Archæol´ogy

(Gr. archaios , ancient, and logos , a discourse), the study of antiquity, or the science which takes cognizance of the history of nations and peoples as evinced by the remains, architectural, implemental, or otherwise, which belong to the earlier epoch of their existence. In a more extended sense the term embraces every branch of knowledge which bears on the origin, religion, laws, languages, science, arts, and literature of ancient peoples. It is to a great extent synonymous with prehistoric annals , as a large if not the principal part of its field of study extends over those periods in the history of the human race in regard to which we po e almost no information derivable from written records. Archæology divides the primeval period of the human race, more especially as exhibited by remains found in Europe, into the stone , the bronze , and the iron ages, these names being given in accordance with the materials employed for weapons, implements, ., during the particular period. The stone age has been subdivided into the palæolithic and neolithic , the former being that older period, in which the stone implements were not polished as they are in the latter and more recent period. The bronze age, which admits of a similar subdivision, is that in which implements were of copper or bronze. In this age the dead were burned and their ashes deposited in urns or stone chests, covered with conical mounds of earth or cairns of stones. Gold and amber ornaments appear in this age. The iron age is that in which implements, ., of iron begin to appear, although stone and bronze implements are found along with them. The word age in this sense (as explained under Age ) simply denotes the stage at which a people has arrived. The phrase stone age, therefore, merely marks the period before the use of bronze, the bronze age that before the employment of iron, among any specific people. See Excavations ; Crete ; Egypt ; — Bibliography : Sir J. Evans, Stone Implements of Great Britain ; Boyd-Dawkins, Early Man in Britain ; J. Geikie, Prehistoric Europe ; R. Munro, Lake Dwellings of Europe ; Sir W. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece ; H. R. Hall, Ægean Archæology ; W. M. Flinders Petrie, Methods and Aims in Archæology ; A. P. F. Michael is, A Century of Archæological Discoveries . IMG:4014330425200354480_image087.jpg:Archæopteryx Archæopteryx macrura, a fo il lizard-tailed bird