Archaeology Quotes

“My father—who is a true scholar and not just a young lady with an ink pen and a series of things she has to say—puts it much better: “If we address stories as archaeological sites, and dust through their layers with meticulous care, we find at some level there is always a doorway. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical. It is at the moments when the doors open, when things flow between the worlds, that stories happen.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“He moved with a slow gait. I never saw him dance. He was a man who wrote, who interpreted the world. Wisdom grew out of being handed just the smallest sliver of emotion. A glance could lead to paragraphs of theory. If he witnessed a new knot among a desert tribe or found a rare palm, it would charm him for weeks. When we came upon messages on our travels – any wording, contemporary or ancient, Arabic on a mud wall, a note in English written in chalk on the fender of a jeep – he would read it and then press his hand upon it as if to touch its possible deeper meanings, to become as intimate as he could with the words.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“Following Alexander the Great in his conquest, and challenging two most ancient European historical assumptions: Firstly, Is the Ancient Europe’s progressive scientific drive the result of the Roman’s or Greek’s ancient cultural heritage?, and the Second: Why is the question - are the Macedonians, Greeks or Slavs, so troublesome, in the minds of both commoners and historians?”
― Nataša Pantović, Metaphysics of Sound

“The fully qualified Indian marine archaeologists who had dived on the structure in 1993 had not hesitated in their official report to pronounce it to be man-made with 'courses of masonry' plainly visible -- surely a momentous finding 5 kilometers from the shore at a depth of 23 metres? But far from exciting attention, or ruffling any academic feathers, or attracting funds for an extension of the diving survey to the other apparently man-made mounds that had been spotted bear by on the sea-bed -- and very far indeed from inspiring any Tamil expert to re-evaluate the derided possibility of a factual basis to the Kumari Kandam myth -- the NIO's discovery at Poompuhur had simply been ignored by scholarship, not even reacted to or dismissed, but just widely and generally ignored.”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“Since my first research visit to Malta in November 1999 I've learned that objects -- and even places -- of archaeological importance can and do disappear here in mysterious ways. For example, ancient remains of an estimated 7000 people were found in the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni, buried in a matrix of red earth, when it was excavated by Sir Themistocles Zammit at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today only six skulls are left, stashed out of public view in two plastic crates in the cavernous vaults of Malta's National Museum of Archaeology. Nobody has the faintest idea what has happened to all the rest of the bones. They've just 'vanished', according to officials at the Museum.
And the six skulls? After much pressure and protest I have been allowed to see them only this morning and they are -- I must confess -- extremely and unsettlingly odd. They are weirdly elongated -- dolichocephalic is the technical term but this is dolichocephalism of the most extreme form. And one of the skulls, though that of an adult, is entirely lacking in the fossa median -- the clearly-visible 'join' that runs along the top of the head where two plates of bone are separated in infancy (thus facilitating the process of birth) but later join together in adulthood. I should be paying attention to the fantastic views and seascapes unfolding beneath the helicopter but I keep on wondering: what would people with skulls like that have looked like during life? How could they have survived birth and grown to adulthood? And did the other skulls from the Hypogeum -- the lost skulls, the lost bones -- also show the same distinctive peculiarity?”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“On the horizon, the dark line of the mountains was almost invisible, lost in the haze of late afternoon. Somewhere in their midst lay the goal of her map, the possible location of a stunning archaeological discovery. However far away those peaks might look today, they were there, and that meant they could be reached, one way or another.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Smoke Hunter

“Olvidados en las selvas de Chiapas, los templos y las pirámides de Palenque o de Yaxchilán han sobrevivido durante más de mil años a los asaltos de los elementos y de las plantas, en tanto que los de México sucumbieron a la voluntad destructora de los hombres.”
― Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs

“Lo asombroso cuando se considera el modo de vida de esta clase dirigente es que una de sus categorías esenciales, la de los sacerdotes, vive en la austeridad y la pobreza [...]. La riqueza no se busca por la riqueza misma [...].”
― Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs

“Su cultura tan súbitamente aniquilada forma parte de aquellas de las cuales puede la humanidad enorgullecerse de haber creado. Debe ocupar un lugar en el corazón y el espíritu de aquellos que, como nosotros, hacemos patrimonio común de todos los valores concebidos por nuestra especie, en todos los tiempos y lugares; debe formar parte de nuestros tesoros más preciados, por raros. De tarde en tarde, en lo infinito del tiempo y en medio de la enorme indiferencia del mundo, algunos hombres reunidos en sociedad dan origen a algo que les sobrepasa: a una civilización. Son los creadores de culturas. Y los indios del Anáhuac, al pie de sus volcanes, a orillas de sus lagunas, pueden ser contados entre esos hombres.”
― Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs

“Much is lost, but much lasts. . .”
― A.K. Larkwood, The Unspoken Name

“Jane Grenville in her scholarly and definitive work Medieval Housing provides an arresting pair of illustrations showing how two archaeological teams, using the same information, envisioned the appearance of a long-house at Wharram Percy, a lost medieval village in Yorkshire. One illustration shows a strikingly plain, basic dwelling, with walls made of mud or clunch (a composite of mud and dung) and a roof of grass or sod. The other shows a much sturdier and more sophisticated cruck-framed construction in which hefty beams have been fitted together with skill and care. The simple fact is that archaeological evidence shows mostly how buildings met the ground, not how they looked.”
― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

“Sticks and Stones

I dreamt a fossil came to life
and told a tale of his former wife
Did she beat him? Where?
She broke his fingers on the stairs
And tore out lumps of his orange hair
How could she?
Then she gave him pride of place
At an archaeological feast in his honour
A prehistoric horse was the main course!

