from the Greek ἀρχή, a prefix of many English words, used to signify chief, or of the first rank.

ARCHÆOLOGY, from ἀρχαῖος ancient, and λέγειν a description. The term Archæology, like that of Antiquities, has been employed, until a very recent period, in a sense so restricted and arbitrary, as strikingly to contrast with the latitude admissible according to the original derivation of the word. Where any attempt has been made to assign precise limits, it has most frequently been reserved as the exclusive designation of Greek and Roman antiquities, though its fitness for the most comprehensive definition in relation to all which pertains to the past has not escaped the attention of scientific writers; and it is even employed by Dr Pritchard, on several occasions, as nearly synonymous with palæontology. In this use of it, however, he has not been followed, and the term is now universally adopted to designate the science which deduces history from the relics of the past. So comprehensive a subject necessarily admits of great subdivision, and some of the most important branches of the study will be found treated of under the heads of Egyptian, Etruscan, Assyrian, Mexican, Indian, Greek, and Roman antiquities.

The aspiration of the human mind after some knowledge of the mysteries of the future is not more innate or universal than the desire to recover the secrets of the past. The question Whence? no less than that of Whither? is found to give shape to the mythic legends of the rude barbarian, and to constitute an important element in the poetry and mythology which are the beginnings of every nation's oral and written history. With the progress of society the value of such indices of the past becomes apparent, and we accordingly find abundant traces of an archæological spirit in the literature of every civilized nation. The influence of the same spirit no less invariably marks every epoch of great progress. The revival of arts and letters in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was alike signalized by a renewed appreciation of Greek and Roman models; and while the progress of opinion in the fifteenth century was accompanied by an abandonment of medieval for classic art, the tendency of Europe in our own day, amid many elements of progress, has been singularly consensual in the return to medieval art, and the attempt to attain to higher excellence than has yet been achieved, by a more perfect development of the ideal of the middle ages.

It is mainly owing to the successful labours of the geologist that archæology has been so extended as to embrace the entire range of human history, and has at length been developed as a systematic science, by which the intelligent investigator is enabled to pursue his researches among records long preceding all written annals; and thereby to recover chapters in the history of nations heretofore deemed irrecoverable. The geologist, with no aid from written records, follows out his inquiries through successive periods in the history of the predamite world, and reveals to us the character of the living beings which animated those long-past epochs of the globe. Beginning with the first traces of life in the primary fossiliferous strata, the geologist passes on from system to system, revealing a wondrous process of development, and disclosing to us marvellous revelations of long extinct being, until at length in the latest diluvial formations he points to the remains of animals identical with existing species, and even to traces of human art—the evidences of the close of geological, and the beginning of archæological periods. Here, at least, archæological science ought to be ready to take up the narrative at the close of those geological chapters; and with a minuteness of detail, and a certainty as to conclusions, unknown to the elder science. Such, however, has not been the case until very recently. The British geologist, pausing at the dawn of the historic or human period, turned to the archæologist for the remaining chapters of the history of life on our globe, and received for answer a record of Roman traces but meagrely supplementing the minuter details of recorded events. Nearly the same was the case with all historic antiquity, with the single exception of the wonderful monuments of Egypt, which still preserve to us the records of a civilization going back nearly to the emergence of our globe from the waters of the Mosaic deluge.

The traces of the primitive arts and civilization of the aborigines of Europe were long familiar to the antiquary, before any intelligent conception was formed of their value as historic records. The interpretation of these is mainly due to the successful labours of the archæologists and ethnologists of Denmark and Sweden, added to the spirited co-operation of zealous British conjoinors. By these investigators the remains of primitive art have been brought under a systematic classification, and thus the desultory and often misdirected labours of the antiquary have given place to researches characterized by a scientific accuracy in no degree inferior to that of the most careful palæontologist.

