考古学本质刍议——一个田野考古者的思考碎片

The Preliminary Discussion of the Essence of Archaeology-The Thought Fragments of One Person who Engaged in the Field Archaeology

田野考古从地底下发掘出各类遗物,这些遗物指代了某种历史,是毫无异议的,但它如何进入历史学的语言范畴?在现代考古学诞生以前,神话传说和历史事件,是古物意义价值的主要载体,实际上,两者之间互证,至今依然是考古学终极价值的重要体现。新考古学、后过程考古学时代,应用科技手段、设计理论模式,试图重建一段更加鲜活的历史。种种努力,似乎总是在挣脱考古对象作为一种"实物"的遗存属性。实际上,从汤姆森提出石器、铜器、铁器"三期说"开始,历史已经被符号化、象征化了,而这正是考古学述史语言的本质特征,体现一种新历史学的精神,而这种新历史学的符号化的象征元素,正是考古遗存的实物属性。

Field archaeology has dug out many kinds of remains from underground, there is no objection that these remains refer to some kind of history, but how to enter the historical linguistic category？ Myths and legends and historical events are the main carrier about the value of the antiquities before the birth of modem archaeology, in fact, the two confirmed each other, is still an important manifestation of the ultimate value of archaeology so far. Trying to rebuild more vivacious history by means of science ＆ technology and mode of design theory in the era of new archaeology and post-processual archaeology, All kinds of efforts apparently always break loose the remains attribution of archaeological object as a kind of “material object”. Actually, history has been numeric and symbolic from the beginning of “the version of three period” of the stone, bronze and iron which had been put forward by Thomsen, while it is the essential characteristic of historical description language of archaeology, which embodies a new spirit of the new history, and the numeric symbol element of the new history, that is the object attribution of archaeological remains.