Otomi ( / ˌ oʊ t ə ˈ m iː / OH -tə- MEE ; Spanish : Otomí [otoˈmi] ) is an Oto-Pamean language spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. Otomi consists of several closely related languages, many of which are not mutually intelligible . The word Hñähñu [hɲɑ̃hɲṹ] has been proposed as an endonym , but since it represents the usage of a single dialect, it has not gained wide currency. Linguists have classified the modern dialects into three dialect areas: the Northwestern dialects are spoken in Querétaro , Hidalgo and Guanajuato ; the Southwestern dialects are spoken in the State of Mexico ; and the Eastern dialects are spoken in the highlands of Veracruz , Puebla , and eastern Hidalgo and villages in Tlaxcala and Mexico states.
131-566: Acámbaro ( Otomi : Mä'wada ) is a city and municipality in the southeastern corner of the Mexican state of Guanajuato , on the banks of the Lerma River , and the oldest of the 46 municipalities of Guanajuato . Acámbaro was originally a Purépecha settlement which was invaded by the Spanish , and their Otomi allies, in 1526. Acámbaro is noted as a major railway junction, a local transport hub, and
262-479: A dialect continuum that is clearly demarcated from its closest relative, Mazahua . For this article, the latter approach will be followed. Dialectologists tend to group the languages into three main groups that reflect historical relationships among the dialects: Northwestern Otomi spoken in the Mezquital Valley and surrounding areas of Hidalgo, Queretaro and Northern Mexico State, Southwestern Otomi spoken in
393-464: A basic level of analysis, artifacts found are cleaned, catalogued and compared to published collections. This comparison process often involves classifying them typologically and identifying other sites with similar artifact assemblages. However, a much more comprehensive range of analytical techniques are available through archaeological science , meaning that artifacts can be dated and their compositions examined. Bones, plants, and pollen collected from
524-546: A big impact throughout Europe. However, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard; the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. In the mid-18th century, the German Johann Joachim Winckelmann lived in Rome and devoted himself to the study of Roman antiquities, gradually acquiring an unrivalled knowledge of ancient art. Then, he visited
655-401: A clear objective as to what the archaeologists are looking to achieve must be agreed upon. This done, a site is surveyed to find out as much as possible about it and the surrounding area. Second, an excavation may take place to uncover any archaeological features buried under the ground. And, third, the information collected during the excavation is studied and evaluated in an attempt to achieve
786-451: A field survey. Regional survey is the attempt to systematically locate previously unknown sites in a region. Site survey is the attempt to systematically locate features of interest, such as houses and middens , within a site. Each of these two goals may be accomplished with largely the same methods. Survey was not widely practised in the early days of archaeology. Cultural historians and prior researchers were usually content with discovering
917-402: A formative which is either a verbal prefix or a proclitic depending on analysis. These proclitics can also precede nonverbal predicates. The dialects of Toluca and Ixtenco distinguish the present , preterit , perfect , imperfect , future , pluperfect , continuative , imperative , and two subjunctives . Mezquital Otomi has additional moods. On transitive verbs, the person of the object
1048-465: A grammar of Otomi, but no copies have survived. He is the author of an anonymous dictionary of Otomi (manuscript 1640). In the latter half of the eighteenth century, an anonymous Jesuit priest wrote the grammar Luces del Otomi (which is, strictly speaking, not a grammar but a report on research about Otomi ). Neve y Molina wrote a dictionary and a grammar. During the colonial period, many Otomis learned to read and write their language. Consequently,
1179-528: A large region or site can be expensive, so archaeologists often employ sampling methods.) As with other forms of non-destructive archaeology, survey avoids ethical issues (of particular concern to descendant peoples) associated with destroying a site through excavation. It is the only way to gather some forms of information, such as settlement patterns and settlement structure. Survey data are commonly assembled into maps , which may show surface features and/or artifact distribution. The simplest survey technique
1310-487: A leading advocate for the marking of tone, arguing that because tone is an integrated element of the language's grammatical and lexical systems, the failure to indicate it would lead to ambiguity. Bernard (1980) on the other hand, has argued that native speakers prefer a toneless orthography because they can almost always disambiguate using context, and because they are often unaware of the significance of tone in their language, and consequently have difficulty learning to apply
1441-604: A parade of eighty thousand insurgents took place, that demonstrated the speed of growth of the movement: one month prior on September 16 just 800 men responded to the Grito de Dolores and raised arms against the Spanish in Dolores Hidalgo . Because of its strategic location, Acámbaro was the key to the development of the railway in Mexico, and had a major junction, yard and shop facility for
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#17330854538801572-672: A period of geographical expansion as the Spaniards employed Otomi warriors in their expeditions of conquest into northern Mexico. During and after the Mixtón rebellion , in which Otomi warriors fought for the Spanish, Otomis settled areas in Querétaro (where they founded the city of Querétaro ) and Guanajuato which previously had been inhabited by nomadic Chichimecs . Because Spanish colonial historians such as Bernardino de Sahagún used primarily Nahua speakers primarily as sources for their histories of
1703-508: A proclitic: Bi=hon-ga-wi-tho-wa Bi=hon-ga-wi-tho-wa "He/she looks for us only (around) here" The initial proclitic bi marks the present tense and the third person singular, the verb root hon means "to look for", the - ga - suffix marks a first person object, the - wi - suffix marks dual number, and tho marks the sense of "only" or "just" whereas the - wa - suffix marks the locative sense of "here". Originally, all dialects distinguished singular, dual and plural numbers, but some of
1834-448: A sentence. These morphemes can be analysed as either proclitics or prefixes and mark tense , aspect and mood . Verbs are inflected for either direct object or dative object (but not for both simultaneously) by suffixes. Grammar also distinguishes between inclusive 'we' and exclusive 'we' . After the Spanish conquest, Otomi became a written language when friars taught the Otomi to write
1965-550: A significant number of Otomi documents exist from the period, both secular and religious, the most well-known of which are the Codices of Huichapan and Jilotepec. In the late colonial period and after independence, indigenous groups no longer had separate status. At that time, Otomi lost its status as a language of education, ending Classical Otomi period as a literary language. This led to a declining numbers of speakers of indigenous languages, as Indigenous groups throughout Mexico adopted
