Archaeological anthropology can be simply defined as the study of human past based on material objects, recovered by systematic explorations and excavations, which are classified, analyzed, described, and interpreted, based on various scientific methods and theories.
As a subbranch of anthropology, it not only helps in understanding diversity around the World but also to see how people since prehistoric times related to the material World. As it tries to reconstruct the past human societies and their cultural processes, it provides the much-needed temporal dimension to the Anthropologist's study of contemporary simple societies. The major goals of this specialization is timeless and spaceless; the construction of cultural chronologies, the reconstruction of extinct lifeways, and the search for bio-cultural processes are some of the main objectives.
Before the 1960s, Archaeology remained for a long time a discipline concerned with the description and classification of ancient objects and features.
After the 1960s, Lewis Binford’s New Archaeology movement emphasized the larger anthropological goals of Archaeology.
Systems of measuring time are dependent on human thoughts and are relative in nature. Relative time is a system of temporal division to establish the sequence of events in history. The temporal division is required to realize the immense length of time.
The whole of human history has been divided into different ages for analytical purposes; on the basis of activities, ideas of change, concepts of progress, and variability in objects.
Material remains are considered proofs of these actions which mark time.
The entire range of material remains constituting the archaeological record belongs to 3 broad temporal divisions, namely, Prehistory, Protohistory, and Historical period.
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