Archeology

(From Archeo ... and Greek. Lygos - word study) - the science that studies on the real sources of the historical past of mankind. Real sources - is the means of production and created with them wealth: buildings, weapons, jewelry, tableware, art - all that is a result of employment rights. Material sources, as opposed to written, do not contain a direct narrative about historical events, and based on these findings are the result of historical scientific reconstruction

. Considerable originality of material sources necessitated the study of their experts and archaeologists who excavated archaeological sites (See Archaeological sites ), investigate and publicize the findings and results of the excavations and recover from these data the historical past of mankind. A special importance is to study the periods when there was still writing in general, or the stories of those people who have no written language and in later historical times. A. unusually extended spatial and temporal horizon of history. Writing, there are about 5,000 years old, and all previous period of human history (equal, according to the latest data, nearly 2 million years old) came to be known only by the development of A. Yes, and written sources for the first 2000 years of their existence (Egyptian hieroglyphs, linear Greek , Babylonian cuneiform, PaulStranger) were open to science archaeologists. A. matters for periods when there was writing, for the study of ancient and medieval history, as information gleaned from the study of material sources substantially complete data written sources.

The theoretical basis for the historical reconstruction of archaeological data is a historical-materialist principle that at any stage of society there is a regular link between material culture and socio-economic life. This principle underlies their research Marxist scholars. The researchers, who deny the regularity of the historical process, it is considered impossible to reconstruct the history of the data of the past and view only as the sum of the facts, do not give the whole picture.

A. has its own special methods of investigation. The most important are: the stratigraphic - monitoring the alternating cultural layers deposited from an extended living in the place of the person, and the establishment of chronological relationship of these layers. Obtained during excavations things are classified according to: the appointment of things, time and place of its manufacture. To determine the purpose and functions of the tools is a method of studying the traces on them. For chronological classification is typological method . Except for proper archaeological techniques, methods borrowed from other sciences: the dating of organic residues in their content of radioactive carbon 14 C, establishing the relative and absolute dates for the annual rings of wood found in the archaeological sites, the establishment of the absolute age of products, in baked clay by measuring their remanence, different geological dating techniques (on tape clay deposits, etc.).