2096-504: A site excavated depends greatly on the country and "method statement" issued. Sampling is even more important in excavation than in survey. Sometimes large mechanical equipment, such as backhoes ( JCBs ), is used in excavation, especially to remove the topsoil ( overburden ), though this method is increasingly used with great caution. Following this rather dramatic step, the exposed area is usually hand-cleaned with trowels or hoes to ensure that all features are apparent. The next task
2227-414: A site reveals its stratigraphy; if a site was occupied by a succession of distinct cultures, artifacts from more recent cultures will lie above those from more ancient cultures. Excavation is the most expensive phase of archaeological research, in relative terms. Also, as a destructive process, it carries ethical concerns. As a result, very few sites are excavated in their entirety. Again the percentage of
2358-692: A slower pace than the general population. While absolute numbers of Otomi speakers continue to rise, their numbers relative to the Mexican population are falling. Although Otomi is vigorous in some areas, with children acquiring the language through natural transmission (e.g. in the Mezquital valley and in the Highlands), it is an endangered language . Three dialects in particular have reached moribund status: those of Ixtenco ( Tlaxcala state), Santiago Tilapa ( Mexico state ), and Cruz del Palmar ( Guanajuato state). On
2489-408: A sole source. The material record may be closer to a fair representation of society, though it is subject to its own biases, such as sampling bias and differential preservation. Often, archaeology provides the only means to learn of the existence and behaviors of people of the past. Across the millennia many thousands of cultures and societies and billions of people have come and gone of which there
2620-527: A stone wall, will develop more slowly, while those above other types of features (such as middens ) may develop more rapidly. Photographs of ripening grain , which changes colour rapidly at maturation, have revealed buried structures with great precision. Aerial photographs taken at different times of day will help show the outlines of structures by changes in shadows. Aerial survey also employs ultraviolet , infrared , ground-penetrating radar wavelengths, Lidar and thermography . Geophysical survey can be
2751-482: A systematic guide to the ruins and topography of ancient Rome in the early 15th century, for which he has been called an early founder of archaeology. Antiquarians of the 16th century, including John Leland and William Camden , conducted surveys of the English countryside, drawing, describing and interpreting the monuments that they encountered. The OED first cites "archaeologist" from 1824; this soon took over as
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#17330854538802882-421: A tail and a hook and an u with a tail) to represent the central vowels. Orthographies used to write modern Otomi have been a focus of controversy among field linguists for many years. Particularly contentious is the issue of whether or not to mark tone, and how, in orthographies to be used by native speakers. Many practical orthographies used by Otomi speakers do not include tone marking. Bartholomew has been
3013-495: A wide range of influences, including systems theory , neo-evolutionary thought , [35] phenomenology , postmodernism , agency theory , cognitive science , structural functionalism , Marxism , gender-based and feminist archaeology , queer theory , postcolonial thoughts , materiality , and posthumanism . An archaeological investigation usually involves several distinct phases, each of which employs its own variety of methods. Before any practical work can begin, however,
3144-519: Is found in the Valle de Mezquital region of Hidalgo and the southern portion of Querétaro . Some municipalities have concentrations of Otomi speakers as high as 60–70%. Because of recent migratory patterns, small populations of Otomi speakers can be found in new locations throughout Mexico and the United States. In the second half of the 20th century, speaker populations began to increase again, although at
3275-568: Is generally written ʉ or u̱, and front mid rounded vowel [ø] is written ø or o̱ . Letter a with trema , ä, is sometimes used for both the nasal vowel [ã] and the low back unrounded vowel [ʌ] . Glottalized consonants are written with apostrophe (e.g. tz' for [t͡sʔ] ) and palatal sibilant [ʃ] is written with x. This orthography has been adopted as official by the Otomi Language Academy centered in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo and
3406-474: Is indicated by the use of articles ; the nouns themselves are unmarked for number. In most dialects, the pronominal system distinguishes four persons (first person inclusive and exclusive , second person and third person) and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). The system below is from the Toluca dialect. The following atypical pronominal system from Tilapa Otomi lacks the inclusive/exclusive distinction in
3537-451: Is little or no written record or existing records are misrepresentative or incomplete. Writing as it is known today did not exist in human civilization until the 4th millennium BC, in a relatively small number of technologically advanced civilizations. In contrast, Homo sapiens has existed for at least 200,000 years, and other species of Homo for millions of years (see Human evolution ). These civilizations are, not coincidentally,
3668-506: Is marked by a suffix. If either subject or object is dual or plural, it is shown with a plural suffix following the object suffix. So the structure of the Otomi verb is as follows: The present tense prefixes are di - (1st person), gi - (2nd person), i - (3rd person). The Preterite is marked by the prefixes do-, ɡo-, and bi- , the Perfect by to-, ko-, ʃi- , the Imperfect by dimá, ɡimá, mi ,
3799-426: Is no one approach to archaeological theory that has been adhered to by all archaeologists. When archaeology developed in the late 19th century, the first approach to archaeological theory to be practised was that of cultural-historical archaeology , which held the goal of explaining why cultures changed and adapted rather than just highlighting the fact that they did, therefore emphasizing historical particularism . In
3930-475: Is noted by Cárceres, but he does not transcribe it. Cárceres used the letter æ for the low central unrounded vowel [ʌ] and æ with cedille for the high central unrounded vowel ɨ . He also transcribed glottalized consonants as geminates e.g. ttz for [t͡sʔ] . Cárceres used grave-accented vowels è and ò for [ɛ] and [ɔ] . In the 18th century Neve y Molina used vowels with macron ē and ō for these two vowels and invented extra letters (an e with
4061-499: Is now on display as the cornerstone exhibit of Acámbaro's railway museum. Another souvenir of Acámbaro's age of steam is a large model locomotive that sits on an elevated platform in the center of a major highway intersection east of the city. The model engine was originally intended to be placed in a church as a thanks by railway workers to the Virgen del Refugio (patron saint of the city) for bringing prosperity and jobs to Acámbaro, however,
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4192-443: Is reflected or emitted from the observed scene. Passive instruments sense only radiation emitted by the object being viewed or reflected by the object from a source other than the instrument. Active instruments emit energy and record what is reflected. Satellite imagery is an example of passive remote sensing. Here are two active remote sensing instruments: The archaeological project then continues (or alternatively, begins) with
