South Asian Archaeology: the role of Marshall and Wheeler
- Created by: Lauriie
- Created on: 18-04-18 12:29
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- Mortimer Wheeler and John Marshall's role in south asian archaeology
- Wheeler
- bringing scientific techniques into common use
- techniques of Pitt Rivers-stratigraphy, careful recording. compare this to large scale horizontal excavations of Indus sites
- scathing critic of Marshall's leadership and methods
- vertical excavations used to find long stratigraphic sequences
- developed the use of Box grids as an innovation in archaeology at large
- use of pottery typology, introducing one of the most widely used tools in South asian archaology
- stratified ceramic material was used for determining the cultural sequence of a site and comparing it with other sites
- encourages precise techniques adapted from the natural sciences
- many of his students such as BB Lal criticised his conclusions without rejecting his methodology
- emphasis on careful planning- shown in practice in excavations at Taxila, Harappa and Arikamedu
- techniques of Pitt Rivers-stratigraphy, careful recording. compare this to large scale horizontal excavations of Indus sites
- obtaining a master chronology for the entire country
- broad view- from the paleolithic onwards
- Education of Indian students, encouraged Indian Universities to begin training archaologists
- Field school at Taxila
- prepared the way for post-partition archaeology in India and Pakistan
- gave archaeology credibility as a scientific discipline at a time when the new Indian government was strongly pushing science
- Guha 2003
- chakrabarti : 'He prepared the archaeology of the subcontinent for its transition to Modernity in the post-partition period.'
- gave archaeology credibility as a scientific discipline at a time when the new Indian government was strongly pushing science
- criticised for colonial attitude towards the work
- jumping to conclusions too quickly- legacy of incorrect information
- dating of the bala hisar at charsadda
- theory of Aryan invaders destringthe Indus civilisatiin
- bringing scientific techniques into common use
- Marshall
- experience of excavations at Knossos under sir Arthur Evans
- western techniques of horizontal excavation
- production of detailed site plans
- Excavations at Taxila, Harappa, Mohenjo-daro
- Established cautious chronologies and inferences, many of which still hold
- 'Marshall exposed an entire civilisation where we might have added a chapter to our book of 'cultures' ' (Wheeler, 1950)
- a lot of detailed evidence lost
- in a very short time, uncovered a massive city, giving us broad understanding of town plans, size, etc
- the discovery of the indus civilisation really revolutionised the perspectives of Indian archaeology
- prioritised conservation of sites and artefacts
- encouraged survey and excavation of the whole country
- excavations of taxila, Bhita, Sarnath etc gave important perspective and life to the view of Early Historic\Bhuddist South Asia
- experience of excavations at Knossos under sir Arthur Evans
- Wheeler
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