ABSTRACT
In the late decades of the nineteenth century European scientists arrived at a startling conclusion. They realized that not only had the earth existed for a vast length of time, but also humans had lived in that ancient world. The realization that people had existed in a period so remote it was long before the invention of writing brought with it the puzzle of how modern researchers could learn of those ancient lives. Nineteenth century archaeologists sometimes wrote poetically about their concern that we may never have detailed knowledge about the ancient human past before written records. For example, the Scandinavian scientist Sven Nilsson (1868), one of the founders of archaeology, described the lives of ancient people, prior to the advent of written records, as being enveloped in obscurity, while Victorian politician and scientist Sir John Lubbock (1872) employed a similar metaphor, saying the past is hidden from the present by a veil so thick that it cannot be penetrated by either history or tradition. Nowadays the task of seeing beyond this veil of obscurity, to reveal something of the unwritten past, falls mainly on archaeology, a distinctive scientific discipline. By studying the material remains of past human activities archaeologists make statements about the lives of people long dead, and reconstruct an image of their economy, social interactions and perceptions of the world.
