Well, Lord J, I'm not saying that. I understand the value of things even without their belonging to some might civilization and what not, I'm just saying it's not all that amazing in that, unless it's different than what the rest of north Europe had at the time, it will likely just be more of the same, and as such is a curiosity, but doesn't teach us anything new per say. Some people might look at this and go: 'wow, now we'll know so much more.' But especially the pre-historic periods, there is a lot of guesswork involved (and take this as someone at least a bit in the know: even the histoic archaeology is very shaky at times... my personal favorite is the identification of the Venus of Villendorf as a fertility goddess which, while it might exist as a viable theory, is very much the product of guesswork, and the identification of it as that is highly questionable.)
Anyway, you must forgive me. I'm not thinking THAT well. I've just come back from a trip, and am kind of sunburned, and so am not thinking with that much wit or clarity. But I still stand by my statement, that this isn't something that impressive. Or, rather, I think it is far more interesting from the geophysical perspective, rather than the anthropological. Anthropologically, this will likely give us nothing new, so what's there to be that excited about? I mean, if you guys are excited about this, why aren't you clamouring for the publishing of all those excavations of various sites or field surveys that have yet to come out, though they were performed years ago?
I said that climate change can be witnessed through the archaeological record (and it can), not that the topic is what they deal with.
Not exactly. The effects can sometimes be witnessed, but we must be careful in applying climate to what we find in archaeology. Archaeologists have done that in the past, and have found their theories severely questioned since then. For example, a drought that affected Thera at one point in I think the 6th century was taken as one theory as to why the material evidence of Krete was so sparse. Indeed, this climate condition is one that history tells us of (it is mentioned in Herodotos.) But on closer examination, the material conditions on Krete last a century... in no way could the drought have been solely, or even mostly, responsible. Likewise it's been said that climactic conditions were responsible for the fall of the Minoan civilization. This, too, does not exactly fit together. In fact, it is often that climactic conditions having an effect upon the material evidence is perceived when it simply does not exist. We should be careful in applying it as such, because it is a very hard thing to extrapolate from archaeological evidence.
Archaeology is a subfield of anthropology, though it is sometimes falsely placed into Art History departments at some universities. And no, it isn't limited to the historic period. Some of the greatest finds are from places that have no written history. The complex part of archaeology is trying to rebuild what occured without any historical evidence (or little depending on the situation). For north american archaeology, most work is done with Indian and paleo-indian sites, which are prehistoric until the time of contact.
True enough, it certainly is not art history (though unfortunately the field of Classical Archaeology was essentially Classical Art History for the last few centuries, something that has thankfully changed in the past several decades, due to the influence of Aegean Paleo-anthropologists.) Indeed as you might say, Archaeology is a subfield of Archaeology, but what then differentiates it? Generally it is limted to what I have said, where there is recoreded history, OR a great deal of material history. Thus we don't often speak of an archaeologist digging up things from before 3000BC... that's more the realm of anthropologists, I'd think. Archaeologists deal with the periods in which there is seen to be a bit more in the way of material evidence (and occassionally a period showing a lack thereof.) However, not only should you say 'the complex part' but also 'the dangerous part' in regards to where there is no historical evidence. Where there isn't any (and even where there is, but it's worse where there isn't) we can get some pretty wild theories which end up being neither provable or disprovable, and end up with no clear picture. The good thing about modern trends in the field is the move towards applying history in archaeology more closely, and vice versa, where before they were kept seperate. Always a contextual approach yields the most accurate view. Nonetheless, archaeology still has a lot more question marks than does something like literature or history. Tell me what a kouros means, or a kore. What doe the Parthenon frieze depict? Who is buried in the second tomb at Vergina? Why did the Mycenaean empire fall? Who destroyed Hattusis? These questions cannot be securely answered by archaeology.
I don't see what's quite so amazing in any of this. The culture is nothing spectacular compared to what was going on a bit further south in continental Europe... just because it's sunk under water doesn't make it that impressive. Or that's how I see it, at least.
It might not be the most amazing thing ever, but if there is a hole in our knowledge, it should be filled regardless.
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Just my point, there really wasn't a hole. Basically, the only thing that we didn't know was the extent of the land-mass at the time, thus the extent of that hunter-gatherer culture, Its boundaries have been moved somewhat now, but it tells us nothing more about neolithic human culture, or has not yet, nor do I think it will.
