Cultural-history archaeology
Encyclopedia
Culture-historical archaeology is an archaeological theory
that emphasises defining historical societies into distinct ethnic and cultural groupings according to their material culture
. Originating in the late nineteenth century as cultural evolutionism
began to fall out of favor with many antiquarians and archaeologists, it gradually began to become unpopular amongst the archaeological
community, being superseded by new archaeological theories, namely processual archaeology
, in the mid twentieth century.
Cultural-historical archaeology had in many cases been influenced by a nationalist
political agenda, being utilised to prove a direct cultural and/or ethnic link from prehistoric and ancient peoples to modern nation-states, something that has in many respects been disproved by later research and archaeological evidence.
had spread across many nations, leading to the creation of large urban
centres, most of which were filled with poverty stricken proletariat
workers. This new urban working class had begun to develop a political voice through socialism
, threatening the established political orders of many European states. Whilst some intellectuals had championed the Industrial Revolution as a progressive step forward, there were many who had seen it as a negative turn of events, disrupting the established fabric of society. This latter view was taken up by the Romanticist movement
, which was largely made up of artists and writers, who popularised the idea of an idyllic ancient agrarian society.
It was also a period that saw increasing nationalism
, and with it racism
, across central and western Europe. In this manner, members of various nationalities began to stress the idea that the members of each nation were biologically distinct from one another, with their own respective ethnic and cultural histories. There was also a trend that was developing among the European intelligentsia that began to oppose the concept of cultural evolutionism
(that culture and society gradually evolved and progressed through stages), instead taking the viewpoint that human beings were inherently resistant to change.
was being challenged… These developments were accompanied by growing nationalism
and racism
, which made ethnicity appear to be the most important factor shaping human history." A variety of scholars and academics had begun to criticise cultural evolution and instead place an emphasise on the distinctive nature of each different culture towards the end of the nineteenth century. In Germany (where such ideas of cultural distinctiveness would later gain political supremacy under the Nazi Party), two ethnologists in particular supported such a concept, Friedrich Ratzel
and Franz Boas
, the latter of who went on promote the idea in a North American rather than just European context. Similar ideas were also coming from Germany's neighbour, Austria, at around this time, namely from two anthropologist Roman Catholic priests, Fritz Graebner
and Wilhelm Schmidt
, as well as by the archaeologist Oswald Menghin
.
As it became the dominant archaeological theory within the discipline, a number of prominent cultural-historical archaeologists rose to levels of influence. The Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius
was one of the most notable, as he studied the entirety of the European archaeological prehistoric record, and divided it into a number of distinct temporal groups based upon grouping together various forms of artifacts.
Culture-historical archaeology was utilised in various European nations by nationalists
wishing to highlight and celebrate the prehistoric and ancient past of their ancestors, and prove an ethnic and cultural link to them. As such, many members of various European nations placed an emphasis on archaeologically proving a connection with a particular historical ethnicity, for instance the French
often maintained that they were the ethnic and cultural descendents of the ancient Gauls
, whilst the English
did the same with the Anglo-Saxons
and the Welsh
and Irish
with the Celts, and archaeologists in these countries were encouraged to interpret the archaeological evidence to fit these conclusions.
, such as the style of pottery that it produced or the forms of burial that it practiced.
A number of culture-historical archaeologists subdivided and named separate cultures within their field of expertise: Heinrich Schliemann
for instance, in examining the Bronze Age
eastern Mediterranean, divided it up between such cultures as the Aegean, Mycenaean, Helladic and Cycladic.