© Stewart Stafford, 2020. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“But did they have gods? Or believe in an afterlife?” one writer had insisted. “It is my job to sift the evidence,” the professor replied. “There is no evidence that would allow me to answer that question.”
― Colm Tóibín, The Shortest Day

“Sifting with a sifter, artifacts after artifacts after artifiction that was ruled out as planted by some teenagers that were trying to pepper the site with pepper shakers that were from millennia ago, failing to take into account that those items were created less than 200 years ago.”
― J.S. Mason, The Satyrist...And Other Scintillating Treats

“Kramer's recognition, with the geologists Lees and Falcon, that people could have settled in the fertile valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers much earlier than had previously been assumed has been entirely vindicated by subsequent discoveries of the traces of 'primitive agricultural villages' dating back more than 8000 years.”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“Grima explained that the primary tool in establishing Malta's prehistoric chronology had been radiocarbon-dating (based on the rate of decay of C-14 stored in all formerly living matter). My views about C-14 are on the record. I think it should be only one amongst several tools and techniques brought to bear on the dating of megalithic or rock-hewn sites. It is a truism, but worth repeating nevertheless, that C-14 cannot date stone -- only such organic materials as are found around or in association with stone ruins. It is an assumption (more or less safe depending on the stratigraphy and general circumstances of the site but still, at the end of the day, an assumption) that organic materials found close to megalith B or trilithon A or dolmen C, etc., do in fact date from the same period as the quarrying and erection of the megaliths concerned.”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“At the entrance of one of the Hypogeum's painted rooms, the faint engraved impression of a large human hand, also arbitrarily assigned to the Neolithic, may still be seen. It 'has parallels in similar designs in Palaeolithic sites at Gargas, El Castillo, and particularly with Montespan in the Franco-Cantabrian region.' The impression shows a hand with six fingers [a condition known as Polydactyly that is also seen on at least one of the 'Fat Lady' figures on show in the National Museum of Archaeology].”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“If a failure to preserve and consider potentially controversial evidence has frustrated a full understanding of the Hypogeum, then the same is also true for the megalithic temples and even the prehistoric cave sites in Malta. Thus, Mifsud points out that archaeologists excavating Ghar Dalam cave in the early twentieth century [...] 'discovered several knives, scrapers, borers and burins in previously undisturbed deposits, and although stratigraphically Pleistocene, they have been arbitrarily attributed to the Neolithic'.”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“Soon after the news broke about these published conclusions [regarding the evidence of a Palaeolithic human presence on Malta] and their stark contradiction of the orthodox view on Malta's prehistory, the Italian team distanced itself from its initial Palaeolithic leanings and claimed instead that the depictions in Ghar Hasan are 'out of context' -- which indeed they are if one is only prepared to countenance a Neolithic context for the earliest human presence in Malta.
Another development at about the same time was that the Ghar Hasan cave began to be vandalized, and the paintings defaced or completely removed, a process that continued over a long period. The result, which would have caused an international furore anywhere else but Malta, is that today:
'The only depictions which have survived, unless more are obscured by stalagmitic material on the cavern walls, are the two handprints in red pigment in Gallery D ... Vandalism not of the popular type has destroyed and obscured the entire repertoire of images on the accessible areas.”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“So what was going on in Malta that led to all this? Why did the first megalithic temple-builders in the world choose to make things so difficult for themselves? Why didn't they start with small megaliths (if that is not too serious a contradiction in terms)? Why didn't they start simple? Why did they plunge straight into the very complicated stuff, like Gigantija and the Hypogeum? And, having plunged, how did they manage to produce such magnificent results? Was it beginner's luck? Or were their achievements as humanity's pioneering architects the product of some sort of heritage?
Beginner's luck is possible, but having studied the earliest temples, and their level of perfection, archaeologists agree that heritage is the right answer. The only problem is what heritage? And where is it to be looked for? Since it is the received wisdom that no human beings lived on Malta before 5200 BC, and since this is a 'fact' that is at present unquestioned anywhere within conventional scholarship, archaeologists from roughly the mid-twentieth century onwards have simply seen no reason to explore the possibility that the heritage of the Maltese temples might be older than 5200 BC. To do so would be the research equivalent of an oxymoron -- like breeding dodos, trying to conduct an interview with William Shakespeare or seeking evidence that the earth is flat -- and would invite the ridicule of one's peers.”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“On 16 January 2002 India's Minister of Science and Technology released the first results of carbon-dating of the artefacts from the flooded cities of the Gulf of Cambay. The results date the artifacts to 9500 years ago -- 5000 years older than any city so far recognized by archaeologists.”
― Graham Hancock, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

