Relationship between history and Archaeology.

History is defined as the study of past human events. This definition is however very limited for it is not all past human events that constitute history, human activities are multiple and take place every day that they cannot be all be taken as historical event .History  Therefore is the study of the selected past human events. The selection of study of historical events depends on the historians himself, his own background, the political and socio economic environment in which he lives, the message he wants to communicate to his consumers and the lesson he wants them to learn  Tarimo (2004).

Therefore we can define history as an interaction between the historian and his fact and an interaction between the past, present, and the future.

For a long time until 20^thcentury written sources had been regarded as the only sources of history, absence of such sources in sub-Saharan Africa leads to the conclusion by the colonial historian that black Africans had no history  Tarimo (2004).

The necessity to decolonize Africans history from its colonial biases, following attainment of independence by African states leads to the rigorous search for others. The application of these new sources made it possible to rewrite the African history more scientifically and from an African point of view whereby shading it from the colonial biases from 1960s, onwards  Tarimo (2004).

Archeology is a source of history concerned with the study of past human physical and cultural remains (fossil and artifacts) recovered from the earth by archeological exaction. As such archeology deals with pre-historical as well as historical periods of the human society.

Archeological as the study of the human cultural and social past whose goals are to narrate the sequent story of the past and to explain the events that composed it  Willey and Sabliff (1980).

Archeology is interested in both the objects made by the people of the past cultures and civilizations and why the people lived the way they did. To achieve these goals, archeologists excavate and analyze the remains and monuments of the past cultures and the context in which they found, whether they concentrate on the most ancient human societies or those of more recent centuries, all archeologists agree that the fundamental responsibility is to conserve the past for future generation  Renfrew and Bahn ( 2012).

Pre history is the history of mankind before the appearance of written document pre historic archeology is the study analysis and interpretation of the material culture of pre historic society in order to describe and explain the history and culture of these societies.

It can therefore be argued that archeology is closely related with history in the following factors;

Both disciplines seek knowledge of human past, history deals primarily with written account from the past and archeology deals primarily with the physical remains of the past  Robert (2003).

Archeology is also linked with history in a more particular manner, the history of the earliest literate societies such as those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome heavily depends on archaeology which was in the first place resistible for the recovery of the written history documents through archaeological excavations  Robert (2003).

Both archaeology and history are complement each other, together providing a more complete record of the past, for example some of archaeological invisible activities may described in historical documents, also sometimes history can be used to locate the archaeological sites, this means that through history we can find the archaeological sites Robert (2003).

Both are related in terms of methodology where archaeology and history use the same method in the finding the past events, such as the use of observation where history and archaeology use to observe a certain place where particular events took place, nothing to do with history or archaeology without observation  Willey and Sabliff (1980).

Even in the most recent, archaeology has contributed to the study of written history through the study of artifacts and structures of such literate societies, hence the development of new sub discipline of historical archaeology Fagan (1985).

 Also historical documents of course are physical remain of the past and can be studied as such, clay tablets marked cuneiform writing ,Egyptian choreographic text on papyrus and inscription carried on stone movement are just as much document as are the book published in 17^thcentury Europe obvious, therefore many historical text are discovered through archeological research  Robert (2003).

History reconstructed by archaeologist tends to be more anonymous for archaeological chronologies rarely; therefore archaeology helps in reconstructing a history of particular events in chronological order accorder according to happening of the events  Willey and Sabliff (1980).

Apart from similarities, also history and archaeology differ in the following aspects;

History deals primarily with written accounts from the past while archaeology deals with material remains of the past, these material remains are mute, they meaning and significance depends entirely on the interference that trained archaeologist can make in contrast, historical record contain message that trained archaeologist can make in contrast, historical record contain message that although their meaning and significance are also subject to critical interpretation to discover and get rid of exaggeration lies or other biases in written sources  Renfrew and Bahn (2012).

Historical focus on literate and richest communities such as kings, queens, and high priests, the prominence of these people could have influence the storage of their records while archaeology is less partial for rich or learned folk, every one contributes to the archaeological record  Robert (2003).

Another contrast is found on the scope or coverage of two disciplines; archaeology covers the period from the beginning of human culture (2.5 million years ago) to present, for this case archaeology is our primary source of information for 99% of human history while history covers the period from the beginning of written records (3000BC) to present  Fagan (1985).

History includes the stories of what happened, where, how and who did it and what happened next, archaeology is concerned with the place where the story took place only such as temple, artwork such as painting  Willey and Sabliff( 1980).

Historian are concerned about text while archaeologist keep themselves busy with artifacts, history is based on written documents, compare to archaeology which deals artifacts like fossils(human remains),food remains, ruin of buildings and human artifacts items such as tool, pottery and jewelry  Robert (2003).

Conclusively, archaeology and history have formed close alliances, drawing on the methods of both disciplines in the study of particular era of human past. For instance .the long established field of classical archaeology combines the methods of archaeology with the use of historical source to document ,the classical civilizations of Greece and Roma .Classical archaeology is also traditionally allied to the field of art history, which  provides another route to  understand the past .In the recent years scholars in history ,art  history and archaeology ,brought  together by a common interest  on a given subject and time period have increasingly combined their expertise to the add new insight to studies  such as medieval Europe , the industrial revolution and European colonization of new world.   

 

      REFERENCES

Fagan, B.M (1985). In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology. Torongo: Little Brown and Company.                                    

Robert, J.S (2003). Archaeology discovering our past. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press.

Renfrew, G and Bahn, P. (2012).Archaeology: Theory, Method and Practice. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd.

Tarimo, E.C.J (2004). An Introduction to African History to 1880. Dares Salaam: Open         University of Tanzania. (OUT).

Willey, R.and Sabloff, A. (1980). A History of American Archaeology. San Francisco: Freeman and Company.