was only to receive a record of Roman traces at best but meagrely supplementing the