This system of Primitive Archæology is arranged into three great divisions, entitled the Stone, the Bronze, and the Iron periods, warranted alike by evidence, and by its practical convenience. The Stone Period, as the name implies, is that in which the rude aboriginal arts, which the commonest necessities of man call into operation, are assumed to have been employed entirely on such natural materials as stone, horn, bone, &c. The Bronze Period is that era of progress in which the metallurgic arts appear to have been introduced and slowly developed; and the Iron Period is that of matured metallurgic arts, and the accompanying progress consequent on the degree of civilization which is the necessary concomitant of such a state of things. All these periods embrace eras of national history concerning which no contemporary written records exist, and in relation to most of which, and especially to those of the first two periods, nearly as little is known from any other source as of the Palæozoic or Carboniferous periods of the geologist. It need not, therefore, excite surprise that the process of historic induction pursued on this basis has been called in question by historical writers of very high standing, but whose exclusive labours on the records of periods admitting of documentary evidence and charter-proof render them little disposed to sympathize in a course of induction in relation to human history, such as has in the hands of the geologist revealed so much in relation to more ancient life. By these the system of archæological periods has been assailed as a visionary and illusive theory, without foundation in truth. That it is no baseless theory, however, is sufficiently manifest from the fact that no primitive and barbarous people has been met with in modern times, cut off from intercourse with civilized nations, among whom any knowledge of the metallurgic arts exist; and no partially civilized people, when similarly isolated, appears to have acquired the art of smelting and working the iron ore.

The Esquimaux, the Red Indians of America, and the whole widely-scattered races of the Polynesian Islands, were, when first discovered, without any knowledge of the metals, and supplied all their wants by means of implements and weapons of stone, shell, bone, or wood. The civilized Mexicans and Aztecs, on the contrary, when first visited by the Spaniards, in the fifteenth century, were familiar with the working of copper as well as gold; though totally ignorant of iron, and also retaining for common purposes many of the primitive stone weapons and implements. Greece passed from its bronze to its iron age within the period embraced in its literary history; and the mastery of the art of working the intractable iron ore is traceable with tolerable clearness in the early history of Rome, not very long before it came in contact with the transalpine barbarians. Among most of these Germanic and Celtic tribes, iron appears to have been already known when they first came in contact with the aggressive civilization of the south, and from one of them, the Norici (in whose country, in the Austrian valleys of the Danube, this metal is still wrought with the highest skill), we have reason to believe that the Romans acquired the art of making steel.

If history is only to begin, as that of our own country has been made to do, with the date of the first collision with invading Rome, then, no doubt, Stone and Bronze periods are as useless and meaningless as are the Eocene and Miocene periods, to the geologist who assigns the Mosaic deluge as the source of the earliest phenomena of his science. To those, however, who are willing to follow inductive reasoning to its legitimate conclusions, it must be apparent that it is no visionary theory, but a system founded in well-established truth, which arranges the archæological records of primitive history, and the remains of human art, into Stone, Bronze, and Iron periods. There is only one important distinction to be made in the use of such materials as a basis of inductive reasoning, and of those with which the palæontologist deals. The geological formations, with their included organic remains, obey a natural and unvarying order, and however widely apart similar formations may be found, they are assumed to be of contemporaneous origin. But, geologically speaking, the entire history of the human race is embraced in one period; while in the works of art, which form the basis of archæological induction, a new element—that of mind, or the reasoning faculty, along with the imitative and social arts—is introduced, and greatly complicates its subdivisions. The Stone period of Britain or Denmark is precisely analogous to that of the Polynesian Islands. So closely do their tools and weapons resemble each other, that it requires a practised eye to distinguish the stone axe or flint lance-head found in an ancient British barrow, from implements brought by some recent voyager from the islands of the Southern Ocean. The inference is manifestly legitimate, that in these South Sea Islanders we have examples of a people in the same primitive stage as were the aborigines of Europe during its Stone period. Chronologically, however, the Stone periods of the north of Europe and of the Pacific are probably separated by upwards of two thousand years. In like manner, the Bronze age of Mexico was still undisturbed by all later elements, when first brought into contact with the matured civilization of Europe in the fifteenth century, while the close of that of Britain preceded the first century of our era. The same rule is applicable to the primitive archæology of all countries; and a fertile source of error and misconception has already had its rise in the assumption, that because Greece and Italy, Germany, Gaul, Scandinavia, and Britain, have all had their primitive Stone and Bronze periods, therefore, the whole must have been contemporaneous. It cannot, therefore, be too strongly enforced as one of the most essential points of variance in the reasoning of the geologist and the archæologist, that the eras of the latter, though synonymous, are not necessarily synchronous, like those of the former; but that, on the contrary, nearly all the phenomena which pertain to the natural history of man, and to the historic development of the race, may be witnessed in their various stages in contemporary races of our own day: from the rudimentary barbarism, and the absence of all arts essential to the first dawn of civilization, to the state of greatest advancement in the knowledge and employment of such arts.

