MAN-002 Archaeological Anthropology Indira Gandhi National Open University School of Social Sciences Block 1 DEFINITION AND SCOPE UNIT 1 Definitions and Scope 5 UNIT 2 History and Development 18 UNIT 3 Interdisciplinary Relations and Approaches 31 Expert Committee Professor I. J. S. Bansal Professor S.Channa Retired, Department of Human Biology Department of Anthropology Punjabi University, Patiala University of Delhi, Delhi Professor K. K. Misra Professor P. Vijay Prakash Director Department of Anthropology Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Andhra University, Visakhapatnam Sangrahalaya, Bhopal Dr. Nita Mathur Professor Ranjana Ray Associate Professor Retired, Department of Anthropology Faculty of Sociology Calcutta University, Kolkata SOSS, IGNOU, New Delhi Professor P. Chengal Reddy Dr. S. M. Patnaik Retired, Department of Anthropology Associate Professor S V University, Tirupati Department of Anthropology University of Delhi, Delhi Professor R. K. Pathak Department of Anthropology Dr. Manoj Kumar Singh Panjab University, Chandigarh Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology Professor A. K. Kapoor University of Delhi, Delhi Department of Anthropology University of Delhi, Delhi Faculty of Anthropology SOSS, IGNOU Professor V.K.Srivastava Dr. Rashmi Sinha, Reader Principal, Hindu College University of Delhi, Delhi Dr. Mitoo Das, Assistant Professor Dr. Rukshana Zaman, Assistant Professor Professor Sudhakar Rao Department of Anthropology Dr. P Venkatramana, Assistant Professor University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad Dr. K. Anil Kumar, Assistant Professor Programme Coordinator: Dr. Rashmi Sinha, SOSS, IGNOU, New Delhi Course Coordinator: Dr. P. Venkatramana, SOSS, IGNOU, New Delhi Content Editor Language Editor Professor K. Paddaiah Dr. Mukesh Ranjan Professor Emeritus, Deccan College Post Associate Professor Graduate and Research Institute, Pune Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi Blocks Preparation Team Unit Writers Dr. P.C. Venkata Subhaiah (Units 1) Dr. Madhulika Samanta Dr. Basanta Kumar Mohanta Asst. Professor, Dravidian University (Unit 2) (Unit 3) Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh Assistant Professor, Post Asst. Professor Gradute Dept. of History & Deptt. Anthropology Archaeology, Tumkur Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Karnataka University Amarkantak Madhya Pradesh Authors are responsible for the academic content of this course as far as the copy right issues are concerned. Print Production Cover Design Mr. Manjit Singh Dr. Mitoo Das Section Officer (Pub.), SOSS, IGNOU, New Delhi Asstt. Professor, Anthropology, SOSS, IGNOU August, 2011 Indira Gandhi National Open University, 2011 ISBN-978-81-266-5519-9 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission in writing from the Indira Gandhi National Open University. Further information on Indira Gandhi National Open University courses may be obtained from the University's office at Maidan Garhi. New Delhi-110 068. Printed and published on behalf of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi by the Director, School of Social Sciences. Laser Typeset by : Tessa Media & Computers, C-206, A.F.E.-II, Okhla, New Delhi Printed at : BLOCK 1 DEFINITION AND SCOPE Introduction The phrase archaeological anthropology may sound new and somewhat strange. But you will not require much time and mental effort to realise that it is both appropriate and meaningful. Let us use an analogy for this purpose. In his widely read book ‘The discovery of India’ Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru clearly states that he did not write it as an academic text but for his own purposes to serve as a guide for understanding the present condition of India. In other words, Nehru visualised the past as a window for looking at and understanding the country’s present condition. In this effort Nehru succeeded to a remarkable extent. Archaeological anthropology has an identical objective. The study of present day simple societies is the purview of anthropology. India is a living museum of simple societies and cultures – be they hunting-gathering societies, fishing communities, pastoral groups/or peasant societies. All these groups exist side by side in different parts of the country. Aspects like their origins and antiquity and their geographical distribution cannot be understood at all without reference to time or temporal dimension. Here anthropology has to turn necessarily to archaeology for guidance and help. Here prehistory branch of archaeology in particular comes to our help. Fortunately India has a rich record of prehistoric (hunting-gathering) and early agropastoral groups, covering a temporal range of two million years. It is the investigation of these ancient hunting–gathering and agropastoral communities