From New to New Age Archaeology: Archaeological Theory and Classical Archaeology—A 1990s Perspective

Abstract

This essay started as a review article on several recent books on archaeological theory, their place in the current debate on the purposes and methods of archaeology, and their relevance to Classical archaeologists.* What emerged, however, was the author's very personal view of the current state of theoretical archaeology and what the latest developments mean for Classical archaeology today. Classical archaeologists have long been unwilling to join in the debate, which has centered on the application of theoretical concerns to the practice of most humanistic and social science disciplines. The reasons for this are complex.' Classical archaeology traces its origins back to one of the first archaeological theoreticians, Johannes Winckelmann, and was on the front line of general cultural debates in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.2 This innovative environment changed, however, during the course of the 19th century. In part this was due to the strong influence of German scholarship with its emphasis on the systematic collection of facts as a precursor to any real knowledge, and to the increasingly dominant position of science in the intellectual life of the period. Scholars in most humanistic fields, including Classical archaeology, argued that their generalizations had to be based on solid, systematically organized bodies of data. This collection of facts increasingly replaced the use of Classical material in general cultural debates. Catalogues and compendia came to dominate scholarly production.3 Changes in the academic sociology of the profession reinforced this research direction. Classical archaeol-