Author: Robert Alexander Stewart Litt

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-05

Total Pages: 638

ISBN-13: 9781330034415

Excerpt from A Text-Book of European Archaeology, Vol. 1 The primary purpose of the work before the reader is to provide a text-book for the students in the classes in Archaeology in University College, Dublin: and it is based upon the lectures in this subject given there from year to year. It is hoped that it will be of use to others who desire to study the subject. The book has grown considerably - far beyond the size originally planned - in the course of preparation: yet so wide is the field to be covered that it could probably have been made at least twice as large as it actually is. To exhaust the subject, even in the present limited state of knowledge, would be impossible: the author of a synthetic treatise must perforce make selections from the mass of materials at his disposal, and probably no two students would agree as to the selections that should be made. The writer can but plead that on this difficult question he has used his judgment to the best of his ability. One omission he greatly regrets: a description of the wonderful cave sanctuary called after its fortunate discoverers La Caverne des Trois Frères. Down to the moment of publication no printed account of this discovery had come into his hands (except a short notice in Abbe Mainage's work, mentioned below), and he feared to infringe the privilege of priority if he made any use of the descriptions with which he had been privately favoured. He also regrets that when writing of the human remains found at Solutre, he overlooked the work of Broca and of Hamy (published in B.S.A.P. 1873) as well as the remarks of Broca (A.F.A.S. 1873, summarised in Materiaux pour l'histoire de l'homme, vol. VIII [1873], p. 342); also Cartailhac's important review, in the same journal, of Arcelin's collection of all the materials relating to these disputed relics (Materiaux, XIII [1878], p. 527). Those who have wandered most in the maze of archaeological and anthropological literature will be the readiest to forgive these oversights. The definition of the word "henotheism" adopted in this work is that which has become current in treatises on Comparative Religion, though it differs in some degree from the significance attached to it by Max Müller, who introduced its use (see his Physical Religion, p. 181, especially the footnote). About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.