Archeology: Limitation and Contributions to Understanding of Human Culture

One of the limitations on archeology is that what remains are only the durable materials of a past culture. These are not necessarily what the people might have left if they had wanted to show us what was important to them.

Prehistoric peoples did not have the future in mind when they dump their garbage or buried their dead; they did not provide us with a time capsule containing records of their way of life.

Thus not only must we interpret the material they left behind within the limited context in which we find them, such as a burial site or a refuse pit; we must also try to paint a picture of an entire way of life without the hope of ever finding physical evidence for much of that picture.

We can make an inventory of the kinds of tools or weapons of early humans used at a given sites, and we can note which ones are found most often, how they are made and so forth.

What, then, can archeology contribute to our understanding of human culture and social behavior? First, we can learn much about the technology of earlier peoples through their materials remains, as well as through analysis of such aspects of their life style as what they ate.

For example we can tell whether a particular group lived mainly by hunting or fishing or farming. A second aspect of the life of early peoples that is revealed to us through archeology is their economic practices.

For example, sometimes we find pottery or jewelry made from materials that are to have known available only in distant place. This usually means that these items were not made at the site but obtained through some other means – either by traveling to the place where they were available or by trading with other group.

Finally, archeology evidence can reveal a great deal about certain aspects of the religious and spiritual life of ancient societies. We can recognize sacred objects by their location in centers of religious activity or in burial sites.

When we are fortunate enough to find their temples or other religious structures, we can determine their importance and their influence on the society. But in other areas it is very hard to interpret the evidence.

Thus we know little about ancient people their feelings about spirit and so forth. Even when we find materials object that might suggest such beliefs; we cannot ask anyone to explain their meaning but must go on what we know about other aspects of that society and later societies that seem to be similar to it.