The Great Tradition versus the Great Divide: Archaeology as Anthropology?

Abstract

It is a great honor to speak at the centennial celebrations of the Archaeological Institute of America. I do so, however, with some trepidation in view of my proposed theme, which presents problems in tact analogous to those encountered in October when I had the privilege of speaking during the celebrations for the sixtieth anniversary of the Oriental Institute of Chicago. The title on which we then agreed was Ex Oriente Lux?-but the point of the lecture lay in the question mark. By the time I came to speak I had come to fear that a lecture with the main purpose of questioning the cherished principle of Oriental primacy might be a considerable error of tact on so festive an occasion, and that I might seem something of a Banquo's ghost at the sexagesimal feast. My title today may similarly be trying the patience of the celebrants, and perhaps I risk being torn limb from limb in some ritual sparagmos by the maenads at the centennial dithyramb. The brief which I was given for this paper was not only to review the theory and practice of archaeology today-but to look forward to the next century as much as to survey the last. I shall seek to do that by asking a number of questions about archaeology today, not all of which find gratifyingly satisfactory answers. First however let us raise a Paean of praise to Apollo-or is it, in these emancipated days, to Athena?-for what has been achieved over this century, in fulfilment of the objectives of the founders. A century ago, archaeology as a discipline was in its infancy. The foundation of the Institute came at the end of a decade which had seen the excava-