4323-473: Is subsumed under Anaya/Mezquital. The following phonological description is that of the dialect of San Ildefonso Tultepec, Querétaro, similar to the system found in the Valle del Mezquital variety, which is the most widely spoken Otomian variety. The phoneme inventory of the Proto-Otomi language from which all modern varieties have descended has been reconstructed as /p t k (kʷ) ʔ b d ɡ t͡s ʃ h z m n w j/ ,
4454-428: Is surface survey. It involves combing an area, usually on foot but sometimes with the use of mechanized transport, to search for features or artifacts visible on the surface. Surface survey cannot detect sites or features that are completely buried under earth, or overgrown with vegetation. Surface survey may also include mini-excavation techniques such as augers , corers, and shovel test pits. If no materials are found,
4585-433: Is synthetic and has elements of both fusion and agglutination. Verb stems are inflected through a number of different processes: the initial consonant of the verb root changes according to a morphophonemic pattern of consonant mutations to mark present vs. non-present, and active vs. passive. Verbal roots may take a formative syllable or not depending on syntactic and prosodic factors. A nasal prefix may be added to
4716-685: Is synthetic, and the sentence level is analytic. Simultaneously, the language is head-marking in terms of its verbal morphology, and its nominal morphology is more analytic. According to the most common analysis, Otomi has two kinds of bound morphemes, pro clitics and affixes . Proclitics differ from affixes mainly in their phonological characteristics; they are marked for tone and block nasal harmony . Some authors consider proclitics to be better analyzed as prefixes. The standard orthography writes proclitics as separate words, whereas affixes are written joined to their host root. Most affixes are suffixes and with few exceptions occur only on verbs, whereas
4847-501: Is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture . The archaeological record consists of artifacts , architecture , biofacts or ecofacts, sites , and cultural landscapes . Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities . It is usually considered an independent academic discipline , but may also be classified as part of anthropology (in North America –
4978-548: Is the term used to define the Otomi spoken in the early centuries of colonial rule. This historical stage of the language was given Latin orthography and documented by Spanish friars who learned it in order to proselytize among the Otomi. Text in Classical Otomi is not readily comprehensible since the Spanish-speaking friars failed to differentiate the varied vowel and consonant phonemes used in Otomi. Friars and monks from
5109-645: Is through archaeology. Because archaeology is the study of past human activity, it stretches back to about 2.5 million years ago when the first stone tools are found – The Oldowan Industry . Many important developments in human history occurred during prehistory, such as the evolution of humanity during the Paleolithic period, when the hominins developed from the australopithecines in Africa and eventually into modern Homo sapiens . Archaeology also sheds light on many of humanity's technological advances, for instance
5240-431: Is to form a site plan and then use it to help decide the method of excavation. Features dug into the natural subsoil are normally excavated in portions to produce a visible archaeological section for recording. A feature, for example a pit or a ditch, consists of two parts: the cut and the fill . The cut describes the edge of the feature, where the feature meets the natural soil. It is the feature's boundary. The fill
5371-451: Is used for issuing direct orders. Verbs expressing movement towards the speaker such as ʔįhį 'come' use a different set of prefixes for marking person/ TAM . These prefixes can also be used with other verbs to express 'to do something while coming this way'. In Toluca Otomi mba - is the third person singular Imperfect prefix for movement verbs. mba-tųhų 3 / MVMT / IMPERF -sing Archeology Archaeology or archeology
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5502-517: Is used on road signs in the Mezquital region and in publications in the Mezquital variety, such as the large 2004 SIL dictionary published by Hernández Cruz, Victoria Torquemada & Sinclair Crawford (2004) . A slightly modified version is used by Enrique Palancar in his grammar of the San Ildefonso Tultepec variety. The morphosyntactic typology of Otomi displays a mixture of synthetic and analytic structures. The phrase level morphology
5633-420: Is what the feature is filled with, and will often appear quite distinct from the natural soil. The cut and fill are given consecutive numbers for recording purposes. Scaled plans and sections of individual features are all drawn on site, black and white and colour photographs of them are taken, and recording sheets are filled in describing the context of each. All this information serves as a permanent record of
5764-652: The EZLN and indigenous social movements. Decentralized government agencies were created and charged with promoting and protecting indigenous communities and languages; these include the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) and the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI) . In particular, the federal Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ("General Law on
5895-735: The Mudéjar style (1527), and a stone bridge over the River Lerma (1750). The first bullfights on the soil of New Spain were held in Acámbaro, and the Fuente Taurina fountain in the city's plaza commemorates the introduction of the sport to Mexico. Acámbaro is the only city in Mexico that has a fully intact colonial-era aqueduct. The 18th century brought prosperity to Acámbaro. In that time important religious and public buildings were constructed. Several temples, bridges, and houses were left as remnants of
6026-452: The Museo Local de Acámbaro , which has over 4000 relics relating to local Mesoamerican cultures. The Museo Local also contains paintings related to colonial Mexico and the war of independence . Pan de Acámbaro (Acambaro bread), Acámbaro's most famous culinary export, is a bakery product similar to Jewish Challah (It is supposed that the similarity is not coincidental). The largest of
6157-576: The National Railways of Mexico (The rail lines are now owned by Kansas City Southern de Mexico ). Acámbaro was the home of the only full scale locomotive repair facility in Latin America that was capable of constructing steam locomotives. During 1944 Acámbaro's mechanical workshop built La Fidelita 296 , a steam engine that is a symbol of a time in history of the Acambarense society. La Fidelita
6288-469: The caron ( ǎ ). Nasal vowels are marked with a rightward curving hook ( ogonek ) at the bottom of the vowel letter: į, ę, ą, ų. The letter c denotes [t͡s] , y denotes [j] , the palatal sibilant [ʃ] is written with the letter š , and the palatal nasal [ɲ] is written ñ . The remaining symbols are from the IPA with their standard values. Colonial documents in Classical Otomi do not generally capture all
6419-546: The four-field approach ), history or geography . Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology , which is the study of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for which, by definition, there are no written records. Prehistory includes over 99% of
