7th March 2006, 01:27 PM
I was particularly interested in two linked issues that he raised about the nature of archaeological fieldwork and I wonder if people agree with him:
1) That there has been little innovation in the techniques of excavation. In fact he only recognises three major developments 'stratigraphy', 'open area excavation' and 'sampling theory'. Everything else is a refinement, e.g matrices or geophysics, rather than a fundamental shift in practice.
2) That there should have been change in the nature of excavation techniques under the influence of changing archaeological theory. he sees this as a fundamental anomaly. In fact he says "Field techniques may have assumed a conventional character, but we should remember that they were invented to answer specific questions whose details have now been forgotten"
In other words, archaeological theory should influence field techniques. I am familiar with this argument from university (its the idea that neutral recording is impossible) but I have always been at a loss as to what practical implications this has. Many academics pay lip service to the idea, but they neglect to state explicitly what needs to change in field techniques.
Surely the techniques that we use are not primarily an extension of theoretical developments and the questions they throw up, but a response to the objective conditions of an archaeological site and the limited amount of information that survives? Because the nature of sites doesn't change (while intellectual fashions do), the techniques we use don't change much either. Is that a really old fashioned point of view?!
1) That there has been little innovation in the techniques of excavation. In fact he only recognises three major developments 'stratigraphy', 'open area excavation' and 'sampling theory'. Everything else is a refinement, e.g matrices or geophysics, rather than a fundamental shift in practice.
2) That there should have been change in the nature of excavation techniques under the influence of changing archaeological theory. he sees this as a fundamental anomaly. In fact he says "Field techniques may have assumed a conventional character, but we should remember that they were invented to answer specific questions whose details have now been forgotten"
In other words, archaeological theory should influence field techniques. I am familiar with this argument from university (its the idea that neutral recording is impossible) but I have always been at a loss as to what practical implications this has. Many academics pay lip service to the idea, but they neglect to state explicitly what needs to change in field techniques.
Surely the techniques that we use are not primarily an extension of theoretical developments and the questions they throw up, but a response to the objective conditions of an archaeological site and the limited amount of information that survives? Because the nature of sites doesn't change (while intellectual fashions do), the techniques we use don't change much either. Is that a really old fashioned point of view?!