Some progress has already been made in an approximation to certain chronological data of much importance, relative to such primitive periods of the history of nations. Geological evidence of changes occurring within the historic period supplies somewhat of this important clue, when accompanied with the traces of human art; and while by the intelligent observation of such remains in the superficial strata, mingling with the fossil evidences of extinct and familiar species of animal life, the link is supplied by which man takes his place in the unbroken chain of creative existence sweeping back into so remote a past, the evidences of matured art pertaining to periods unrecorded by history supply the later links of the same chain, and reunite the present with all former ages.

The system of primitive archæology which is found applicable to British antiquities, so closely corresponds in all its essential features to that of Europe prior to the era of authentic history, that the purpose of such an abstract as this will be most conveniently accomplished by presenting its leading points as examples of the whole; illustrating these in passing, by the analogous remains discovered in other countries. The evidences we possess of the various acquirements and degrees of civilization of the aborigines of Great Britain are derived from their ancient dwellings and sepulchres, from cromlechs, barrows, and cairns, and from the weapons, implements, personal ornaments, and pottery found inclosed in these. Valuable additions to our information are also supplied by means of such chance discoveries as agricultural, mining, and building operations frequently lead to; such as the stranded whales found in the alluvial valley of the Forth, many feet above the level of high water, and distant several miles from the present bed of the river. Along with these gigantic cetacean remains lay the proofs of contemporaneous population in the rude harpoons made of deer's horn; while the historical evidence relating to the locality, as well as the distinct remains of Roman military roads, combine to prove the era of local upheaval, apparently indicated by the geological phenomena, to have long preceded the dawn of the period of definite history, or the beginning of the Christian era.

By evidence such as this, a starting point is gained from whence we may confidently deduce the colonization of the British Islands, and of the north of Europe, at a very remote period; certainly many centuries prior to that in which our island first figures in history. The researches of the ethnologist add to our knowledge of this unrecorded period, by disclosing some of the physical characteristics of the aboriginal races, derived from the human remains found in the most ancient sepulchres, accompanied by the rudest evidences of art; and the researches of Nillson, Eschricht, and other continental ethnologists, when brought into comparison with those which have been made in the British Isles, disclose remarkable points of resemblance in cranial conformation essentially different from those of any of the predominant races now inhabiting Europe.

The immense number of weapons and implements of stone already found in this and other countries, since attention has been more generally directed to the subject, proves that the period which they characterize must have been of very long duration. In various of the museums of Britain, and still more in those of Ireland, very large collections of such have been accumulated in a few years, while in the famous Christiansborg palace at Copenhagen the specimens of stone weapons and implements alone number nearly 4000. For the details of these relics, as well as the distinguishing characteristics of the various classes of sepulchres, the weems, or subterranean dwellings, the monolithic and megalithic monuments, &c., of this primitive period, the student who wishes to pursue the subject more minutely, must refer to the works of Hoare, Douglas, Worsaae, Ackerman, Roach Smith, Wright, Wilson, and others, as well as to the journals and transactions of the various archæological societies.

The period to which the whole of these primitive remains must be referred was unquestionably one of complete barbarism; as is sufficiently apparent from its correspondence to that which the intercourse with European voyagers is bringing to a close among the islands of the Pacific. The subterranean dwellings termed weems (Gaelic Uamhach, a cave), or "Pict's houses," have been frequently found, apparently in the state in which they must have been abandoned by their original occupants; and from these we learn that their principal aliment must have been shell-fish and crustacea, derived from the neighbouring sea-beach, along with the chance products of the chase. The large accumulations of the common shell-fish of our coasts found in some of these subterranean dwellings is remarkable, though with such remains have also been repeatedly found the stone quern or hand-mill, as well as the rude corn-crusher or pestle and mortar; supplying the important evidence, that the primitive nomade had not been altogether ignorant of the value of the cereal grains.