6550-480: The looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, and opposition to the excavation of human remains. In Ancient Mesopotamia , a foundation deposit of the Akkadian Empire ruler Naram-Sin (ruled c. 2200 BC ) was discovered and analysed by king Nabonidus , c. 550 BC , who is thus known as the first archaeologist. Not only did he lead the first excavations which were to find
6681-567: The trench method , on several Native American burial mounds in Virginia . His excavations were prompted by the "Moundbuilders" question ; however, his careful methods led him to admit he saw no reason why ancestors of the Native Americans of his time could not have raised those mounds. One of the major achievements of 19th-century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy . The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods
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#17330854538806812-549: The 1870s. These scholars individuated nine different cities that had overlapped with one another, from prehistory to the Hellenistic period . Meanwhile, the work of Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos in Crete revealed the ancient existence of an equally advanced Minoan civilization . The next major figure in the development of archaeology was Sir Mortimer Wheeler , whose highly disciplined approach to excavation and systematic coverage in
6943-642: The 1920s and 1930s brought the science on swiftly. Wheeler developed the grid system of excavation , which was further improved by his student Kathleen Kenyon . Archaeology became a professional activity in the first half of the 20th century, and it became possible to study archaeology as a subject in universities and even schools. By the end of the 20th century nearly all professional archaeologists, at least in developed countries, were graduates. Further adaptation and innovation in archaeology continued in this period, when maritime archaeology and urban archaeology became more prevalent and rescue archaeology
7074-705: The Future by ɡo-, ɡi-, and da- , and the Pluperfect by tamą-, kimą-, kamą-. All tenses use the same suffixes as the Present tense for dual and plural numbers and clusivity. The difference between Preterite and Imperfect is similar to the distinction between the Spanish Preterite habló 'he spoke (punctual)' and the Spanish Imperfect hablaba 'he spoke/he used to speak/he was speaking (non-punctual)'. In Toluca Otomi,
7205-577: The Language Rights of the Indigenous Peoples"), promulgated on 13 March 2003, recognizes all of Mexico's indigenous languages, including Otomi, as " national languages ", and gave indigenous people the right to speak them in every sphere of public and private life. Currently, Otomi dialects are spoken by circa 239,000 speakers—some 5 to 6 percent of whom are monolingual —in widely scattered districts (see map). The highest concentration of speakers
7336-464: The Nahuatl names. For example, the Nahuatl place name Tenochtitlān , "place of Opuntia cactus", was rendered as *ʔmpôndo in proto-Otomi, with the same meaning. At the time of the Spanish conquest of central Mexico, Otomi had a much wider distribution than now, with sizeable Otomi speaking areas existing in the modern states of Jalisco and Michoacán . After the conquest, the Otomi people experienced
7467-497: The Otomi language started to change in 2003 when Otomi was granted recognition as a national language under Mexican law together with 61 other indigenous languages. Otomi comes from the Nahuatl word otomitl , which in turn possibly derived from an older word, totomitl "shooter of birds." It is an exonym ; the Otomi refer to their language as Hñähñú, Hñähño, Hñotho, Hñähü, Hñätho, Hyųhų, Yųhmų, Ñųhų, Ñǫthǫ, or Ñañhų , depending on
7598-740: The Proto-Otomi clusters *ʔm and *ʔn before oral vowels have become /ʔb/ and /ʔd/ , respectively. In most dialects *n has become /ɾ/ , as in the singular determiner and the second person possessive marker. The only dialects to preserve /n/ in these words are the Eastern dialects, and in Tilapa these instances of *n have become /d/ . Many dialects have merged the vowels *ɔ and *a into /a/ as in Mezquital Otomi, whereas others such as Ixtenco Otomi have merged *ɔ with *o . The different dialects have between three and five nasal vowels. In addition to
7729-497: The Song period, were revived in the 17th century during the Qing dynasty , but were always considered a branch of Chinese historiography rather than a separate discipline of archaeology. In Renaissance Europe , philosophical interest in the remains of Greco - Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Ages , with humanism . Cyriacus of Ancona
7860-500: The Spanish mendicant orders such as the Franciscans wrote Otomi grammars, the earliest of which is Friar Pedro de Cárceres's Arte de la lengua othomí [ sic ], written perhaps as early as 1580, but not published until 1907. In 1605, Alonso de Urbano wrote a trilingual Spanish- Nahuatl -Otomi dictionary, which included a small set of grammatical notes about Otomi. The grammarian of Nahuatl, Horacio Carochi , has written
7991-586: The Spanish language and Mestizo cultural identities. Coupled with a policy of castellanización this led to a rapid decline of speakers of all indigenous languages including Otomi, during the early 20th century. During the 1990s, however, the Mexican government made a reversal in policies towards indigenous and linguistic rights, prompted by the 1996 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights and domestic social and political agitation by various groups such as social and political agitation by
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#17330854538808122-602: The Spanish military engineer Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum , both of which had been covered by ash during the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 . These excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, as well the unearthing of frescos , had
8253-559: The Spanish trilled [r] , and /s/ , which is not present in native Otomi vocabulary either. All Otomi languages are tonal , and most varieties have three tones, high, low and rising. One variety of the Sierra dialect, that of San Gregorio, has been analyzed as having a fourth, falling tone. In Mezquital Otomi, suffixes are never specified for tone, while in Tenango Otomi, the only syllables not specified for tone are prepause syllables and
8384-753: The UK, metal detectorists have been solicited for involvement in the Portable Antiquities Scheme . Regional survey in underwater archaeology uses geophysical or remote sensing devices such as marine magnetometer, side-scan sonar , or sub-bottom sonar. Archaeological excavation existed even when the field was still the domain of amateurs, and it remains the source of the majority of data recovered in most field projects. It can reveal several types of information usually not accessible to survey, such as stratigraphy , three-dimensional structure, and verifiably primary context. Modern excavation techniques require that
8515-426: The ability to use fire, the development of stone tools , the discovery of metallurgy , the beginnings of religion and the creation of agriculture . Without archaeology, little or nothing would be known about the use of material culture by humanity that pre-dates writing. However, it is not only prehistoric, pre-literate cultures that can be studied using archaeology but historic, literate cultures as well, through
