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7. The Future of Archaeology

Author(s): V. Gordon ChildeReviewed work(s):Source: Man, Vol. 44 (Jan. - Feb., 1944), pp. 18-19Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2791898 .

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Nos. 6, 7] MAN [January-February,944.its staff s appointed as an anthropologist. Study ofthe native peoples oftheBritishEmpirefrom physicalpointofview stillreceivesno official ecognition,xceptto a very limited extent in India. In this respect itmust be admitted hat we have beenthp eastprogressiveof the colonial powers.

So far have been commenting nwhatmaybe calledpure physical nthropology. This is the academic studyofthe biological historyof mankind. It is pursued forits own sake withthe object of ncreasing nowledge, ndit is of cultural, not of practical,value. But the dataand methodsof the study may be applied to practicalaffairsn variousways.In-thefirst lace there re many group problemsdeal-ingwith humanbiology nd population questions whichthe anthropologistan helpto investigate. In the nter-pretation of medical and demographic statistics for aparticular country he racial factor s one whichshouldbe taken into account. This can only be done if anadequate anthropological urveyhas been made. Thesurvey will provide standards of size and weight foradults;whichare of nterest n connexionwithproblemsof nutrition, onstitutionaltypes, diseased conditions,and the assessment fphysicalfitness. Extensionof theenquiryto cover children, nd to provide comparisonsbetween differentocial classes, is obviously desirable.In June, 1939, a committeeof this Institute wasappointed for the purpose of urgingthe authoritiestoundertake an anthropological survey of militiamen.Negotiations having this object in view were suspendedwhenwar was declared. If the survey had been madeits resultswould undoubtedlyha-ve een ofconsiderablernilitaryvalue. The head and body measurenAentsrecorded v anthropologists,radaptationsof hemmadefor special purposes, give infQrmation f value todesignersofmilitary quipment, ncluding clothes,air-craft, anks,and submarines. Or ifthethings remade,the data in question will show how men can best beselected for special duties. This is the second way inwhichphysicalanthropologymay be applied.

The third sphere of application, s of a very differentkind. One of the major activities of the physicalanthropologists the racial classification fmodernmanon the basis of body characters. He usually finds hathis conclusions re entirelydifferentrom he dogmaticstatements egarding he racial constitution fparticularpopulationsmade by writerswho ignore cientific isci-pline. Since certain racial dogmas have acquired greatpolitical significancen recent years,a rationalexposureof their fallaciousnessmay be of considerablepracticalimportance. This matter s being considered t presentby ourCommittee n Race and Racialism.The problems of anthropologyare more diversifiedthan thoseofany other cience. Its needs are manifoldand there s no difficultyn finding ew lines ofenquirywhich might be pursued with piofit. We may confi-dently anticipate that in the future, s in the past, theRoyal Anthropologicalnstitutewill constantly trive olessen the gap betweenwhat is and whatmightbe.

DIscussION.MR. K., L. LITTLE deplored he lack ofpublic nterestnphysical nthropologynd commentedn raceprejudice nthis ountrynd theneedfor urthertudy fracecrossing.PROFESSORDARYLL FORDE said that the ecturer ad notmentioned that the comparative physiology of 'native 'peoples, including their nutrition n particular, falls withinthe scope ofphysical anthropology.DR. MORANT.n replv. expressed the view that this topic

should be counted as applied rather than pure physicalanthropology, hough t is obviouslyof nterest o the studentofhuman evolution.MRS. C. B. S. HODsoN referred o the connexions betweenanthropology and human genetics, race crossing being aconcernofboth studies.MPI. S. E. MANw and MR. V. BRELSFORD spoke.The Future of Archaeology. By ProfessorV. GordonChilde,F.B.A.7 Human nstitutionsre conditionedy past events;theirfunctioningan onlybe fullyunderstood n thelight of history. For this reason, if for no other,archa3ologymust be an integralpart of the Science ofMan. Moreover,t is the abstract, nd therefore oten-tially scientific, spect of human history s contrastedwith literaryhistory,which, dealing essentially withindividual personsand events, can less easily be madethe basis for scientificgeneralizations. In fact thisInstitute itselfhas contributed n no small measure tomaking archaeology science in the British Isles. Imight asily confirmhis by a retrospectiveurveyof tspublicationsand its presidents. But this afternoonweare concerned, otwiththe past, but with thefuture.

