It's Difficult to Be a GodArchaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda?. Norman Yoffee , Andrew Sherratt

Abstract

Theory: Sets Agenda? is a set of papers delivered at a symposium at tenth annual meeting of Theoretical Archaeology Group in Sheffield in I988. contributors distance themselves from both processual and post-processual archaeology, noting with satisfaction that processual archaeology has lost its attraction but finding much to criticize in postprocessualism. During five years since Sheffield meeting, however, there have been so many other critiques of post-processualism (e.g., comments on Shanks and Tilley I989; Bintliff I988, i99ia, b) that papers have lost some of their freshness. Contributors concern themselves only with what was being said by postprocessualists but with why it was being said, and very phrasing of question bears a distinctly postprocessualist stamp. Furthermore, 7 of i i papers have post-processualist features, only 2 processualist ones, and in fact editors note that they are not opposed to post-processual camp. ideas presented here germinated in informal conversations over lunch in Wolfson College, where everyone had read same books and articles and participated in same conferences and therefore detailed exposition was unnecessary. This atmosphere has been retained in this volume, and reader is therefore disposed to friendly co-participation. However, perplexities soon emerge. volume is divided into three parts: Context of Theory, Archaeological Theory from to State, and Case Studies in Theory and Practice. In view of its declared general theme, this division is puzzling. Only one source of archaeological theory-social context-is singled out for detailed treatment. Other sources, in my opinion no less interesting, such as demands of research practice, nature of archaeological record, special character of archaeological re-creation of past, and development of scholarly cognition in general, are entirely overlooked. Restricting oneself to impact on theory of social context leads inevitably to relativism. second part has a classificational discrepancy in its very title. Palaeolithic and obviously belong to different spheres of study, former to archaeological periodization and latter to political history and sociology. It seems to me that archaeology should address this second theme. case studies in theory that make up third part are characteristic of British and American scholarly works. On one hand, they offer opportunity to include not-very-theoretical articles in a theoretical volume; on other, they relieve authors of necessity for broad scope, full substantiation, far-reaching generalizations, and important inferences that can come only from a university education that allows one time for thought. assignment of articles to parts is entirely consistent. In first part, Philip Kohl criticizes postprocessual archaeology (The Dangers of a New Scholasticism) with scarcely any consideration of its social context. Alison Wylie, in A Proliferation of New Archaeologies, points to calls from time to time for a new, reliable archaeology and then goes into foggy philosophical tacking beyond objectivism and relativism-no trace here of a social context. Christopher Chippindale, in The Intellectual Background of Post-processual Archaeology, points to features it shares with processual archaeology (ambition, deference to other disciplines, discrepancy, conditioning by consumer society), and this is only approach to social context in this section. In second part, Clive Gamble, in Ancestors and Agenda, considers dependence of alternative theories of human origins on shifts in ideology-on social and political context. It would have been more to point to have included this paper in first section. Stephen Shennan, in After Social Evolution, assumes rejection of evolutionism, incl-uding neoevolutionism, and seeks ideas capable of replacing it and creating a new archaeological agenda. This question has nothing to do with concrete period between the and state and therefore is included in this part of book somewhat artificially. Norman Yoffee's Too Many Chiefs does indeed deal with a state, calling into question evolutionary model of social structures. This is a theme shared with Shennan's piece. In third part, Kelley Ann Hays asks When Is a Symbol Archaeologically Meaningful? but in fact seeks to reveal function of prehistoric visual art as such (disregarding its content). Adopting a typical processualist approach (logical, though mathematical), she identifies this function as self-identification of groups producing art. Miriam Stark attempts to repair cracked and broken facade (Hodder's description) of empirical science on example of ethnoarchaeology. Tim Murray, in Who Owns Past?, sees growing self-consciousness of aborigines (Australians, Indians) and their tendency to mythologize their past as on a collision course with responsibility of European scholars for preserving world's cultural heritage and objectively studying world cultural history. Coeditor Sherratt himself speaks ironically of a methodology based solely on 'case studies' which privilege l cal understanding at expense of wider settings, but all these articles are so narrow as to merit label. Murray's might better have been moved to section dealing with impact of social context.