8646-537: The academic designation from Otomi to Hñähñú , the endonym used by the Otomi of the Mezquital Valley ; however, no common endonym exists for all dialects of the language. The Oto-Pamean languages are thought to have split from the other Oto-Manguean languages around 3500 BC. Within the Otomian branch, Proto-Otomi seems to have split from Proto-Mazahua ca. 500 AD. Around 1000 AD, Proto-Otomi began diversifying into
8777-408: The archaeological excavations being conducted at Pompeii and Herculaneum . He was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art He was one of the first to separate Greek art into periods and time classifications. Winckelmann has been called both "The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology " and
8908-434: The area surveyed is deemed sterile . Aerial survey is conducted using cameras attached to airplanes , balloons , UAVs , or even Kites . A bird's-eye view is useful for quick mapping of large or complex sites. Aerial photographs are used to document the status of the archaeological dig. Aerial imaging can also detect many things not visible from the surface. Plants growing above a buried human-made structure, such as
9039-555: The artifacts they had found in chronological order. A major figure in the development of archaeology into a rigorous science was army officer and ethnologist Augustus Pitt Rivers , who began excavations on his land in England in the 1880s. Highly methodical by the standards of the time, he is widely regarded as the first scientific archaeologist. He arranged his artifacts by type or " Typology (archaeology) ", and within types chronologically. This style of arrangement, designed to highlight
9170-402: The basic word order is Verb Subject Object , but some dialects tend towards Subject Verb Object word order, probably under the influence of Spanish. Possessive constructions use the order possessed-possessor , but modificational constructions use modifier -head order. From the variety of Santiago Mexquititlan, Queretaro, here is an example of a complex verb phrase with four suffixes and
9301-563: The best-known; they are open to the inquiry of historians for centuries, while the study of pre-historic cultures has arisen only recently. Within a literate civilization many events and important human practices may not be officially recorded. Any knowledge of the early years of human civilization – the development of agriculture, cult practices of folk religion, the rise of the first cities – must come from archaeology. In addition to their scientific importance, archaeological remains sometimes have political or cultural significance to descendants of
9432-518: The city's colonial architecture. An important event in the history of Mexican independence took place in Acámbaro. Don Miguel Hidalgo stayed there on October 22, 1810, and brought a ceremony that declared Acámbaro military quarters for the Ejército Grande de América (Grand Army of America). Hidalgo was given the title of Generalísimo de las Américas (Grand General of the Americas). That same day,
9563-449: The colony, the Nahuas' negative image of the Otomi people was perpetuated throughout the colonial period. This tendency towards devaluing and stigmatizing the Otomi cultural identity relative to other Indigenous groups gave impetus to the process of language loss and mestizaje , as many Otomies opted to adopt the Spanish language and customs in search of social mobility. " Classical Otomi "
9694-533: The degree of mutual intelligibility between varieties. It assigns an ISO code to each of these nine. INALI , the Mexican National Institute of Indigenous Languages, avoids the problem of assigning dialect or language status to Otomian varieties by defining "Otomi" as a "linguistic group" with nine different "linguistic varieties". Still, for official purposes, each variety is considered a separate language. Other linguists, however, consider Otomi to be
9825-411: The dialect. Most of those forms are composed of two morphemes , meaning "speak" and "well" respectively. The word Otomi entered the Spanish language through Nahuatl and describes the larger Otomi macroethnic group and the dialect continuum. From Spanish, the word Otomi has become entrenched in the linguistic and anthropological literature. Among linguists, the suggestion has been made to change
9956-473: The early 20th century, many archaeologists who studied past societies with direct continuing links to existing ones (such as those of Native Americans , Siberians , Mesoamericans etc.) followed the direct historical approach , compared the continuity between the past and contemporary ethnic and cultural groups. In the 1960s, an archaeological movement largely led by American archaeologists like Lewis Binford and Kent Flannery arose that rebelled against
10087-485: The eastern dialect of San Pablito Pahuatlan in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, and Otomi of Santa Ana Hueytlalpan. A voiceless aspirate stop series /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ , derived from earlier clusters of stop + [h] , occurs in most dialects, but it has turned into the fricatives /ɸ θ x/ in most Western dialects. Some dialects have innovated a palatal nasal /ɲ/ from earlier sequences of *j and a nasal vowel. In several dialects,
10218-628: The empirical evidence that existed for the understanding of the past, encapsulated in the motto of the 18th century antiquary, Sir Richard Colt Hoare : "We speak from facts, not theory". Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment period in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. In Imperial China during the Song dynasty (960–1279), figures such as Ouyang Xiu and Zhao Mingcheng established
10349-639: The established cultural-history archaeology. They proposed a "New Archaeology", which would be more "scientific" and "anthropological", with hypothesis testing and the scientific method very important parts of what became known as processual archaeology . In the 1980s, a new postmodern movement arose led by the British archaeologists Michael Shanks , Christopher Tilley , Daniel Miller , and Ian Hodder , which has become known as post-processual archaeology . It questioned processualism's appeals to scientific positivism and impartiality, and emphasized
10480-620: The evolutionary trends in human artifacts, was of enormous significance for the accurate dating of the objects. His most important methodological innovation was his insistence that all artifacts, not just beautiful or unique ones, be collected and catalogued. William Flinders Petrie is another man who may legitimately be called the Father of Archaeology. His painstaking recording and study of artifacts, both in Egypt and later in Palestine , laid down many of
10611-533: The father of the discipline of art history . The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington (1754–1810). He undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows , and the terms he used to categorize and describe them are still used by archaeologists today. Future U.S. President Thomas Jefferson also did his own excavations in 1784 using
10742-746: The fifteenth century, and the general accuracy of his records entitles him to be called the founding father of modern classical archeology." He traveled throughout Greece and all around the Eastern Mediterranean, to record his findings on ancient buildings, statues and inscriptions, including archaeological remains still unknown to his time: the Parthenon , Delphi , the Egyptian pyramids , the hieroglyphics . He noted down his archaeological discoveries in his diary, Commentaria (in six volumes). Flavio Biondo , an Italian Renaissance humanist historian, created