Now the century ust past has witnessedthe creationof a scientificmethod for archaeology nd primarily,apart from he invention nd elaboration oftechniques,the establishmentof a rigorousbut workable basis ofclassification. The basis had to be threefold, theclassificationtridimensional-functional, hronological,and cultural. Thanks to collaboration with anotherbranch of the Science of Man to be dealt with by R. U.Sayce (MAN,1944, 9), the main categoriesof the firstclassification ave been pretty xhaustively numerated;we areno longerpuzzledas to what a 'celt' was used for,and have reduced to modest dimensionsour oddmentbox of ' ritual objects.' In chronologya provisionalorderhas been established thoughthere are still veryserious ambiguitiesto be cleared up. New techniquesthat have been developedduring he last two decades-varved-clays, ollen-analysis, ree-rings, ebble-countsopen up vistas for their clarificationthat must beexploredmorefully. And still bettermethodsmust beinvented. But we may hope that the existing acunaewill n time be filled n, nd in themeantimemake use ofthe available schemewith all its defects.The cultural classification s a more recentdevelop-ment. The earlier tudentsofman's past, and especiallythose recruitedfromthe natural sciences in the greatdays of Darwinism,conceived of human progressas alinear development-a method of approach that foundits classic expression in archawologyn de Mortillet'ssystem nd inethnographynMorgan'sstages. But thehistorical nadequacy ofsuch a way of ookingat affairsis self-evident,fonlybecause thearchaeologicalmaterialrepresents he adaptations of distincthumansocietiestodifferentnvironments. The archaeological onceptofaculture culture-group r culture-cycle)s an attempttoreturnto the concrete complexityof historicalrealityand to do justiceto differenceshuscaused. It has beenfruitfullypplied to remainsof thegeologically recent'for he last fifty ears,but has spread to the Pleistoceneonly during the last twenty. Breuil's paper on theLevalloisean MAN, 1926, 116) sa landmark nthewaytothe applicationof the new conceptto Lower andcMiddlePaleolithic remains in English-speaking ountries. Itpresents archaeologistswith an enormous but urgenttask. The vast accumulationsofpalaeoliths massed inDrivate collections nd public museumsduring eventy-[ 18 ]

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January-February,944.] MAN [Nos.7,8fiveyearsneed revision nd re-classification.AndinthEprocessthe verybasis ofclassificationmustbe reviewedand refined. Even theprimary ,vision nto core and'flake' industries s not universally ccepted, and maynot be universally pplicable or exhaustive. Van RietLowe has queried its validityand the attemptsto classthe Sinanthropus ndustry or the Soan of Burma asflake-cultureseemto many forced.

So our classificatorywork, especially in the thirddimension, s far frombeing completed. Neverthelessit has advanced far enough even now to serve as theframeworkfor sober attempts at 'explanation,' theformulation fgeneralizations o unify mass of solateddata. Hitherto explanation in prehistoryhas beenlargely n themythographictage. It likesto postulateand multiply nadequately documented entitieswhosescarcely credible migrations shall 'explain' observedchanges n culture nd similaritiesn flint-work,eramicdecoration, or sepulchral architecturebetween remoteregions. But are not 'Children of the Sun' fromEgypt, or Pre-Vikings rom he03altic, productsof thesame mythopceic ancy s created the fairies nd giantsof Celtic and Teutonic folklore o constructthe samemonuments, lbeit now informed y widergeographicalknowledge, more systematicpsychology, nd a morecomprehensivethnography I do notwishto suggestthat migration'snd diffiisionre not legitimateobjectsofarchaeologicaltudy. On the contrary,hey re vitalhistoricalprocesses,but they must be studied by morerigorousmeans and inferred nly fromconcretedata.The physicalanthropologists ave made theBeaker-folkhistorical nd theirmigrationscientificactby thestudyof their skulls. Fayence beads fromWessex gravesmake some sort of contactbetween distantBritain andthe East Mediterraneanworld objectivelycertain, andsuch contact is a precondition ordiffusion; onlywhenit is establishedbyminute ttention o the nconspicuousmaterial relics that were actually transportedby manfromplace to place can diffusion s an explanation ofsimilar rites or motives be more than an attractivelyplausible speculation.Archaeology illbe more cientific,nd morehistoricaltoo,when t can ask notwhere givensocietyor culturecame from,but how that society, already partiallydefinedby monuments nd relics,developed wherewefind t-in fact,what itdid. OurSovietcolleagueshaverecently hownhow a prehistoric ocietymay thus bestudied as a functioning nd developingorganismandso have effectivelyinked archaeologywith the fourthbranch of the Science of Man,withsocial anthropology.The excavations at K6ln-Lindenthal and Little Wood-bury llustrate he same linkage,but thevshowtoo thatforthe sociological nterpretation f a culturethe totalexcavation ofdomesticsites is essential. Test-pitsandbarrow-digging ere necessaryto establish the chrono-logical sequence and the boundaries of culturalgroups,i.e. of societies. But where a framework as been thus

