Creating prehistory: Archeology museums and the discource of modernism

Authors

  • Bjørnar Olsen
  • Asgeir Svestad

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.3772

Abstract

In the 19th century a number of new scientific disciplines made their appearance in Europe. Among these was archaeology, a discipline concerned with mans very distant past. Archaeology unfolded in a space created by the collapse of the pre-modern, biblical conception of history. This breakdown had left a void which archaeology, along with several other evolutionary disciplines, were able successfully to fill. By the end of the 19th century a vast number of archaeological collections, exhibitions and museums had grown up throughout Europe and stood as material signifiers of the newly established time-depth of man. 

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