A number of culture-historical archaeologists put forward the idea that all knowledge and technology in the ancient world had diffused from a single source in the Middle East
, which had then been spread across much of the world by merchants. The Australian Grafton Elliot Smith
for instance, in his works The Children of the Sun (1923) and The Growth of Civilisation (1924), put forward the idea that agriculture, architecture, religion and government had all developed in Ancient Egypt
, where the conditions were perfect for the development of such things, and that these ideas were then diffused into other cultures. A similar theory was proposed by Lord Raglan in 1939, but he believed Mesopotamia
to be the source rather than Egypt.
unlike its main rival, processual archaeology
which stresses the importance of the hypothetico-deduction
method. To work best it requires a historical record to support it. As much of early archaeology focused on the Classical World it naturally came to rely on and mirror the information provided by ancient historians who could already explain many of the events and motivations which would not necessarily survive in the archaeological record. The need to explain prehistoric societies, without this historical record, could initially be dealt with using the paradigms established for later periods but as more and more material was excavated and studied, it became clear that culture history could not explain it all.
Manufacturing techniques and economic behaviour can be easily explained through cultures and culture history approaches but more complex events and explanations, involving less concrete examples in the material record are harder for it to explain. In order to interpret prehistoric religious beliefs for example, an approach based on cultures provides little to go on. Culture historians could catalogue items but in order to look beyond the material record, towards anthropology and the scientific method, they would have had to abandon their reliance on material, 'inhuman,' cultures.
Such approaches were the intent of processual archaeology
.
It should be remembered that culture history is by no means useless or surpassed by more effective methods of thinking. Indeed, diffusionist explanations are still valid in many cases and the importance of describing and classifying finds has not gone away. Post-processual archaeologists
stress the importance of recurring patterns in material culture, echoing culture history's approach. In many cases it can be argued that any explanation is only one factor within a whole network of influences.
and later ages, somewhat ignoring the earliest human era, the Palaeolithic, where distinct cultural groups and differences are less noticeable in the archaeological record.
Archaeological theory
Archaeological theory refers to the various intellectual frameworks through which archaeologists interpret archaeological data. There is no one singular theory of archaeology, but many, with different archaeologists believing that information should be interpreted in different ways...
that emphasises defining historical societies into distinct ethnic and cultural groupings according to their material culture
Material culture
In the social sciences, material culture is a term that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations. Studying a culture's relationship to materiality is a lens through which social and cultural attitudes can be discussed...
. Originating in the late nineteenth century as cultural evolutionism
Cultural evolutionism
Cultural evolutionism attempts to describe and explain long-term change in human ways of life, insofar as those ways are socially rather than biologically acquired...
began to fall out of favor with many antiquarians and archaeologists, it gradually began to become unpopular amongst the archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
community, being superseded by new archaeological theories, namely processual archaeology
Processual archaeology
Processual archaeology is a form of archaeological theory that had its genesis in 1958 with Willey and Phillips' work Method and Theory in American Archeology, in which the pair stated that "American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing" , a rephrasing of Frederic William Maitland's...
, in the mid twentieth century.
Cultural-historical archaeology had in many cases been influenced by a nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
political agenda, being utilised to prove a direct cultural and/or ethnic link from prehistoric and ancient peoples to modern nation-states, something that has in many respects been disproved by later research and archaeological evidence.
Context
Culture-historical archaeology arose during a somewhat tumultuous time in European intellectual thought. The Industrial RevolutionIndustrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
had spread across many nations, leading to the creation of large urban
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
centres, most of which were filled with poverty stricken proletariat
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
workers. This new urban working class had begun to develop a political voice through socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, threatening the established political orders of many European states. Whilst some intellectuals had championed the Industrial Revolution as a progressive step forward, there were many who had seen it as a negative turn of events, disrupting the established fabric of society. This latter view was taken up by the Romanticist movement
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, which was largely made up of artists and writers, who popularised the idea of an idyllic ancient agrarian society.
It was also a period that saw increasing nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, and with it racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, across central and western Europe. In this manner, members of various nationalities began to stress the idea that the members of each nation were biologically distinct from one another, with their own respective ethnic and cultural histories. There was also a trend that was developing among the European intelligentsia that began to oppose the concept of cultural evolutionism
Cultural evolutionism
Cultural evolutionism attempts to describe and explain long-term change in human ways of life, insofar as those ways are socially rather than biologically acquired...
