It is a mistake, very
often made by anthropologists and archaeologists, who forget this
elementary fact, to assume "curves of development," and so forth, or
semi-savage culture, on absolutely even and regular lines. Human culture
has not developed either evenly or regularly, as a matter of fact.
Therefore we cannot always be sure that, because the Egyptian black and
red pottery does not occur in graves with buff and red, it is for
this reason absolutely earlier in date than the latter. Some of the
development-sequences may in reality be contemporary with others instead
of earlier, and allowance must always be made for aberrations and
reversions to earlier types.
This caveat having been entered, however, we may provisionally
accept Prof. Petrie's system of sequence-dating as giving the best
classification of the prehistoric antiquities according to development.
So it may fairly be said that, as far as we know, the black and red
pottery ("sequence-date 30--") is the most ancient Neolithic Egyptian
ware known; that the buff and red did not begin to be used till about
"sequence-date 45;" that bone and ivory carvings were commonest in the
earlier period ("sequence-dates 30-50"); that copper was almost unknown
till "sequence-date 50," and so on. The arbitrary numbers used range
from 30 to 80, in order to allow for possible earlier and later
additions, which may be rendered necessary by the progress of discovery.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35