Archeology and History of the People Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Archeology and History of the People - Essay Example provides data and evidence that gives a unique perspective on history of human culture and other aspects, which has greatly contributed to a clear understanding of recent and ancient past. Archeology not only explores when and where humans lived, but also how and why they lived, which involves examination of cultures overtime through changes and patterns from when and how people came to inhabit a particular place, for instance, America. Archeology also explores and reveals information about origins of complex societies and other activities such as agriculture (Orser 102). History primarily relies on written documents and records to interpret great events, lives, which do not provide exclusive and conclusive information about history and culture of a people. On the other hand, archeology allows people to delve way back into the period before existence of written languages, and have a glimpse of everyday lives of these people through analysis of the tools they made and things they left behind. Similarly, archeology helps in understanding regions inhabited by people because it covers geographical regions, as well as all times periods. For example, through archeology, people have been able to understand the history and concepts of important topics such as Egyptian religion, colonial events in Jamestown Virginia, origins of agriculture in Near East, lives of Africans enslaved in North America, early Mediterranean trade routes and so on. Moreover archeology informs people about lives of families, individuals and even communities which would otherwise remain invisible to the current generation. Historical archeology, for instance, explores cultures that existed thousands of years ago or a period of recorded history in Old World, as well as a number of years ago in the... The paper explains the importance of this science. As the primary source of information of men's cultural evolution for long periods in the prehistoric times, archeology provides sustained efforts that has enabled tracing of man’s antiquity on the planet several years ago. This is achieved by the systematic study of fossils and tools embedded in terraces; through which humans can be able to learn the nature of mans implement of offence and defence, habitat, way of life and tool techniques. As such, archeology has achieved reconstruction of the Stone Age man’s environment, and also his adaptations and responses to the climate. For example, archeology has achieved reconstruction of proto-historic cultures of India, pushing back Indian Civilization from the Vedic period to about 3000B. Archeology not only provides primary source of the information on historical cultures of people, but also the supplementary source of the information. Evidently, it fills the gaps created by uncertainty found in the written documents and records about the historical period. For example, it provides valuable information about Ikshvaku dynasty, which had scrappy information before archeology came in. Likewise, archeology has revealed more information through excavations at Satanikota, Vijayapuri and Kaveripattanam, which show trade contacts with Romans during the early periods of Christian era.