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- The history of archaeology is both the history of ideas and ways of looking at the past as well as a history of employing those ideas and investigating questions.
- Humans have always speculated about their past, but it was not until 1784 that Thomas Jefferson undertook the first scientific excavation in the history of archaeology. The discipline of archaeology became firmly established in the 19th century when three great advances, namely the acceptance of the antiquity of humankind, the concept of evolution, and the devel-opment of the Three Age System, offered a framework for studying and asking intelligent questions about the past.
- The "classificatory-historical period" of archaeology lasted from the mid-19th century until around 1960 and its chief concern was the development and study of chronologies. During this time there were rapid advances in scientific aids for archaeology, particularly in the field of dating.
- The 1960s marked a turning point in archaeology, and dissatisfaction with the limitations of the classificatory-historical approach led to the birth of New Archaeology. Also known as processual archaeology, its advocates sought to explain the past rather than simply describe it. To do this, New Archaeologists largely turned away from historical approaches in favor of science.
- Post-modernist thinking in the 1980s and 1990s led to the development of interpretive or postprocessual archaeology. Advocates believe that there is no single correct way to undertake archaeological inference and that objectivity in research is impossible. Postprocessual archaeologists place emphasis on the varied perspectives of different social groups, arguing that not everyone experiences the past in the same way.
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