Archeology: University Textbook and Science (to the 45th Anniversary of the Publication of the Textbook: Martynov A. I. Archeology of the USSR . Moscow, 1973)

Abstract

The paper features the interaction of archaeological science and textbooks on archeology. It successively examines the history of textbooks on archeology in Russia published for higher education institutions of history, from the XIX century to the present. The author stresses the importance of textbooks in the formation and development of archeology as one of the main subjects of university historical education. Archeology and its textbooks play a key role in the reconstruction of important historical events of the three million years of human history, especially in cases when archaeological materials are the only source. Archeology discovered civilizations of the Ancient East, e.g. China, India, Iran, as well as Archaic Greece and ancient Rome. The paper states the significance of the archaeological heritage of Russia. Since 1970s, only two universities in Russia, Lomonosov Moscow State University and Kemerovo State University (Department of Archeology), have been publishing university textbooks on archeology to be used in universities nationwide. The list involves nine publications prepared by Kemerovo State University. These textbooks are unique from the point of view of the content and methodology of the presentation. The article focuses on the interaction of archaeological science and university textbooks. This concerns the explanation of global historical events, e.g. the early colonization of Eurasia, ethnogenesis in the Middle Paleolithic Era, human migration to America in the Upper Paleolithic, the formation of cultural in the early Holocene, revolution of the producing economy in the Paleometallic Era, etc. The author describes the effect of archeological textbooks on the formation of the conceptual foundations of modern archeology as a historical science. The section "One History – Two Sciences" features the shortcomings of modern Russian historical science, in particular, the lack of alternative to the concept of formational explanation of history in school and university textbooks. History is currently being demonstrated exclusively as a social-class development process, which makes it impossible to understand the role of the fundamental foundations of historical development, as well as the role of discoveries, innovations, achievements in the field of material culture and productive economy. As a result, the human achievements of the past, which are indicated in archeology textbooks, do not find proper application in explaining the historical processes in Russia and Eurasia in modern history textbooks.