The early 1800s was a time of many archaeological digs in places like Egypt, the ruins of Babylon, and other areas of the Middle East. The aim during that time was just to get artifacts. These were similar to antiquarians in that the artifacts were important but not anything related to context. Nowadays, the artifacts are still important but so is the context in which they are found as well as many other details overlooked in the initial excavations of that time.
MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY William Cunnington is considered the father of modern archaeological excavations. He undertook many excavations around 1800 in the area of Wiltshire England, which is the place where many ancient monuments have been located. He needed to be funded by wealthy patrons who often took credit for the work. Cunnington was quite meticulous in recording his findings and categorizing what he was able to collect. Some of his terms used in categorizing artifacts are still used today. Stratigraphy was developed in the 1800s as one of the more modern archaeological techniques. This is something you will learn about in the next chapter. The idea is to have overlapping strata in order to date the things found in the excavation site. Many scholars and archaeologists used this technique in order to unearth sites from the bronze age. Other archaeologists were able to put their findings in chronological order, which obviously helped understand the uses of these objects in past times. This was the first period of time where the idea of deep time was first developed. You need to remember that most people believe the Old Testament and fell for the idea that the earth was born on a Sunday on October 23, 4004 BC. This belief lasted until approximately 1850 when archaeologists began to understand that the earth was much older than this. At that time, in about 1850, archaeology was not a science of any kind. People thought it was much like an amateur pastime and in fact many amateurs went about unearthing all sorts of antiquities without regard to where they came from or their historical significance. In the years that followed, a man named Augustus Pitt Rivers started to transform archaeology into a much more rigorous scientific field.
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