10873-640: The figurines resembled dinosaurs (thus implying that man and dinosaurs co-existed) and their discovery is used by some as evidence to support creationism . Many of the Julsrud finds are now on display at the Museo Waldemar Julsrud . Less controversial archeological artifacts are on display at the Museo de Chupícuaro (also known as Museo Fray Bernardo Padilla ), documenting the history of the Chupícuaro people, and
11004-528: The first history books of India. One of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey (1626–1697) was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings. He attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out by
11135-476: The first person plural and the dual/plural distinction in the second person. Otomi nouns are marked only for their possessor; plurality is expressed via pronouns and articles . There is no case marking. The particular pattern of possessive inflection is a widespread trait in the Mesoamerican linguistic area : there is a prefix agreeing in person with the possessor, and if the possessor is plural or dual, then
11266-498: The foundation deposits of the temples of Šamaš the sun god, the warrior goddess Anunitu (both located in Sippar ), and the sanctuary that Naram-Sin built to the moon god, located in Harran , but he also had them restored to their former glory. He was also the first to date an archaeological artifact in his attempt to date Naram-Sin's temple during his search for it. Even though his estimate
11397-425: The four nasal vowels of proto-Otomi, some dialects have /õ/ . Ixtenco Otomi has only /ẽ ũ ɑ̃/ , whereas Toluca Otomi has /ĩ ũ ɑ̃/ . In the Otomi of Cruz del Palmar, Guanjuato, the nasal vowels are /ĩ ũ õ/ , the former *ɑ̃ having changed to /õ/ . Modern Otomi has borrowed many words from Spanish, in addition to new phonemes that occur only in loan words, such as /l/ that appears in some Otomi dialects instead of
11528-485: The human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies around the world. Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. Derived from Greek, the term archaeology means "the study of ancient history". The discipline involves surveying , excavation , and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about
11659-468: The ideas behind modern archaeological recording; he remarked that "I believe the true line of research lies in the noting and comparison of the smallest details." Petrie developed the system of dating layers based on pottery and ceramic findings , which revolutionized the chronological basis of Egyptology . Petrie was the first to scientifically investigate the Great Pyramid in Egypt during the 1880s. He
11790-472: The importance of a more self-critical theoretical reflexivity . However, this approach has been criticized by processualists as lacking scientific rigor, and the validity of both processualism and post-processualism is still under debate. Meanwhile, another theory, known as historical processualism , has emerged seeking to incorporate a focus on process and post-processual archaeology's emphasis of reflexivity and history. Archaeological theory now borrows from
11921-500: The language using the Latin script ; colonial period's written language is often called Classical Otomi . Several codices and grammars were composed in Classical Otomi. A negative stereotype of the Otomi promoted by the Nahuas and perpetuated by the Spanish resulted in a loss of status for the Otomi, who began to abandon their language in favor of Spanish. The attitude of the larger world toward
12052-507: The languages spoken in Teotihuacan , the greatest Mesoamerican ceremonial center of the Classic period, the demise of which occurred ca. 600 AD. The Precolumbian Otomi people did not have a fully developed writing system . However, Aztec writing , largely ideographic, could be read in Otomi as well as Nahuatl. The Otomi often translated names of places or rulers into Otomi rather than using
12183-418: The last syllable of polysyllabic words. Stress in Otomi is not phonemic but rather falls predictably on every other syllable, with the first syllable of a root always being stressed. In this article, the orthography of Lastra (various, including 1996, 2006) is employed which marks syllabic tone. The low tone is unmarked ( a ), the high level tone is marked with the acute accent ( á ), and the rising tone with
12314-444: The lives and interests of the populace. Writings that were produced by people more representative of the general population were unlikely to find their way into libraries and be preserved there for posterity. Thus, written records tend to reflect the biases, assumptions, cultural values and possibly deceptions of a limited range of individuals, usually a small fraction of the larger population. Hence, written records cannot be trusted as
12445-488: The local museum. The city was founded on September 19, 1526, by the cacique Don Nicolás de San Luis Montañés , with the name San Francisco de Acámbaro . It was the first Spanish town in what is now the state of Guanajuato . The evangelization process was undertaken by Franciscan friars , who also constructed splendid structures that remain standing today, such as the Templo del Hospital (Hospital Temple), an aqueduct in
12576-665: The locations of monumental sites from the local populace, and excavating only the plainly visible features there. Gordon Willey pioneered the technique of regional settlement pattern survey in 1949 in the Viru Valley of coastal Peru , and survey of all levels became prominent with the rise of processual archaeology some years later. Survey work has many benefits if performed as a preliminary exercise to, or even in place of, excavation. It requires relatively little time and expense, because it does not require processing large volumes of soil to search out artifacts. (Nevertheless, surveying
12707-565: The model would not fit through the doorway of the church. Consequently, it was decided to mount the model outdoors. Acámbaro has been notable as a point of controversy in the field of archeology as the source of the Acámbaro figures , a collection of about 32,000 clay figurines discovered by German archaeologist Waldemar Julsrud in 1944 near the city's most prominent landmark, the Cerro del Toro (Bull Hill). The figures are claimed to be hoaxes, as some of
12838-452: The modern Otomi varieties. Much of central Mexico was inhabited by speakers of the Oto-Pamean languages before the arrival of Nahuatl speakers; beyond this, the geographical distribution of the ancestral stages of most modern indigenous languages of Mexico, and their associations with various civilizations remain undetermined. It has been proposed that Proto-Otomi-Mazahua most likely was one of
12969-432: The more innovative dialects, such as those of Querétaro and of the Mezquital area, distinguish only singular and plural numbers, sometimes using the previous dual forms as a paucal number. The Ixtenco dialect distinguishes singular, plural, and mass plural numbers. The personal prefixes distinguish four persons, making for a total of eleven categories of grammatical person in most dialects. The grammatical number of nouns
13100-720: The most effective way to see beneath the ground. Magnetometers detect minute deviations in the Earth's magnetic field caused by iron artifacts, kilns , some types of stone structures , and even ditches and middens. Devices that measure the electrical resistivity of the soil are also widely used. Archaeological features whose electrical resistivity contrasts with that of surrounding soils can be detected and mapped. Some archaeological features (such as those composed of stone or brick) have higher resistivity than typical soils, while others (such as organic deposits or unfired clay) tend to have lower resistivity. Although some archaeologists consider
