I50 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



obtained from any other source, even though its time-scale only covers 

 a few thousand years. A fevs^ thousand years is only a small fraction 

 of the time which is included in archasology. The material of this science 

 goes back to the Tertiary period in geology, innumerable thousands of 

 years before the first beginnings of writing or the first whisperings of 

 tradition. It begins even earlier than zoological anthropology, for in 

 the Chellean, not to speak of pre-Chellean, flints we have records of man's 

 handiwork which antedate any actually known remains of man himself. 

 For these immeasurably remote periods a very rough and inaccurate 

 time-scale, which is, however, steadily being improved, has been pro- 

 vided by geology. It is not until about 3,500 years before Christ that 

 this clumsy instrument can be replaced by a much finer one derived 

 from inscriptions and documentary evidence. Then comes a stage of 

 overlap when the interaction of historical tradition and archaeological 

 study is extraordinarily fertile. At this stage we are able to build on 

 our most solid foundations, when archaeology synchronises with written 

 records or with the epics, sagas and genealogies which precede them. 

 This, if we care to make this distinction, is the period of proto-history 

 as distinct from pre-history. It is the time which is most familiar to 

 the general public, and naturally the most attractive. For it illustrates 

 the dawn of all those great civilisations, oriental and classical, which enter 

 into the intellectual life and interests of all cultivated people. Egypt, 

 Elam and Sumeria, the Crete of Minos, and the Troy and Mycenag of 

 Homer are some of the subjects of this period. 



But archjEology does not end where history begins ; it does not even 

 end when written histories are numerous and fully documented. All 

 through the classical periods of Greece and Rome, and all through the 

 Middle Ages, history needs and receives the greatest assistance from 

 archaeology. Down to at least a.d. iooo archaeology is needed as much 

 as documentary evidence for reconstructing the life of any people. It is 

 not until written records of every kind are so minute in character and so 

 abundant in quantity as to cover almost the whole field of life that archae- 

 ology becomes superfluous. Then gradually it gives way, but does not 

 wholly cease to exist until all ' old things ' have been replaced by new and 

 modern things, which is almost the time of our own generation. 



The ordinary man is rather apt to suppose that history is infallible and 

 archaeology is a study in which individual fancy may have free play. It is 

 therefore well worth while to spend a few minutes in considering the 

 relative trustworthiness of history and archeology. The modern 

 historian has recently ceased to be contemptuous of archaeological data, 

 and some of the latest histories show a remarkably able handling of what 

 I may call ' dumb documents.' Indeed, the methods of history and of 

 archaeology are analogous to one another, only the historian's documents 

 are loquacious, whereas ours are tongue-tied. This does not mean, 

 hov/ever, that the historian's material is intrinsically superior to the 

 archaeologist's ; verbosity is a different thing from veracity. Wholly 

 apart from the essential impossibility, long ago remarked by Sir Walter 

 Raleigh, of obtaining consistent accounts of the same occurrence even from 

 two independent eye-witnesses, a great deal of documentary evidence is 



