I think that I have always been intrigued by the worlds behind fossils and other ancient things found in the earth—even rocks, how they were formed and what kinds of environments produced them. To be sure, the objects themselves were a source of mystery, things that existed hundreds of millions of years ago, cultures that knew no metals or plastics or glass. However, what sparked my interest in ethnoarchaeology was a synchronistic combination consisting of a course with François Bordes in 1966 at the University of Bordeaux together with an opportunity to see Tindale’s (1933) silent films of Australian Western Desert Aborigines making stone tools for initiations. I was told that the copies I saw at the University of Colorado were the only copies in North America. The subdiscipline and “ethnoarchaeology” label hardly existed at the time, at least not in my surroundings, but I was keen to use stone tool making by modern hunter-gatherers to help understand stone tools from past hunter-gatherers. When I studied with Bordes he had created a typology of stone tools for distinguishing the various Mousterian industries of France and instructed some of us in how to make those tools. But when I asked him what things like notches, denticulates, truncations, or Quina scrapers were used for, he just shrugged his shoulders and said off-handedly, “Qui sait,” (Who knows). He did not display much interest in the issue. However, I had seen Tindale’s scenes of Desert Aborigines making stone tools in John Greenway’s class at the University of Colorado, and I was convinced that some idea of stone tool use should be obtainable from the ethnographic observation of similar groups. Thus, when I returned to Boulder (Colorado) from France, I began looking through all the classic ethnographies from Australia searching for observations on the use of stone tools. My disappointment was almost complete. Aside from comments and figures of stone spearheads and “men’s knives” and “women’s knives,” none of which were very detailed or resembled any archaeological tools I had ever seen, there was nothing of much use. There were a few accounts of stone flake tools used to sharpen or make spears or other tools, but no good illustrations or descriptions. Spencer and Gillen (1927), Basedow (1925), Horne and Aiston (1924), Gould, Koster, and Sontz (1971), even Tindale’s films were all of little use for revealing anything about the specific kinds of retouch used to make specific tools for specific purposes. The nagging seed of an unsolved mystery had been sown and was left to germinate for a few years.

中文翻译：

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民族考古学的奥德赛：或者，民族考古学如何改变我对生活的看法

我想我一直对地球上发现的化石和其他古老事物背后的世界很感兴趣——甚至是岩石，它们是如何形成的，以及什么样的环境产生了它们。可以肯定的是，这些物体本身就是一个神秘的来源，存在于数亿年前的事物，不了解金属、塑料或玻璃的文化。然而，激发我对民族考古学兴趣的是一个同步组合，其中包括 1966 年在波尔多大学与弗朗索瓦·博德斯 (François Bordes) 一起学习的课程，以及有机会观看廷代尔 (1933) 的澳大利亚西部沙漠原住民制作石器作为启蒙工具的无声电影。有人告诉我，我在科罗拉多大学看到的副本是北美唯一的副本。那个分支学科和“民族考古学”的标签在当时几乎不存在，至少不是在我的周围，但我热衷于使用现代狩猎采集者制作的石器来帮助了解过去狩猎采集者的石器。当我与 Bordes 一起学习时，他创建了一个石器类型学来区分法国的各种穆斯特工业，并指导我们中的一些人如何制作这些工具。但当我问他凹口、小齿、截头或 Quina 刮刀是做什么用的时，他只是耸了耸肩，随口说：“Qui sait，”（谁知道呢）。他对这个问题没有表现出太大的兴趣。然而，我在科罗拉多大学约翰格林威的课堂上看到了廷代尔沙漠原住民制作石器的场景，我相信应该从类似群体的人种学观察中获得一些石器使用的想法。因此，当我从法国回到博尔德（科罗拉多州）时，我开始翻阅所有来自澳大利亚的经典民族志，寻找对石器使用的观察。我的失望几乎是完全的。除了石矛头和“男刀”“女刀”的评论和数字，这些都不是很详细，也没有我见过的任何考古工具，没有什么用处。有一些关于用于磨尖或制造长矛或其他工具的石片工具的描述，但没有很好的插图或描述。Spencer 和 Gillen (1927)、Basedow (1925)、Horne 和 Aiston (1924)、Gould、Koster 和 Sontz (1971)，甚至 Tindale 的电影也几乎没有用于揭示有关用于制作特定作品的特定类型修饰的任何内容用于特定目的的工具。