I'll stand corrected; I had thought that Willey & Phillips were quoting
from Taylor--more likely, they were summarizing him.  I've often
wondered that, if archaeology is anthropology, then the next question
should be:  "What is anthropology?"  This may have been more certain, in
the sense of some general agreement, back in Taylor, Willey and
Phillips' day than it is today.

D. Babson.


-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of E.
B. Jelks
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 10:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Being a pedant (anthropology or nuttin')


David,

I do not believe that Taylor actually used the expression in "A Study of
Archaeology", although the main theme of the book was that
archaeologists should be formulating models of cultural processes.  In
fact he castigated a bunch of America's leading archaeologists of the
day because they had been producing only descriptive results
(definitions of artifact types, phases, etc.), even though their
academic training was in cultural anthropology. But Taylor clearly
planted the seeds that flourished in W&P and burst forth in full bloom
under the ministrations of Binford and other adherents of the New
Archaeology movement.

Taylor, in A Study of Archaeology, advocated what he called the
"conjunctive approach", which he hyped as a method for doing real
anthropology with archaeological data, but he did not explain just what
the conjunctive approach was or how one could apply it.  He repeatedly
said that it would all be explicated fully in a report that he would one
day publish, based on his fieldwork in northern Mexico in the 1930s.
Despite working for decades on the report it never was forthcoming.  And
Taylor now is dead.

ebj

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of David
Babson
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 8:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Being a pedant (anthropology or nuttin')


Didn't Walter Taylor first say "Archaeology is Anthropology, or
nothing," or words to that effect, in his "A Study of Archaeology,"
1948?

D. Babson.