which forms the backdrop against which alone the living simple groups can be understood in a meaningful way. Thus archaeological anthropology endeavours to link the ethnographic present with the archeological past. The course archaeological anthropology deals with the investigation and interpretation of archaeological records pertaining to early hunting-gathering and agropastoral communities that occupied different parts of India. In this connection we need to remind ourselves that archaeology is no longer treated as a simplistic concern with collection and classification of antiquities. The new or Processual archaeology, spearheaded by Professor Lewis Binford of America who passed away in April 2011, developed the ‘archaeology as anthropology’ paradigm and emphasised the need to study the simple communities of the past from an anthropological perspective. This course material is prepared to enable you to understood and appreciate the long time background provided by archaeology to the study of simple communities. Units 1 to 3 of Block 1 deal with the definition and scope of archaeological anthropology. Unit 1 specifies the main branches of archaeology and also its major conceptual and methodological developments. Unit 2 takes the story one step further and gives detailed information about the development of Stone Age as well as protohistoric studies. Unit 3 alerts us to the fact archaeology (archaeological anthropology), in tune with its holistic goal of reconstructing ancient societies, takes the help of many natural and social sciences and even humanities. The remaining units of the course will place before you the archaeological records pertaining to different stages of hunting-gathering and agropastoral ways of life and what these stages mean in terms of the anthropological goals of tracing the emergence and evolution of human culture till the beginning of recorded history. UNIT 1 DEFINITIONS AND SCOPE Definitions and Scope Contents 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Prehistory 1.3 Protohistory 1.4 Civilisation 1.5 Archaeology: Conceptual Developments 1.5.1 Culture History 1.5.2 Reconstruction of Life Ways 1.5.3 New or Processual Archaeology 1.5.4 Interpretative Archaeology 1.6 Archaeology: Methodological Developments 1.6.1 Environmental Archaeology 1.6.2 Settlement Archaeology 1.6.3 Ethnoarchaeology 1.6.4 Experimental Archaeology 1.6.5 Ethological Studies 1.7 Summary Suggested Reading Sample Questions Learning Objectives & Once you have studied this unit, you should be able to: Ø define each sub-unit of the subject matter thoroughly; Ø understand the importance of each sub-unit in human cultural study; Ø indicate the close relationship between archaeology and how this relationship is helpful for the study of human cultures across time and space; and Ø recognise the fundamentals of archaeological anthropology. 1.1 INTRODUCTION Anthropology and Archaeology are two interrelated disciplines that deal with the origin and development of human culture and hence occupy an important place in social sciences. Anthropology basically deals with the study of present- day-simple societies and it has two main divisions called physical anthropology and social anthropology. Several branches within it developed in course of time like cultural anthropology, etc. Archaeology endeavours to reconstruct ancient societies and is treated as part of anthropology in American universities. The mutual interdependence of anthropology and archaeology arises from the simple fact that both deal with the study of human cultures-one of the present and the other of the past. Archaeology is an important discipline with a methodology of its own. It recovers antiquarian remains of various kinds from the field through laborious techniques 5 Definition and Scope including excavation. Although archaeology remained for a long time as a descriptive and classificatory of ancient objects and features, Lewis Binford’s New Archaeology Movement of the 1960s emphasised the larger anthropological goals of archaeology. With the help of methods and approaches adopted from both social and natural sciences, modern archaeology seeks to reconstruct past human societies and their cultural processes. As such it supplies the much needed temporal dimension to the anthropologist’s endeavour to study cultures of present- day simple societies. This in fact is the principal objective of archaeological anthropology. This is particularly relevant in India, which has both a rich and diverse ethnographic record and an unequally rich archaeological heritage. Let us now consider the main divisions within archaeology and some of its basic concepts. Archaeological anthropology is one of the sub branches of anthropology deals with the origin and development of human species and its material manifestations in the form