The source of change in Britain, and throughout Europe, from this rude state of barbarism, is clearly traceable to the introduction of metals, and the discovery of the art of smelting ores. Gold was probably the earliest metal wrought, both from its attractive appearance, its superficial deposits, and the condition in which it is frequently found rendering its working an easy process. Tin also, in the south of Britain, was wrought at the very dawn of history; and, with the copper which abounds in the same district of country, supplied the elements of the new and important compound metal, bronze.

It was long assumed by all historians and antiquaries, that the beautiful bronze swords, spear-heads, shields, torques, armillae, &c., so frequently discovered, were mere relics of foreign conquest or barter; and they were variously assigned to Egyptian, Phœnician, Roman, or Danish origin. But this gratuitous assumption has been disproved by the repeated discovery of the moulds for making such, as well as of the refuse castings, and even of beds of charcoal, scoriae, and other indications of metallurgy, on the sites where they have been found. It has not escaped notice, however, that the transition appears to be an abrupt one from stone to bronze, an alloy requiring skill and experience for its use; and that few examples are recorded of the discovery of copper tools or weapons, though copper is a metal so easily wrought as to have been in use among the Red Indians of America. The inference from this fact, is one which all elements of probability tend to confirm, viz., that the metallurgic arts of the north of Europe are derived from a foreign source, whether by conquest or traffic, and that in the beautiful bronze relics so abundant, especially in the British Islands and in Denmark, we see the fruits of that experience which the more ancient civilization of Egypt and Phœnicia had diffused. The direct intercourse between the countries on the Mediterranean, and the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands,—as the only known parts of the British Islands are called in the earliest allusions which are made to them by Herodotus, Aristotle, and Polybius,—abundantly accounts for the introduction of such knowledge to the native Britons at a very remote period. Phœnician and Carthaginian merchant ships traded to Cornwall, centuries before the white cliffs of Albion were first seen from the Roman war-galleys. Greece, also, not improbably, proved a mediator in this all-important transfer. It has not escaped attention, that the forms of weapons, and especially of the beautiful "leaf-shaped sword," as figured on the most ancient painted Greek vases, closely correspond to the most characteristic relics of the Bronze period in the north of Europe and the British Isles.

During the later Iron Period the era of authentic history begins. There is no room for doubt that, whatever impetus the Roman invasion may have given to the working of the metals in Britain, iron was known prior to the landing of Julius Cæsar. Within this archæological period, however, the examples of Roman art, and the influences of Roman civilization begin to play a prominent part. To this period succeed the Saxon and Scandinavian eras of invasion, with no less characteristic peculiarities of art-workmanship, as well as of sepulchral rites and social usages. In these later periods, definite history comes to the aid of archæological induction, while those intermediate elements of historical re-edification, the inscriptions on stone and metal, and the numismatic series of chronological records, all unite to complete a picture of the past replete with important elements for the historian.

The connection between archæology and geology has been indicated, but that between archæology and ethnology is of much more practical value, and is every day being brought into clearer view. By the investigation of the tombs of ancient races, and the elucidation of their sepulchral rites, remarkable traces of unsuspected national affinities are brought to light; while a still more obvious correspondence of arts in certain stages of society, among races separated alike by time and by space, reveals a uniformity in the operation of certain human instincts, when developed under nearly similar circumstances, such as goes far to supply a new argument in proof of the unity of the human race.

The self-evident truths confirmatory of the principles upon which this system of primitive archæology is based, may be thus briefly summed up:—Man, in a savage state, is, to a great extent, an isolated being; co-operation for mutual and remote advantage, except in war and the chase, is scarcely possible, and hence, experience at best but slowly adds to the common stock of knowledge. In this primitive stage of society, the implements and weapons which necessity renders indispensable, are invariably supplied from the sources at hand; and the element of time being of little moment, the rude manufacturer slowly fashions his stone axe or hammer, or his lance of flint, with an expenditure of labour such as, with the appliances of civilization, would suffice for the manufacture of hundreds of such implements.

