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To hell with ethnoarchaeology!
Archaeological Dialogues Pub Date : 2016-11-02 , DOI: 10.1017/s1380203816000234
Olivier P. Gosselain

This paper is a charge against ethnoarchaeology. Deliberately provocative, it aims at highlighting the flaws and ideological pitfalls of a sub-discipline whose actual contribution to archaeology remains hardly decipherable. Beside a methodological deficiency and the frequent narrow-mindedness of the research agenda, ethnoarchaeology suffers from two major problems. First, it carries implicitly an old evolutionary – and racist – ideology that divides the world between modern Western societies (inappropriate for ethnoarchaeological research) and premodern exotic societies (well fitted for ethnoarchaeological research). Second, the quest for universal models of interpretation leads ethnoarchaeologists to play down historical contingency and cultural specificities, which not only deprive them of a good understanding of the ethnographical contexts, but also contribute to restricting ethnoarchaeological applications to a mere quest for similarities (or dissimilarities) in the material record. The problems are too profound to justify an umpteenth salvage of the sub-discipline. Rather, the proposition is to get rid of ethnoarchaeology once and for all, and join forces with other, more serious, disciplines.

中文翻译:

民族考古学见鬼去吧!

这篇论文是对民族考古学的指控。故意挑衅,它旨在突出一个子学科的缺陷和意识形态陷阱,其对考古学的实际贡献仍然难以破译。除了方法论的缺陷和研究议程的狭隘性之外,民族考古学还面临两个主要问题。首先,它隐含着一种古老的进化论和种族主义意识形态,将世界分为现代西方社会(不适合民族考古研究)和前现代异国社会(非常适合民族考古研究)。其次,寻求普遍的解释模式导致民族考古学家淡化历史偶然性和文化特殊性,这不仅剥夺了他们对民族志背景的良好理解,但也有助于将民族考古学的应用限制在仅仅寻求物质记录中的相似性(或不同点)。这些问题太深刻了,无法证明对子学科进行无数次挽救是合理的。相反,这个提议是要一劳永逸地摆脱民族考古学,并与其他更严肃的学科联合起来。
更新日期:2016-11-02
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