constructed s in Great Britain,Northern nd CentralEurope, Greece,Egypt,and Mesopotamia, rchaeologistsshouldnowconcentrate heir esources n theexcavationof a fewsites, selected as representativen accordancewith a well-thought-out lan, supplemented by testexcavationsat equally selectedsites, for he verificationofwell-considered ypotheses, s Collingwoodhas urged.Since we want to trace the developmentof societies,the sitesselectedmustrepresent veryperiod and not be3onfined o the prehistoric. Indeed I anticipate quite3,s triking esults fromthe extensionof the scientific3rchaeological ethodsnow used chiefly yprehistorians

to Classical and Byzantine Greece, slamic Syria,Bud-dhistand MauryaIndia, and medieval Europe, as fromthespatial extensionof archweologicalxploration. It isabsurdthatwe knowmore about an Indian craftsman'stools in the IIlrd. millennium han in the thirdcenturyB.C., more of the domestic architectureof neolithicThessaly than of Periclean Athens! Only when suchlacunaehave been filled n, so that we can compare,forexample, average housing conditionsand technologicalequipment at successive periods in time, shall we bejustified n venturing n historicalgeneralizations s tothenature, direction, nd rate ofprogress ven inthesedomains.Eventually we may even reach some practical con-clusions-and utility seems demanded to-day. Pot-sherdsor fliit mplements hatcan alreadybe fittedntoour chronologicalclassificationhave been broughtbytravellersfromsparselypopulated wastes like Makranand Seistan. They suggestthat thesewildernessesmayonce have been more thickly ettled, nd so promptthehope of colonizingthem again. But the inference sprecarious. A surveybased on surface findsand testpits may disclosethe area ofsettlement nd therelativedistribution fpopulationbut may be deceptive f nter-pretedin termsofdensityof population; ten 'chalco-'lithic' moundsmay mean only ten isolated farms n avalley now farmedfrom singlevillage of fifty ouse-holds. Only when a typical mound has been totallyexcavated and comparedwith existingsettlements anreliable inferences e drawn as to the densityof pastpopulations n comparisonwiththose of to-day. What-ever the practical results of such investigation,thearchaeologicaltreatmentof population questions oncemoreunites archaeologynd social anthropology. Thefruits of that treatmentare already visible; we canform a more reliable estimate of the population ofOlynthus, hathas been scientificallyxcavated,than ofclassical Athens,whosehistory s so muchbetterknownfrom literary sources. Cementing in such ways itsalliance withsociology,whilemaintaining ts traditionalrelationshipwith technology nd human paleontology,archmeology ill continueto finda natural place withinthe unity symbolized by the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute.

DIscussIoN.MR. M. C. BURKITT deprecated undue emphasis on thecultural side of archaeology t the expense of essential typo-logy and technology. The classification of paleolithicindustries nto core- and flake-industries as onlya roughandready distinction,forconvenienceand withoutfinalvalidity.In applying nomenclature, t was importantto be perfectlyclear about the areas to whichreferencewas made.DR. CLARK deprecated false ntithesis etween hestudyof objects and the study of societies, since the first wasmerely means to the second. Pits and holesweresignificantnot in themselves,but only in so faras they could tell us ofancient society.PROFESSORCHLDE agreed that typology and technologywere the essential groundworkof archaeologicalstudy, butheld that there was scope for more interpretativework bythose who had masteredthem.

The Future of Social Anthropology. By Raymond Firth.8What I have to say here about the futureof socialanthropology s mainly a personal view. I thinkthat most of my fellow anthropologists-using theterm here and in what follows to apply to the socialbranch ofthe study alone-will agreewith me about thenature ofthe major problemsthat lie beforeus, though[ 19 ]