Space, Time and Man

Abstract

Strikingly analogous problems of method and of approach have arisen in the recent writings of archaeologists and of geographers. Some of the similarities in the current debates within the two disciplines are here reviewed. The very nature of the data base establishes an overlap between archaeology and physical geography, and to a large extent conditions archaeology (and perhaps more of geography than is currently accepted) to be a fundamentally empiricist or 'positivist' discipline rather than an idealist one. It is argued, by means of an example from archaeology, that in the current debates about 'paradigms' we all risk missing the point. For it is problems, not paradigms, which should determine the direction of our research. Suggestions are then made, arising from archaeological experience, that some problems in political geography may be treated more coherently by considering the exercise of power and dominance in strictly spatial terms, thus allowing quantitative treatment. In conclusion some remarks are offered, arising from the archaeologist's experience in reconstructing past cognitive systems, about the idealist methodology of 'stepping into other people's shoes', which does not seem a sure-footed research strategy. The outstanding successes of geography in recent years have been in what is broadly an empiricist or positivist tradition. The case for widening that tradition by laying more emphasis on human thought and behaviour seems, to an outsider from a neighbouring discipline, a good one. To abandon it, in response to idealist and subjectivist polemic, can only be counter-productive. Geography, over the past twenty years, has been far and away the most successful, the most methodical and the most hard-headed of the social sciences. At least, that is how the matter looks to an archaeologist. So that when your President did me the honour of inviting me to address the Institute, I felt much gratified at the opportunity. Archaeology has learnt from geography, certainly, but has geography anything to learn from archaeology? I am well aware that the archaeologist is widely seen as a man who digs, often a rather uncouth person with mud on his boots, and a strange collection of rubbish in his finds boxes. This can be seen as romantic-ancient civilizations and buried treasure-the counterpart in the public eye of the geographer as explorer miraculously traversing impenetrable jungles, the world of the unending safari. Alternatively he is dull, classifying with infinite precision the trivial relics of ages best forgotten. But the archaeologist also thinks, or tries to. And we too have had our conceptual revolutions: not so long ago there was a New Archaeology as well as a New Geography. And it may be that some of our intellectual experiences could be a source of interest, or at least of amusement to the geographer. For, despite a few methodological borrowings, contemporary archaeology is no mirror of modern geography, and the developments in the two disciplines have been largely independent. It is this which makes their parallels so intriguing: the appeal to hypothetico-deductive explanation, the emphasis on quantification, the apotheosis of systems, the widespread apostasy from systems, the impact of neo-Marxism, the influence of structuralism, the risk of retreat to 'hermeneutic' subjectivity. For archaeology too has been undergoing some breast-beating of its own about the nonexistence of laws, and may yet succumb to the subjective, and perhaps sometimes escapist, charms of an idealist approach. Indeed we can claim to go further in our reaction against materialist positivism for do we not, on our fringes, have the exponents of Other Archaeology, with their ley lines, their flying saucers and their good vibrations---diversions of a kind which I imagine geography has escaped since the days of Immanuel Velikovsky? Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. N.S. 6, 257-78 (1981) Printed in Great Britain This content downloaded from 157.55.39.196 on Sat, 24 Sep 2016 04:14:09 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms