Archaeology, Culture and History: Concept and Their Contribution in Malaysia
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Date
2015-01-26
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Abstract
Archeology, history and culture are seen as capable of contributing to
national development The three things are linked because the three have a strong
bond. In the opinion ofthe author, archaeology, history and culture are in harmony of
each other. This is because archeology is part of history and cultural data. including
the paleo-environment data (ecofact), which are the primary data in archaeological
research. However, this view would conflict with those who adhere to the idea that
'archeology is anthropology or it is nothing. It is the faith of those who subscribe to
the "New Archaeology" born in America.
The movement began in the late 1950's when American researchers began
to move the entire discipline away from the study of artifacts to the study of people
behavior. Work of Gordon Willey and Philip Philips in 'Method and Theory in
American Archaeology' stated that "American archaeology is anthropology or it is
nothing (Whillwy and Phillips 1958: 2). The idea implied that the goals of
archaeology were, in fact, the goals of anthropology, which were to answer
questions about humans and human society. This was a critique of the former period
in archaeology, the culture-historical phase in which archaeologists thought that any
information which artifac1s contained is about past people and their way of live once
the items are included in the archaeological record. All they felt that could be done
was to catalogue, describe and create timelines based on artifacts (Trigger, 1989).