The Spell of Representation in Archaeological Inquiry
Not to exaggerate the novelty of such meta-questioning in archaeology, I will draw out the continuities to earlier disciplinarian thinking, sketching early 20th-century reflection upon the limits and scope of archeological inquiry, through the ‘traditional’ versus ‘New archaeology’ programmatic statements, to the ‘interpretive turn’. As these ‘internal turns’ have been more exhaustively treated from a historical perspective in others’ works (esp. Meltzer 1983, Trigger 1989a:ch 5,7-10, Willey 1993:ch 4-6), I will follow a theoretical focus (viz. Hodder 2003b, Thomas 2000, Wylie 2002, 2006) in briefly assessing their similarities and differences to argue that all have centered themselves upon accurate representation-of-the-past as the compass for evaluative judgment.
Most archaeologists explicitly discussing Kuhnian paradigm shifts in regard to the coherence of the discipline’s history have sided with continuity rather than radical breaks (eg. Meltzer 1979, Trigger 1989:5-6, Wylie 2002:ch.2). According to Kuhn’s (1970:106-7) diagnostic indicators of ‘new paradigms’, a discipline would experience changes in the criteria for both identifying problems deemed important and in determining compelling explanation. In archaeology the vagaries, both historical and contemporary, of the former are evident from most readers in archaeological theory. Whether discussing the recovery of mind, human agency, landscape structuration, settlement distribution, and so forth, the topics of interest vary with informing theoretical interest. While still placing the various global traditions of archaeological practice under only three ‘general orientations’ which are now quite famous, Trigger’s (1984, 1989:8-11) overall assessment in reviewing the history of the discipline boils down to socio-political context as the strong determinant of archaeological interest. From his materialist perspective, differing actual societal conditions give rise to differing archaeologies, differing in their driving interests. And though not stated within an explicit materialist perspective such as Trigger’s, others presenting the various investigations undertaken historically in archaeology (eg. Willey and Sabloff 1993) acknowledge the influence of extra-disciplinarian factors shaping archaeological interest. ‘Archaeologies’ seem to in fact disperse along Kuhn’s first criterion.
It is with the second diagnostic indicator of Kuhn’s where disciplinarian solidarity becomes more apparent. Unfortunately, aside from what may be gleaned from the philosophically-oriented archaeological literature (Embree 1992, Hanen 1989, Kosso 2001, Renfrew 1982, Salmon 1982, Watson 1971, Wylie 2002), specifically that informed by the analytic tradition, there are few investigations of changes in archaeological reasoning through time. So when Trigger (1989:8) bemoans the lacunae of studies dedicated to the ‘nature of their divergences’ regarding the various research traditions, he is addressing less evaluative procedures and more the differing theoretical orientations – in concordance with Kuhn’s first criterion. So that, whether one still finds Kuhn’s diagnostic indicators useful or not, it would be difficult to provide a firm conclusion as to whether criteria for explanation itself, for what constitutes a good archaeological argument, has changed significantly enough to warrant ‘revolution’.
Reflecting specifically upon the antecedents of ‘new archaeology’, as well as carefully exploring the evidential reasoning of new archaeology practitioners, Alison Wylie (2002, 2006) most exhaustively surveys the major categories of evaluation of knowledge claims in archaeology and concludes with Meltzer (1979:653-4) that far from ‘revolutionary’ breaks there is a recycling of similar epistemological and methodological issues roughly every twenty years in the discipline (2002:16). Along this trajectory, she concludes (2002:ch.2) that there is no doubt that epistemological sophistication, due to the infusion of reflexive consideration by ‘radical critics’ of the various archaeological generations, has increased particularly since the advent of the philosophically oriented ‘new archaeology’ in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. However, such ‘radical critics’ stressing disciplinarian awareness of reasoning and methods were present much earlier in the debates internal to ‘traditional’ or ‘normative’ archaeology of the 1920’s to ‘50’s. Updating the comparison with the post-processual approaches, Ian Hodder has vocalized (2003:1-2) that many of the concerns of symbolic and interpretive archaeology ‘have parallels in pre-New Archaeology’. More than just topical interest and methodology, the Van Pools (1999) have stressed the similar evidential reasoning employed by post-processualists and processualists.
Forward to ‘Traditional’ archaeology and initial introspection
Containments
Return to Introduction
