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Date: | Sun, 30 Nov 1997 10:06:55 -0500 |
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Further on the question of distinguishing prehistory and historical
arcaheology. This raises a wider question of how one defines historical
archaeology or history for that matter. It may well be true that historical
archaeologists spend much of their time studying societies very different
from prehistorians- and this is why I don't accept the view point that we
should be a theoretical testing ground for prehistorians. However, there has
been a long standing debate in history - from the 18th century onwards- over
whether the fitting subject of history was "progress". The Whig view of
history (in English historigraphy) was that was the true subject of history
was the rise of English constitutional, democracy. A modern version is
Fukuyama's _The End of History_ which sees all history as leading to the
ascendancy of western (read American) liberal democracy. Undoubtedly
historical archaeologists are most concerned with such subjects as
industrialisation and urbanisation but then its only the most industrialised
and urban countries which can afford to support historical archaeologists. I
suspect that at least 95% of all the professional historical aracheologists
that have ever lived are alive today and in North America. However, what
about the several thousand million Asians who have well documented histories,
virtually no historical archaeology as yet, and might see their historical
development of the last few hundred years (the small pacific rim tigers
aside) as being far from dominated by industrialisation and might see the
rise of American global economic, military and cultural hegemony in a far
more negative light.
paul courtney
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