13231-536: The national average. The Otomi languages belongs to the Oto-Pamean branch of the Oto-Manguean languages . Within Oto-Pamean, it is part of the Otomian subgroup, which also includes Mazahua . Otomi has traditionally been described as a single language, although its many dialects are not all mutually intelligible. SIL International's Ethnologue considers nine separate Otomi languages based on literature needs and
13362-703: The noun is also marked with a suffix that agrees in number with the possessor. Demonstrated below is the inflectional paradigm for the word ngų ́ "house" in the dialect of Toluca. Definite articles preceding the noun are used to express plurality in nominal elements, since the nouns themselves are invariant for grammatical number. Most dialects have rʌ 'the (singular)' and yʌ 'the (dual/plural)'. Example noun phrases: Classical Otomi, as described by Cárceres, distinguished neutral, honorific, and pejorative definite articles: ąn , neutral singular; o , honorific singular; nø̌ , pejorative singular; e , neutral and honorific plural; and yo , pejorative plural. Verb morphology
13493-443: The now-destroyed archaeology and is used in describing and interpreting the site. Once artifacts and structures have been excavated, or collected from surface surveys, it is necessary to properly study them. This process is known as post-excavation analysis , and is usually the most time-consuming part of an archaeological investigation. It is not uncommon for final excavation reports for major sites to take years to be published. At
13624-416: The oral vowels /i ɨ u e ø o ɛ a ɔ/ , and the nasal vowels /ĩ ũ ẽ ɑ̃/ . Modern dialects have undergone various changes from the common historic phonemic inventory. Most have voiced the reconstructed Proto-Otomian voiceless nonaspirate stops /p t k/ and now have only the voiced series /b d ɡ/ . The only dialects to retain all the original voiceless nonaspirate stops are Otomi of Tilapa and Acazulco and
13755-432: The origin of the nationally famous Acámbaro bread. The 2005 census population of the municipality was 101,762, and that of the city proper 55,082. The municipality covers an area of 877.8 km (335.01 sq mi) and includes many small outlying communities, the largest of which are Iramuco and Parácuaro . The municipality of Acámbaro is bordered to the north by Tarimoro and Jerécuaro , to the southeast by Tarandacuao , to
13886-529: The original research objectives of the archaeologists. It is then considered good practice for the information to be published so that it is available to other archaeologists and historians, although this is sometimes neglected. Before actually starting to dig in a location, remote sensing can be used to look where sites are located within a large area or provide more information about sites or regions. There are two types of remote sensing instruments—passive and active. Passive instruments detect natural energy that
14017-599: The other hand, the level of monolingualism in Otomi is as high as 22.3% in Huehuetla , Hidalgo, and 13.1% in Texcatepec , Veracruz). Monolingualism is usually significantly higher among women than among men. Due to the politics from the 1920s to the 1980s that encouraged the "Hispanification" of indigenous communities and made Spanish the only language used in schools, no group of Otomi speakers today has general literacy in Otomi, while their literacy rate in Spanish remains far below
14148-682: The past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, and has since become a discipline practiced around the world. Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Since its early development, various specific sub-disciplines of archaeology have developed, including maritime archaeology , feminist archaeology , and archaeoastronomy , and numerous different scientific techniques have been developed to aid archaeological investigation. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology ,
14279-693: The people who produced them, monetary value to collectors, or strong aesthetic appeal. Many people identify archaeology with the recovery of such aesthetic, religious, political, or economic treasures rather than with the reconstruction of past societies. This view is often espoused in works of popular fiction, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy, and King Solomon's Mines. When unrealistic subjects are treated more seriously, accusations of pseudoscience are invariably levelled at their proponents (see Pseudoarchaeology ) . However, these endeavours, real and fictional, are not representative of modern archaeology. There
14410-579: The phonological contrasts of the Otomi language. Since the friars who alphabetized the Otomi populations were Spanish speakers, it was difficult for them to perceive contrasts that were present in Otomi but absent in Spanish, such as nasalisation, tone, the large vowel inventory as well as aspirated and glottal consonants. Even when they recognized that there were additional phonemic contrasts in Otomi they often had difficulties choosing how to transcribe them and with doing so consistently. No colonial documents include information on tone. The existence of nasalization
14541-422: The plural number is marked with a definite article and a verbal suffix, and some dialects keep dual number marking. There is no case marking. Verb morphology is either fusional or agglutinating depending on the analysis. In verb inflection, infixation, consonant mutation, and apocope are prominent processes. The number of irregular verbs is large. A class of morphemes cross-references the grammatical subject in
14672-550: The precise locations of objects and features, known as their provenance or provenience, be recorded. This always involves determining their horizontal locations, and sometimes vertical position as well (also see Primary Laws of Archaeology ). Likewise, their association , or relationship with nearby objects and features , needs to be recorded for later analysis. This allows the archaeologist to deduce which artifacts and features were likely used together and which may be from different phases of activity. For example, excavation of
14803-405: The proclitics occur both in nominal and verbal paradigms. Proclitics mark the categories of definiteness and number, person, negation, tense and aspect – often fused in a single proclitic. Suffixes mark direct and indirect objects as well as clusivity (the distinction between inclusive and exclusive "we"), number, location and affective emphasis. Historically, as in other Oto-Manguean languages,
14934-599: The root to express reciprocality or middle voice . Some dialects, notably the eastern ones, have a system of verb classes that take different series of prefixes. These conjugational categories have been lost in the Western dialects, although they existed in the Western areas in the colonial period as can be seen from Cárceres's grammar. Verbs are inflected for either direct object or indirect object (but not for both simultaneously) by suffixes. The categories of person of subject, tense, aspect, and mood are marked simultaneously with
15065-446: The same language. They concluded that Texcatepec, Eastern Highland Otomi , and Tenango may be considered the same language at a lower threshold of 70% intelligibility. Ethnologue finds a similar lower level of 70% intelligibility between Querétaro, Mezquital, and Mexico State Otomi. The Ethnologue Temaoya Otomi is split off from Mexico State Otomi, and introduce Tilapa Otomi as a separate language; while Egland's poorly tested Zozea Otomi
