Archaeological Practice in India

The aims of this book to shed light on the lesser-known archaeology of India. Post- colonial Indian archaeology has typically conformed to a north-centric narrative of Indian history, as is reflected in the intensity of archaeological study of the Indus Valley Civilization in northern India and in Pakistan. While fruitful, this narrative has obscured wider examination of archaeological phenomena across India. Most of the universities in India that have a department of archaeology offer this subject at the post-graduation level and beyond it. The book addresses the general nature of theory, as well as how it is used in the social sciences and in archaeology in particular.

Amrendra Verma (born on 28th July, 1973 at Allahabad) graduated from Allahabad University, Allahabad with First Class Honours with Distinction in History. He did his M.A. in History from Allahabad University, Allahabad securing First Class Second position. He holds Ph.D. degree in History from Allahabad university, Allahabad. He is a good teacher and a researcher. He has taught in different colleges under different universities for a decade. He has written about four books on History and Political Science. He has contributed more than ten papers to leading Journals as well as to different books and newspapers.

Archaeology, or Archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America archaeology is a sub-field of anthropology, while in Europe it is often viewed as either a discipline in its own right or a sub-field of other disciplines. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. [5] Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, the study of fossil remains. It is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world. Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past life ways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross disciplinary research. It draws upon anthropology, history, art history, classics, ethnology, geography, geology, literary history, linguistics, semiology, textual criticism, physics, information sciences, chemistry, statistics, paleoecology, paleography, paleontology, paleozoology, and paleobotany.

Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, and has since become a discipline practiced across the world. Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Since its early development, various specific sub-disciplines of archaeology have developed, including maritime archaeology, feminist archaeology and arch aeoastronomy, and numerous different scientific techniques have been developed to aid archaeological investigation. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudo archaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, and opposition to the excavation of human remains.

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