AGE3702 Assignment 4 Semester 2 2026 – Due 5 October 2026

Description

AGE3702 ASSIGNMENT 4 PORTFOLIO 2026
DUE 5 OCTOBER 2026

QUESTION 1

Question 1.1
a) How archaeology differs from history and why it is important for communities
without written records
Archaeology is the scientific study of the human past through material remains
(artefacts, structures, ecofacts, features and sites), whereas history primarily relies on
written documents. The study guide (AGE3702 Study Unit 1) defines archaeology as
the study of antiquity, particularly the development of humans and their culture, based
on tangible cultural objects recovered mainly by excavation. History reconstructs the
past from textual sources produced by literate societies.
This distinction is critical for communities that left no written records. In southern Africa,
the vast majority of human history (Early, Middle and Later Stone Ages and much of the
Iron Age) occurred before the introduction of writing. Archaeology recovers the only
surviving evidence of these societies stone tools, bone, plant remains, rock art,
settlement patterns and environmental data allowing reconstruction of lifeways,
subsistence, social organisation and cultural change that written history cannot address
(AGE3702 LU1; Deacon & Deacon 1999; Fagan 2009). Without archaeology, the deep
past of San, Khoekhoe and early farming communities would remain invisible.