15196-524: The semantic difference between the two subjunctive forms (A and B) has not yet been clearly understood in the linguistic literature. Sometimes subjunctive B implicates that is more recent in time than subjunctive A. Both indicate something counterfactual. In other Otomi dialects, such as Otomi of Ixtenco Tlaxcala, the distinction between the two forms is one of subjunctive as opposed to irrealis . The Past and Present Progressive are similar in meaning to English 'was' and 'is X-ing', respectively. The Imperative
15327-472: The six city bakeries devoted to the production of Pan de Acámbaro is Tio Sams (Uncle Sam's), which claims credit for its invention. Photos of Acámbaro's annual bread fair 20°02′10″N 100°43′53″W / 20.03611°N 100.73139°W / 20.03611; -100.73139 Otomi language Like all other Oto-Manguean languages , Otomi is a tonal language , and most varieties distinguish three tones. Nouns are marked only for possessor;
15458-524: The south by the state of Michoacán , and to the west by Salvatierra . The name Acámbaro is derived from a Purépechan term meaning place of magueyes . The first inhabitants of this area belonged to the Chupicuaro culture , one of the oldest in Mesoamerica . Their origin is estimated to be from 1200 B.C. In this region there have been valuable archaeological finds of ceramic that are now exhibited at
15589-475: The sub-discipline of historical archaeology . For many literate cultures, such as Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia , their surviving records are often incomplete and biased to some extent. In many societies, literacy was restricted to the elite classes, such as the clergy , or the bureaucracy of court or temple. The literacy of aristocrats has sometimes been restricted to deeds and contracts. The interests and world-view of elites are often quite different from
15720-436: The tone diacritics correctly. For Mezquital Otomi, Bernard accordingly created an orthography in which tone was indicated only when necessary to disambiguate between two words and in which the only symbols used were those available on a standard Spanish language typewriter (employing for example the letter c for [ɔ] , v for [ʌ] , and the symbol + for [ɨ] ). Bernard's orthography has not been influential and in used only in
15851-555: The tradition of Chinese epigraphy by investigating, preserving, and analyzing ancient Chinese bronze inscriptions from the Shang and Zhou periods. In his book published in 1088, Shen Kuo criticized contemporary Chinese scholars for attributing ancient bronze vessels as creations of famous sages rather than artisan commoners, and for attempting to revive them for ritual use without discerning their original functionality and purpose of manufacture. Such antiquarian pursuits waned after
15982-576: The use of metal detectors to be tantamount to treasure hunting, others deem them an effective tool in archaeological surveying. Examples of formal archaeological use of metal detectors include musketball distribution analysis on English Civil War battlefields, metal distribution analysis prior to excavation of a 19th-century ship wreck, and service cable location during evaluation. Metal detectorists have also contributed to archaeology where they have made detailed records of their results and refrained from raising artifacts from their archaeological context. In
16113-472: The usual term for one major branch of antiquarian activity. "Archaeology", from 1607 onward, initially meant what we would call "ancient history" generally, with the narrower modern sense first seen in 1837. However, it was Jacob Spon who, in 1685, offered one of the earliest definitions of "archaeologia" to describe the study of antiquities in which he was engaged, in the preface of a collection of transcriptions of Roman inscriptions which he had gleaned over
16244-862: The valley of Toluca, and Eastern Otomi spoken in the Highlands of Northern Puebla, Veracruz and Hidalgo, in Tlaxcala and two towns in the Toluca Valley, San Jerónimo Acazulco and Santiago Tilapa . The Northwestern varieties are characterized by an innovative phonology and grammar, whereas the Eastern varieties are more conservative. The assignment of dialects to the three groups is as follows: Egland, Bartholomew & Cruz Ramos (1983) conducted mutual intelligibility tests in which they concluded that eight varieties of Otomi could be considered separate languages in regards to mutual intelligibility, with 80% intelligibility being needed for varieties to be considered part of
16375-495: The works published by himself and the Otomi author Jesus Salinas Pedraza. Practical orthographies used to promote Otomi literacy have been designed and published by the Instituto Lingüístico de Verano and later by the national institute for indigenous languages ( INALI ). Generally they use diareses ë and ö to distinguish the low mid vowels [ɛ] and [ɔ] from the high mid vowels e and o. High central vowel [ɨ]
16506-412: The years of his travels, entitled Miscellanea eruditae antiquitatis. Twelfth-century Indian scholar Kalhana 's writings involved recording of local traditions, examining manuscripts, inscriptions, coins and architectures, which is described as one of the earliest traces of archaeology. One of his notable work is called Rajatarangini which was completed in c. 1150 and is described as one of
16637-516: Was a restlessly itinerant Italian humanist and antiquarian who came from a prominent family of merchants in Ancona , a maritime republic on the Adriatic . He was called by his contemporaries pater antiquitatis ('father of antiquity') and today "father of classical archaeology": "Cyriac of Ancona was the most enterprising and prolific recorder of Greek and Roman antiquities, particularly inscriptions, in
16768-421: Was also responsible for mentoring and training a whole generation of Egyptologists, including Howard Carter who went on to achieve fame with the discovery of the tomb of 14th-century BC pharaoh Tutankhamun . The first stratigraphic excavation to reach wide popularity with public was that of Hissarlik , on the site of ancient Troy , carried out by Heinrich Schliemann , Frank Calvert and Wilhelm Dörpfeld in
16899-423: Was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith , James Hutton and Charles Lyell . The systematic application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites. In the third and fourth decades of the 19th century, archaeologists like Jacques Boucher de Perthes and Christian Jürgensen Thomsen began to put
17030-421: Was developed as a result of increasing commercial development. The purpose of archaeology is to learn more about past societies and the development of the human race . Over 99% of the development of humanity has occurred within prehistoric cultures, who did not make use of writing , thereby no written records exist for study purposes. Without such written sources, the only way to understand prehistoric societies
17161-504: Was inaccurate by about 1,500 years, it was still a very good one considering the lack of accurate dating technology at the time. The science of archaeology (from Greek ἀρχαιολογία , archaiologia from ἀρχαῖος , arkhaios , "ancient" and -λογία , -logia , " -logy ") grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism . Antiquarians studied history with particular attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts, as well as historical sites. Antiquarianism focused on
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