Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T09:14:16.151Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Archaeology and the Reconstruction of History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Harold S. Colton
Harold S. Colton*
Affiliation:
Museum of Northern ArizonaFlagstaff, Arizona
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The principal aim of archaeology is the reconstruction of history. How archaeology plays this part is usually not very clearly thought out, although Rouse has made a good attempt. In the reconstruction of history, we deal with human social units. These social units are composed of animals which reproduce their kind, inherit biological traits, mutate, evolve, take in food, give off waste products, react to their environment, die, and, in so doing, behave fundamentally like other animals. Moreover, the animals have a language, form part of a social pattern, have ideas of the supernatural and what we can call religion, and can manufacture certain objects in a certain way. These animals are grouped into families composed of mother, father, and children. They are further grouped into extended families, sibs, or clans made up of real or fancied relatives. A number of extended families under the leadership of one man or a group of men forms a political group.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , July 1942 , pp. 33 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1942

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Colton, H. S. 1939. Prehistoric Culture Units of Northern Arizona. Museum of Northern Arizona, Bulletin 17. Flagstaff.Google Scholar
de Laguna, Frederica 1942. “The Dig at Cinders Park.” Plateau, Vol. 14, No. 4.Google Scholar
Gifford, W. S. 1936. The Northeast Yavapai and Western Yavapai. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 34, No. 1.Google Scholar
Gladwin, W., and Gladwin, H. S. 1934. Method for the Designation of Cultures. Medallion Papers. Globe, Arizona.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 78. Washington.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. 1939. Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 38.Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving 1939. The Prehistory of Haiti, A Study in Method. Yale University, Publications in Anthropology, No. 21.Google Scholar