Before the Emergence of the Modern World

Author(s): Robert Schuyler

Year: 2018

Summary

Historical Archaeology, as properly defined, is the archaeology of the Modern World - plus or minus the last half millennium of human global evolution. Various inception dates have been suggested for the initiation of the processes that produced modernity:1415. 1453, 1481, 1492,1494, 1500, 1550 or even 1946. To fully understand the Modern World and its archaeology, its precursors and roots also need to be recognized. Techological diffusion spheres, interregional trade, continential movements of individual people and peoples, empires, and universal (potentially global) religions all predate 1400 C.E. A survey of these buildings blocks of modernity, however, does not vitiate the Modern Period because the contrasts before and after 1400 highlight how different our world is from all that went before. The Modern World is not only a phase in human history, it is an evolutionary stage transformation.

Cite this Record

Before the Emergence of the Modern World. Robert Schuyler. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2018 ( tDAR id: 441605)

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 464