Historical Archaeology

Historical archaeology is a branch of archaeology which deal with the sites about the written records exists.  These evidences could both conflict and complement with the archaeological evidence found at a specific site or place.

The field of archaeology is eminently suited to presentation in an encyclopedic format. Archaeological data is by nature detailed, amenable to cataloguing and vast. The information gathered by archaeologists is also infinitely expandable Archaeologists broaden our understanding of the past every time they turn a new shovelful of earth or sift another bucket load of soil. The boundaries of archaeological knowledge are constantly being pushed forward and something new is learned with every excavation. Historical archaeology is one kind of archaeology that is doing much to increase our understanding of the past and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the field is adding fresh information to our storehouse of knowledge at an unprecedented rate. Historical archaeology is an inherently interesting field from a purely intellectual point of view because it can be defined in two somewhat distinct, ways. It can be defined as the archaeological investigation of any past culture that has developed a literate tradition; or it can be viewed as the study of the 'modern world', the historical and cultural conditions that have shaped our world since about AD 1500. These definitions of Historical archaeology coexist and are not mutually exclusive, and both are widely used by the archaeologists of history

Under the first definition, eighteenth-century France, nineteenth-century Australia, the fifteenth-century Maya and the first-century BC Greeks would all fall within the purview of Historical archaeology because each culture had a tradition of writing. It does not matter methodologically whether the "text¹ is a handwritten letter, a typeset legal document or an inscription chiseled onto stone. The important thing is that the 'text has the ability to supplement and to complement archaeologically derived information. Archaeologists who use this definition of Historical archaeology tend to be interested both in the cultures they study and in the wider questions of how archaeological (largely artefactual) data and written information can lie united in the meaningful study of the past. The combination of 'historical' and "archaeological' information has been a constant topic within historical archaeology, and it is something that historical archaeologists of many backgrounds continue to explore.

Questionnaire:

• What is historical archaeology? Explain.