Culture history Archaeology people

Grahame Clark (1907-1955)

-British, culture history -anti-Marxist, although materialist. -pushed to think more about societies than the artifacts they created. Ultimate goal should be to interpret data in terms of social history. -excavation at Star Carr -economic approach, but different from Childe - lowest ladder of inference; Clark (focus on the smaller scale/individual level analysis) is to Childe (focus on institutional level of analysis) as Malinowki is to R-B. -first to use ethnographic data -rejected evolutionary, unilineal view, thus must use ethnographic analogies between individual artifacts rather than the whole society. -believes in a reciprocal relationship between the environment and culture and that understanding past involves reconstructing the economies, the social, the political; if there is any degree of determinism, it is the environment. -with his organization of prehistory, looks at function, not chronology, also organizes it environmentally (or by climate zones); reconstructs a synchronic picture of site, then follows functions of technology through time (no explanation of origin of tech.)

V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957)

-British; culture history -also somewhat evolutionist- adopted the savagery -> barbarism -> civilization system of Maine and tried to link it to the 3-age system (stone, bronze, iron) -rejected unilinear approach to culture change of the Soviets, but did favor the economic focus -urban revolution -his idea about food production is also a "pull theory", "the oasis theory" -takes a more economic approach than Braidwod. -unique because he is a little bit Marxist -looking at conflict -> economic dependency...... beginning of a trend -dependency between social groups with different access to resources. -his view of organic solidarity -> Marx and Durkheim; hierarchy is no longer kin based, based on the economy (control of goods) -thus Childe seems to be an economic determinist -the concept of economies of scale -the idea of internal change; political institutions serve to support society was the typical functional idea. Childe takes a more Marxist view -> politicians are self serving not system serving. -thinks archaeologists can investigate ideology through symbols and religious objects and where they are found. -This contrasts with Hawkes (typical mid 20th century European func. Arch) ladder of inference, and culture history. -"what are archaeologies limitations?" we can investigate certain kinds of social questions, but some are easy and some are hard. From easy to hard: 1. site formation in time, 2. Subsistence economy (functionalist), 3. Sociopolitical institutions, 4. Ideology/religion/ world belief -also somewhat functional- technology and economy; how it functions to maintain society; the idea of revolutions with technology that change society; mode of production created the change in the relations of production; thinks ideology is also important.

Robert Braidwood (1907-2003)

-american, culture history -origins of food production; agriculture through human invention (argues against environmental determinism), this is a practical, common sense explanation for the creation of agriculture. -agriculture as the driving force for advancement. -his descriptive flow is very similar to an early functionalist argument -human ingenuity right place, right time -but functionalists weren't as much about population, in this way it is more processualist -"pull theory"- peoples needs are going to naturally lead them to food production. Not so much about population stress. -processualists would argue for a "push theory" - imprecise writing for the public eye- this is what new arch was reacting against.

Willey and Phillips

-are the epitome of the culture history approach. -things can be very arbitrary, archs job is to make it less arbitrary. -must explore cultures through space and time, cant separate the two. (synchronic and diachronic.)

Grafton Elliott Smith (1871-1937)

-australian/british hyperdiffusionist; believed that every hallmark had originated in and spread out of Egypt. Advocated for agriculture as the hallmark of the Neolithic, rather than polished stone tools.

Kossinna

-culture types map on to "races", and the mission of the archaeologist was to trace the origin and movement of these groups through space and time. -deeply tied into nationalist motivations. -adopted and exploited Virchow's work (identify, and trace origins and migrations and find modern connections for prehistoric peoples)as an argument for racial superiority and conquest, laying the foundation for the Nazi movement. -Kossinna in Germany at this time used arch as evidence for German superiority, arguing that all other races were impure. Developed settlement theory. -arch as a way to establish a historic right to claiming a territory. -ongoing emphasis that the prehistory of Europe is a complex mosaic of cultures over time and space.

Gustaf Oscar Montelius

-played a major role in the development of culture history arch. -developed a typological method, as the creation of a systematic typologies or classifications of prehistoric artifacts, based on variations in form and decoration for numerous classes of artifacts throughout Europe -on this basis sought to work out and correlate a series of regional chronologies. -He was able to build on the work of those that came before him and create more specific chronologies because of the larger amount of artifacts available to him. -then drew attention to the evolutionary process acting on the change of artifacts through time. -He interpreted changes as ways to make the tool more effective for the particular use, and thus being indicative of cultural change. -His evolutionary pattern was unilinear. -He believed that his chronology was objective and taken directly from the arch evidence. -Supported a diffusionist explanation for European origins in the middle east. This helped to justify biblical beliefs and also colonialism.

Marx

Marx is a large basis for culture history- 3 big ideas- materialism (matter comes before thought), conflict (human desire to accumulate stuff leads to conflict, power is unequal with in a society, self interest to keep stuff leads to conflict, thus an internal source of change), ideology (determined by material conditions, the commonly held views on how things should be done)