Farewell to antiquarianism. A new ‘grand narrative’ for German-speaking prehistoric archaeology?

Abstract

I would first like to thank the editors ofArchaeological dialoguesfor inviting me to comment on Kerstin P. Hofmann and Philipp W. Stockhammer's paper on the present situation of archaeological theory in German-speaking prehistoric archaeology (GSA). The message the authors wish to communicate to an international audience is relatively simple and straightforward. GSA, which for a long time seemed ‘generally uninterested in theoretical debates’ (p. 1), has since about the year 2000 radically changed its outlook. This change is seen reflected in a large corpus of theoretically oriented case studies (represented in a list of some four hundred titles added to the paper), that in the eyes of the authors deserves the attention of the international scientific community. This positive development is interpreted as a result both of a growing interest in overarching research questions of cultural studies and of the public funding of large-scale cooperative research projects.