“En el Valle de México la búsqueda arqueológica ha sido fructífera; prácticamente no se puede abrir una zanja sin encontrar restos del período azteca o de épocas anteriores”
― Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs

“Casi nada sabemos [...] del macehualli cuyo trabajo alimentaba a los habitantes de la ciudad [...]. Por ello es necesario mencionarlo [...] tanto más cuanto que después del desastre de 1521, después de la destrucción total de las fuerzas y de las ideas, de las estructuras sociales y de las religiones, sólo él sobrevivió y sobrevive todavía.”
― Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs

“Pero no hay que olvidar que su riqueza [la de los guerreros] sólo viene después de los honores, como consecuencia de ellos. Se es rico porque se reciben honores, pero no se reciben honores porque se es rico: es absolutamente imposible que un miembro de esta clase dirigente se enriquezca por otros conceptos que no sean los de sus proezas.”
― Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs

“Pero lo que constituye la grandeza de este pueblo es haber aceptado este mundo tal como lo veía. Su pesimismo es activo. No se traduce en abatimiento o indolencia, sino en el entusiasmo de que hizo gala en la guerra sagrada, en el servicio de los dioses, en la construcción de las ciudades, en la expansión de los imperios. Enfrentado a un universo implacable, el hombre mexicano reaccionaba sin ilusión, pero con una energía indomable, arreglando a fuerza de penalidades y de sangre la vida precaria que los dioses tenían a bien concederles.”
― Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs

“Es giebt bei den Schriftstellern keine Beschreibung eines Instrumentes, das dem von Antikythera gliche; nicht einmal eine Andeutung über die Existenz eines so komplizierten Instrumentes im Altertum habe ich entdecken können. Deshalb darf man, obschon die grosse Zerstörung, die es erlitten hat, keine sichere Anschauung über den Mechanismus zulässt, sagen, dass seine Auffindung von grösster Wichtigkeit ist; denn es zeigt eine so feine Arbeit und bietet, ob man nun seine kleinen Verhältnisse betrachtet oder auch nicht, das Bild einer so verwickelten Bewegung, dass sich keine andere der aus dem Altertum bekannten mechanischen Konstruktionen auch nur im entferntesten mit ihm vergleichen lässt.”
― Perikles Rediadis, Die Funde von Antikythera

“I tell my students that the past is an immense ocean which we can neither sail on nor dive down into. We are stuck to our shore, which is the present. Out on the surface we can see the past of the history books, the storms and the shipwrecks, but of what happened in the far past, down in the deeps of that ocean, we have nothing to go on except the shells and bones it chooses to wash up at our feet. Why bother, then? What does it matter? It matters because that ocean is where we came from. Those seas are in our blood.”
― Peter Dickinson, A Bone from a Dry Sea

“the process of recreating ancient artifacts step by step can shed light on the lives and habits of the original craftworkers that no amount of armchair theorizing can give.”
― Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

“Of course, being perishable, the textiles themselves are not easy to learn about -- just like most of the rest of women's products (such as food and the recipes for preparing it). Therefore, to recover the reality of women's history, we must develop excellent techniques ... using not just the obvious data but learning to ferret out every helpful detail. Practical experiments like reweaving some of the surviving ancient cloths are a case in point. Among the thousands of archaeologists who have written about pottery or architecture, how many have actually tried to to make a pot or build a building? Precious few; but with so much data available for study in these fields, scholars felt flooded with information already, and such radical steps hardly seemed necessary. Our case is different; we must use every discoverable clue.”
― Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

“A final form of intra-societal violence that is very significant is the collective killing of one male by the other males of the group. The rationale for such killings seems to be that the male singled out for killing has become so violent and dangerous that he must be eliminated in order to protect the group from further episodes of unnecessary intra-group violence or dominating behaviour. As far as one can tell, such individuals are typically very good warriors. They seem to authenticate their value to the community by displaying their fighting ability. They bully and injure or kill other males in the group, they likely access other men’s women (although that is likely played down in the accounts of such incidents to the recorders), and their behaviour is so intolerable that they become more dangerous to the community than their value as a good warrior warrants. Because they are dangerous, killing them needs to be done carefully. Moreover, if not done properly, their relatives may feel it was unjust and seek revenge. In some cases, the community instructs the individual’s close relatives to kill him in order to eliminate any basis for revenge. In others, it is a community act. There is one account given to me directly by a Yanomamo tribesman visiting the United States of a Yanomamo dangerous warrior who, it is decided, must be killed. He is tricked into climbing a tree, and by necessity leaves his weapons behind. As he climbs down, weaponless, he is beset by all the males and killed."

(Steven Leblanc)”
― Garrett G. Fagan, The Cambridge World History of Violence