(that culture and society gradually evolved and progressed through stages), instead taking the viewpoint that human beings were inherently resistant to change.
Early development
As the archaeologist Bruce Trigger noted, culture-historical archaeology "was a response to growing awareness of geographical variability in the archaeological record at a time when cultural evolutionismCultural evolutionism
Cultural evolutionism attempts to describe and explain long-term change in human ways of life, insofar as those ways are socially rather than biologically acquired...
was being challenged… These developments were accompanied by growing nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, which made ethnicity appear to be the most important factor shaping human history." A variety of scholars and academics had begun to criticise cultural evolution and instead place an emphasise on the distinctive nature of each different culture towards the end of the nineteenth century. In Germany (where such ideas of cultural distinctiveness would later gain political supremacy under the Nazi Party), two ethnologists in particular supported such a concept, Friedrich Ratzel
Friedrich Ratzel
Friedrich Ratzel was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for first using the term Lebensraum in the sense that the National Socialists later would.-Life:...
and Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
, the latter of who went on promote the idea in a North American rather than just European context. Similar ideas were also coming from Germany's neighbour, Austria, at around this time, namely from two anthropologist Roman Catholic priests, Fritz Graebner
Fritz Graebner
Robert Fritz Graebner was a German Geographer and ethnologist best known for his theory of the Kulturkreis, or culture circle....
and Wilhelm Schmidt
Wilhelm Schmidt
Wilhelm Schmidt was an Austrian linguist, anthropologist, and ethnologist.Wilhelm Schmidt was born in Hörde, Germany in 1868. He entered the Society of the Divine Word in 1890 and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1892. He studied linguistics at the universities of Berlin and...
, as well as by the archaeologist Oswald Menghin
Oswald Menghin
Oswald Menghin was an Austrian Prehistorian and University professor. He established an international reputation before the War, while he was professor at the University of Vienna. His work on race and culture was serviceable to the German nationalist movement of the 1930s...
.
As it became the dominant archaeological theory within the discipline, a number of prominent cultural-historical archaeologists rose to levels of influence. The Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius
Oscar Montelius
Oscar Montelius was a Swedish archaeologist who refined the concept of seriation, a relative chronological dating method...
was one of the most notable, as he studied the entirety of the European archaeological prehistoric record, and divided it into a number of distinct temporal groups based upon grouping together various forms of artifacts.
Culture-historical archaeology was utilised in various European nations by nationalists
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
wishing to highlight and celebrate the prehistoric and ancient past of their ancestors, and prove an ethnic and cultural link to them. As such, many members of various European nations placed an emphasis on archaeologically proving a connection with a particular historical ethnicity, for instance the French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
often maintained that they were the ethnic and cultural descendents of the ancient Gauls
Gauls
The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....
, whilst the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
did the same with the Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
and the Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
and Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
with the Celts, and archaeologists in these countries were encouraged to interpret the archaeological evidence to fit these conclusions.
Distinct historical cultures
The core point to culture-historical archaeology was its belief that the human species could be subdivided into various "cultures" that were in many cases distinct from one another. Usually, each of these cultures was seen as representing a different ethnicity. From an archaeological persepective, it was believed that each of these cultures could be distinguished because of its material cultureMaterial culture
In the social sciences, material culture is a term that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations. Studying a culture's relationship to materiality is a lens through which social and cultural attitudes can be discussed...
, such as the style of pottery that it produced or the forms of burial that it practiced.
A number of culture-historical archaeologists subdivided and named separate cultures within their field of expertise: Heinrich Schliemann
Heinrich Schliemann
Heinrich Schliemann was a German businessman and amateur archaeologist, and an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. Schliemann was an archaeological excavator of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns...
for instance, in examining the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
eastern Mediterranean, divided it up between such cultures as the Aegean, Mycenaean, Helladic and Cycladic.
