Abstract
This article examines the roots of the first textbooks produced in Cambridge on European prehistory. The first dedicated lecturer in prehistoric archaeology in Britain, Miles Burkitt, authored these textbooks. Two types of information, archival and printed sources, will be used as the basis for the analysis. A description will be given of the events that made Burkitt´s presence in Spain possible, as a companion of the French archaeologist Henri Breuil, and the program and itinerary they followed in 1913 and 1914 will be detailed. The last section of the article will explore the ways in which Burkitt subsequently translated the knowledge he acquired in his fieldwork into the textbooks that would be used by many generations of Cambridge students.
Highlights
Geographers and historians of science have analyzed the means by which ideas that emerge in one place move to another
A detailed analysis is undertaken of the instruction he received in prehistoric archaeology before World War I
All four of Burkitts textbooks were presented as detailed compilations of prehistoric sites and sequences known in continental Western Europe at the time; a detailed analysis shows that they were all largely based on the field knowledge the author had acquired during his 19131914 journeys to Spain and France
Summary
Geographers and historians of science have analyzed the means by which ideas that emerge in one place move to another This may occur as a result of active or passive communication through a very wide range of methods, including conversations, relationships between professionals and between professionals and students, and participation in talks, seminars, excavations and publications. It can take place within a research team made up of people from the same country or from different parts of the world (Harris 1998; Livingstone 1995; Naylor 2005; Shapin 1998). A detailed analysis is undertaken of the instruction he received in prehistoric archaeology before World War I His period of learning was very short, but unique in its international nature. The examination of the textbooks, of the selection of data that was included, is a type of analysis that, with a few exceptions (Lyman 2010, see for a related topic Ruiz Zapatero and Alvarez-Sanchís 1997, Stoczkowski 1990, 2002), has been largely ignored by historians of archaeology
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