The Archaeology of the Neolithic - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages In more general terms, it has been the accumulated earthworks that survive” and which become “the medium and the outcome of relations between people in the past” that was used by archeologists to reconstruct the real story of that period (Edmonds &Edmonds, 1999, pp.4). Thus the archeology of the Neolithic starts its work from exploring the medium of earth and its numerous expressions in space. Even the remnants of a terrace formation on a hillock can tell the story of a whole society. But it is only with a deep understanding of “how people inhabit a landscape” that an even near to precise account of that distant past could be revisited (Robinson, Corisettar and Koshy, 2008, pp.374).
But an anthropologist always has to remember that “past was not a neat succession of periods, opening and closing like the chapters of a book” (Edmonds &Edmonds, 1999, pp.4). But it can be seen that the Neolithic period show a regular progression in the “scale of monuments” (Edmonds & Edmonds, 1999, pp.105). The “enclosures were some of the first large monuments to appear” (Edmonds &Edmonds, 1999, pp.105). It is agreed that such monuments “captured ancestral rites, exchange and the broader social landscape (of that age) in a single moment” Edmonds & Edmonds, 1999, pp.105). There are differing opinions regarding whether the enclosures represented domestic settlements and dwellings (Thomas, 1999, pp.9). Here what Thomas (1999, pp.9) has suggested is that the conventional impression of a dwelling place familiar to us now has to be kept aside and then these enclosures can be considered as “houses” sans the “idealized domestic context.”   ...Download file to see next pagesRead More