Читать книгу Anthropology For Dummies - Cameron M. Smith - Страница 29

You can find the roots of archaeology (the branch of anthropology studying the ancient past) in a distinctly nonscientific interest in the past. Many motivations initially drove this antiquarian (prescientific) interest. For example, ancient Sumerian royalty commissioned excavations that could show their connections to mythical culture heroes. In another example, 16th-century French traders could sell curios (unusual articles, often ancient ones of mysterious function) to royal families across Europe, and 19th-century eligible English bachelors could clutter their parlors with artifacts meant to demonstrate their owners’ high education and interest in the esoteric. Having a “cabinet of curiosities” full of ancient objects (pottery, flint axes, and so on) was a great way to get ahead socially, because it was evidence of your wealth and the fact that you had the luxury of time to study. Only in the 1850s did appreciable numbers of investigators — who began to call themselves archaeologists — start to carefully document what they excavated, treating artifacts not just for their monetary or social value, but for their scientific value.