The discovery of the metallurgic arts, by diminishing labour, and supplying a material more susceptible of varied forms as well as of ornamentation, and also one originating co-operation by means of the new wants it calls into being, inevitably leads to social progress. The new material, moreover, being limited in supply, and found only in a few localities, soon leads to barter, and thence to a regular trade; and thus the first steps towards a division of labour and mutual co-operation are made. So long, however, as the metal is copper or bronze, the limited supply must greatly restrict this social progress, while the facilities for working it admit of that isolation so natural to man in a rude state; and these, added to the frequent discovery of copper, in its natural condition much more nearly resembling a ductile metal than the ironstone, abundantly account for its use having preceded that of the more abundant metal.

Great experience must have been acquired in the earlier metallurgy before the iron ore was attempted to be wrought. In this, co-operation was indispensable; but that once secured, and the first difficulties overcome, the other results appear inevitable. The supply is unbounded, widely diffused, and procurable without excessive labour. The material elements of civilization were thereby acquired, and all succeeding progress might be said to depend on the capacity of the race.

The process of research and inductive reasoning thus applied by the archaeologist to the traces of primitive art, and the dawn of civilization, as well as to the remains of classic art, is no less applicable to all periods. The songs and legends of the peasantry, the half-obiterated traces of ancient manners, the fragments of older languages, the relics of obsolete art,—all these are parts of what has been fitly styled "unwritten history," and furnish the means of recovering many records of past periods, which must remain for ever a blank to those who will recognize none but written or monumental evidence.

Proceeding to the investigation of this later, and, in most of the higher requirements of history, this more important branch of historical evidence, the archaeologist has still his own special departments of investigation. Tracing the various alphabets in their gradual development, through Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and other sources, and the changing forms which followed under the influences of Byzantine and medieval art, a complete system of palaeography, has been deduced, calculated to prove an important auxiliary in the investigation of monumental and written documents. Palaeography has its own rules of criticism, supplying an element of chronological classification altogether independent of style in works of art, or of internal evidence in graven or written inscriptions, and a test of genuineness often invaluable to the historian.

Heraldry is another element of criticism by which archaeology provides trustworthy canons of criticism in relation to written and unwritten medieval records. The seals and matrices, sepulchral sculptures, and engraved brasses, along with an extensive class of the decorations of ecclesiastical and domestic architecture, all supply evidence by means of which names and dates, with confirmatory collateral evidence of various kinds, are frequently recoverable. From the same sources also the changing costume of successive periods can be traced, and thus a new light be thrown on the manners and customs of past ages. The enthusiastic devotee is indeed apt at times to attach an undue importance to such auxiliary branches of study, but it is a still greater excess to pronounce them valueless, and to reject the useful aids they are capable of affording.

No less important are the illustrations of history, and the guides in the right course of research, which numismatics supply, both in relation to early and medieval times. But on this and other sections into which the study of antiquities is divided, the requisite information will be found under the several heads of research. On many of these points the historian and the archaeologist necessarily occupy the same field; and, indeed, when that primitive period wherein archaeology deals with the whole elements of our knowledge regarding it, as a branch of inductive science and not of critical history, is past, the student of antiquities becomes to a great extent the pioneer of the historian. He deals with the raw materials: the charters, deeds, wills, grants of land, of privileges or immunities, the royal, monastic, and baronial accounts of expenditure, and the like trustworthy documents; by means of their palaeography, seals, illuminations, and other evidence, he fixes their dates, traces out the genealogical relationships of their authors, and in various ways prepares and sifts the evidence which is to be employed anew by the historian in revivifying the past. Architecture and all departments of the fine arts, in like manner, supply much evidence which, when investigated and systematized by a similar process, adds valuable materials to the stock of the historian, and furnishes new sources for the illumination of former ages. Such is a sketch of the comprehensive investigations embraced under the name of archiology, which, carried on by many independent labourers, and in widely varied fields of research, have contributed important chapters to the book of human history, and revivified ages long buried in oblivion, or at best but dimly seen through distorting media of myth and fable.

(D.W.—N.)