Diffusion and migration
Within culture-historical archaeology, changes in the culture of a historical society were typically explained by the diffusion of ideas from one culture into another, or by the migration of members of one society into a new area, sometimes by invasion. This was at odds with the theories held by cultural evolutionary archaeologists, who whilst accepting diffusion and migration as reasons for cultural change, also accepted the concept that independent cultural development could occur within a society, which was something culture-historical archaeologists typically refused to accept.A number of culture-historical archaeologists put forward the idea that all knowledge and technology in the ancient world had diffused from a single source in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, which had then been spread across much of the world by merchants. The Australian Grafton Elliot Smith
Grafton Elliot Smith
Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, FRS FRCP was an Australian anatomist and a proponent of the hyperdiffusionist view of prehistory.-Professional career:Smith was born in Grafton, New South Wales...
for instance, in his works The Children of the Sun (1923) and The Growth of Civilisation (1924), put forward the idea that agriculture, architecture, religion and government had all developed in Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, where the conditions were perfect for the development of such things, and that these ideas were then diffused into other cultures. A similar theory was proposed by Lord Raglan in 1939, but he believed Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
to be the source rather than Egypt.
Inductive reasoning
Culture history uses inductive reasoningInductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, is a kind of reasoning that constructs or evaluates propositions that are abstractions of observations. It is commonly construed as a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances...
unlike its main rival, processual archaeology
Processual archaeology
Processual archaeology is a form of archaeological theory that had its genesis in 1958 with Willey and Phillips' work Method and Theory in American Archeology, in which the pair stated that "American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing" , a rephrasing of Frederic William Maitland's...
which stresses the importance of the hypothetico-deduction
Hypothetico-deductive model
The hypothetico-deductive model or method, first so-named by William Whewell, is a proposed description of scientific method. According to it, scientific inquiry proceeds by formulating a hypothesis in a form that could conceivably be falsified by a test on observable data...
method. To work best it requires a historical record to support it. As much of early archaeology focused on the Classical World it naturally came to rely on and mirror the information provided by ancient historians who could already explain many of the events and motivations which would not necessarily survive in the archaeological record. The need to explain prehistoric societies, without this historical record, could initially be dealt with using the paradigms established for later periods but as more and more material was excavated and studied, it became clear that culture history could not explain it all.
Manufacturing techniques and economic behaviour can be easily explained through cultures and culture history approaches but more complex events and explanations, involving less concrete examples in the material record are harder for it to explain. In order to interpret prehistoric religious beliefs for example, an approach based on cultures provides little to go on. Culture historians could catalogue items but in order to look beyond the material record, towards anthropology and the scientific method, they would have had to abandon their reliance on material, 'inhuman,' cultures.
Such approaches were the intent of processual archaeology
Processual archaeology
Processual archaeology is a form of archaeological theory that had its genesis in 1958 with Willey and Phillips' work Method and Theory in American Archeology, in which the pair stated that "American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing" , a rephrasing of Frederic William Maitland's...
.
It should be remembered that culture history is by no means useless or surpassed by more effective methods of thinking. Indeed, diffusionist explanations are still valid in many cases and the importance of describing and classifying finds has not gone away. Post-processual archaeologists
Post-processual archaeology
Post-processual archaeology, which is sometimes alternately referred to as the interpretative archaeologies by its adherents, is a movement in archaeological theory that emphasizes the subjectivity of archaeological interpretations...
stress the importance of recurring patterns in material culture, echoing culture history's approach. In many cases it can be argued that any explanation is only one factor within a whole network of influences.
Criticism
Another criticism of this particular archaeological theory was that it often placed an emphasis on studying peoples from the NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
and later ages, somewhat ignoring the earliest human era, the Palaeolithic, where distinct cultural groups and differences are less noticeable in the archaeological record.
See also
- Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric culturesSynoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric culturesThe synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures gives a rough picture of the relationships between the various principal cultures of prehistory outside the Americas, Antarctica, Australia and Oceania...
- List of archaeological periods*Gustaf KossinnaGustaf KossinnaGustaf Kossinna was a linguist and professor of German archaeology at the University of Berlin...