Scientific Archaeology

Part one of Colin Renfews book Prehistory: The making of the Human Mind reviews the development of archaeology and marks the major discoveries that led to methods used to expand archaeologys sea of companionship and data. Highlighted in Renfrews account is the concept of scientific archaeology or archaeological science, defined on foliate 36 simply as the application of methods in the tall(prenominal) sciences to the corporeal remains of the past. The hard sciences Renfrew refers to include geology, biology, physics, and chemistry. More specifically, the developments and discoveries inwardly these knowledge domains leading to the realization of scientific archaeology argon the ancientness of man, the theory of evolution, and radiometric dating. While the advent of genetics has certainly been operative for the field of archaeology, the author has postponed a full parole of desoxyribonucleic acid analysis until part two of his book. The foundation of the field of geol ogy itself in the middle of the nineteenth century paved the bearing for archaeology. introductory to scientists such as Cuvier, Smith, Hutton, and Lyell (page 7), the world was thought to be meager 6,000 years old in the Western world.

With the sure ratiocination by scholars to examine the natural world as a conglomerate of observable forces, scientists began to notice anomalies in geological excavations. Things interchangeable manmade tools located near deposits of extinct animal skeletons questioned the traditional chronology of coeval knowledge. In 1959 the scientists Sir Joseph Prestwich and John Evans studied these anomalies and popularized in t! he scientific community what is known as the antiquity of man, expanding the lifetime of serviceman to be much older than most common fellowship imagined at the time (page 9). Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species was print in 1859 and revolutionized contemporary biology forever. Shortly thereafter he publish The Descent of Man and more directly dealt with what was only hinted at in his first work:...If you want to drag a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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