The Method of Prehistoric Archaeology

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Abstract
During the last fifty years prehistoric archaeology has developed with extraordinary rapidity into a firmly established branch of science. A system has been constructed, the frontiers of several cultural phenomena have been laid down, and the outlines of prehistoric chronology have been formed. Hypotheses and assertions have been made concerning the ethnographical groups of prehistoric times, and lengthy ‘prehistoric’ periods have literally been transformed into ‘historic’ ones. The inscription on the medal struck for Oscar Montelius– ‘Fifty years of research have mastered millennia of human culture ’ –may serve as a short motto summarizing the results of archaeology as a whole, not merely the achievements of one man.The method which has led to this result is that of the empiric sciences, based on the theory of evolution, namely, that of typology. The starting-point of research has for the most part been morphology. When synthesis has been the objective, the student’s instruments of research have consisted primarily of forms or shapes of objects, or ornaments and tombs and so forth, and their comparison.

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