Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:46:31.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Archaeology

from Part III - Reworking Disciplines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2024

Vera Keller
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
Get access

Summary

Megaliths, burial mounds, and other remnants of ancient human civilization littered the region. No textual sources about them survived. Competing with ancient Greece and Rome, local scholars composed rival visions of antiquity that supported Swedish, Danish, or German imperial ambitions. By contrast, Major developed a distinctive approach to prehistory that served no political interests. Assuming a prehistoric state of human desperation, Major reasoned about prehistory by using the intellectual approaches of the history of learning and experimental philosophy. He developed a multiyear research project that deployed extensive excavations, purposeful travel, distinctive visual techniques, and novel note-taking methods. He identified so-called thunderstones as ancient artifacts as well as the varying deployment of stone, bronze, and iron in different time periods through the use of stratigraphy and the ordering of finds by the materials used. In 1688, he opened a public museum and conference hall where members of opposing sides in the war could discuss the history of their shared region. Although this institution did not long survive Major’s death, his archaeological approach did.

Type
Chapter
Information
Curating the Enlightenment
Johann Daniel Major and the Experimental Century
, pp. 197 - 240
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Archaeology
  • Vera Keller, University of Oregon
  • Book: Curating the Enlightenment
  • Online publication: 07 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009506854.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Archaeology
  • Vera Keller, University of Oregon
  • Book: Curating the Enlightenment
  • Online publication: 07 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009506854.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Archaeology
  • Vera Keller, University of Oregon
  • Book: Curating the Enlightenment
  • Online publication: 07 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009506854.010
Available formats
×