ARCHEOLOGY. 



A RCH^OLOGY is the science which deduces 

 ./k the knowledge of ancient times from the 

 study of ancient things. While History deals with 

 the records, Archaeology deals with the relics of 

 bygone ages, and is thus in its methods and results 

 akin to the sister science of Geology. By classify- 

 ing and comparing the relics of man's existence, 

 collected from drifts and turbaries, from caves and 

 rock-shelters, from ancient dwellings and sepul- 

 chral deposits, it systematises the evidence which 

 reveals to us the form and culture of the human 

 life of the ' unrecorded ages.' Such questions as, how 

 the people provided themselves with implements 

 and weapons, with food and clothing, with dwell- 

 ings and defensive structures ; how they mani- 

 fested their ideas of the life of the hereafter in the 

 disposal of their dead ; how the systems that grew 

 up amongst them were modified by changing cir- 

 cumstances or by advancing intelligence ; and 

 how they were affected by contact or by conflict 

 with alien races or religions lie specially within 

 the scope of its investigations. Thus occupying 

 the whole field of prehistoric inquiry marked by 

 the presence of man upon the earth, archaeology 

 begins by illustrating and supplementing the clos- 

 ing chapters of the geologic record, proceeds to 

 unfold and decipher what is still decipherable of 

 the unwritten history of the human race, and 

 finally extends its aid to the historian, enabling 

 him to complete and verify the scanty testimony 

 of the earlier records. 



RECENT ORIGIN OF THE SCIENCE. 



The application of scientific methods to the 

 study of the remains of the primitive periods is, 

 however, of comparatively recent origin. Most of 

 the writers of the last century have nothing better 

 to tell of these relics than that they were regarded 

 with unintelligent wonder or superstitious venera- 

 tion. Flint arrow-heads, termed ' elf-bolts,' were 



Fig. I. Arrow-heads of Flint : 

 a, Lozenge-shaped ; b, Leaf-shaped ; c, Barbed. 



assigned to the fairies, and esteemed as charms 

 against disease and misfortune of man and beast. 

 Anselm Boetius,in his History of Stones and Gems 

 (1609), figures five common varieties of the stone 

 98 



axe or ' celt,' and calls them the actual bolts or 

 arrows of the lightning, adding, that should any 

 one attempt to controvert this belief, he would be 



Fig. 2. Polished Stone Axes or Celts. 



a, sj inches ; 6, 13 inches ; c, 5 inches long. 



taken for a madman. Mercati, the physician to 

 Clement VIII., at the end of the i6th century, was 

 the first to maintain the view, that these so-called 

 'thunderbolts' were really the arms of a primitive 

 people unacquainted with the use of metals. 



Eccard, in his work on the Origin and Manners 

 of the Germans (1750), was the first to announce 

 the doctrine of the three Ages of Stone, Bronze, and 

 Iron, and to shew that, as weapons of stone similar 

 to those of the earliest times were still used among 

 savages, they must have been common to all 

 nations while yet ignorant of metallurgic arts. 

 About the same time, Goguet, in his book on the 

 Origin of Laws and Sciences, laid down the same 

 rational basis for the prosecution of this inquiry. 

 'When I met,' he says, 'with an almost total 

 absence of facts and historical monuments, par- 

 ticularly for the first ages, I consulted what the 

 authors tell us of the customs of savage nations, 

 for I judged that the habits of these people would 

 furnish sure and correct information concerning 

 the state of the first tribes.' But these men were 

 far in advance of their age, and it is only of recent 

 years that the wide and interesting field of inquiry 

 they had thus indicated has begun to be culti- 

 vated. 



It was reserved for M. Thomsen, the first con- 

 servator of the Royal Museum of Northern An- 

 tiquities at Copenhagen, to establish practically, as 

 well as theoretically, the system of classification 

 and induction which has since borne such prolific 

 fruits. A thoroughly scientific method, and a 

 practical classification, having been secured, the 

 study made rapid progress. 



CLASSIFICATION UNDER THRKE AGES. 



The chief result of the systematic prosecution 

 of t*he study of archaeology has been the general 



