CHAPTER 1 : The Idea of The Past

My aim in this chapter is to show how some fundamental principles and methods emerged and combined to form the modern discipline known as archaeology. This has been the subject of several complete books but I will attempt to map the development of archaeology in a wider intellectual context and look in more detail at some themes that seem particularly important:

• interest in landscapes and travel promoted the recognition and recording of ancient sites. Visits to sites, together with the habit of collecting ancient artefacts and works of art, eventually led to deeper investigations (with the help of excavation) of early civilizations.
• the study of human origins stimulated profound thinking about concepts of time and forged lasting links between archaeology and the natural sciences, notably biology and geology. It also underlined the importance of being able to identified and interpret artefacts made by early humans.
• the word 'prehistory' was invented in the nineteenth century to describe the long period of human existence - undocumented in historical sources - revealed by newly developed archaeological methods. Later, these methods were applied to the study of other fundamental phenomena such as the transition from hunting to farming and the origins of urbanism.

These issues are not presented in a strict chronological sequence, and no clear line divides the history of archaeology from its present concerns. Many topics are discussed further in chapter 6, which looks at more recent trends in theory and interpretation.