Paradigm Found

Archaeological Theory – Present, Past and Future. Essays in Honour of Evžen Neustupný

Kristian Kristiansen, Ladislav Šmejda, Jan Turek, Ladislav Šmejda, Jan Turek

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781782977711
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Archeologia

Paradigm Found brings together papers by renowned researchers from across Europe, Asia and America to discuss a selection of pressing issues in current archaeological theory and method. The book also reviews the effects and potential of various theoretical stances in the context of prehistoric archaeology.
The 23 papers provide a discussion of the issues currently re-appearing in the focal point of theoretical debates in archaeology such as the role of the discipline in the present-day society, problems of interpretation in archaeology, approaches to the study of social evolution, as well as current insights into issues in classification and construction of typologies. Taking a fresh, and often provocative, look at the challenges contemporary archaeology is facing, the contributors evaluate the effects of past developments and discuss the impact they are likely to have on future directions in archaeology as an internationally connected discipline. In its final part the volume reflects on current thinking on prehistory, using case-studies from a number of European regions and the Mediterranean, from the Neolithic to the Roman Period.
The volume represents a tribute to the lifetime achievements of Professor Evžen Neustupný, a distinguished Czech archaeologist who contributed to the advancement of prehistoric studies in Europe and to archaeological theory and method in particular.

1. EVŽEN NEUSTUPNÝ – PARADIGM FOUND

Kristian Kristiansen, Ladislav Šmejda and Jan Turek

Evžen’s curriculum vitae is remarkable in several ways. One could almost say he has lived three professional lives in one. The first started in early 1950s at the beginning of his professional career during his studies of Egyptology and Archaeology at the Charles University in Prague. As many young scholars of the post-war generation of Czech archaeologists did, he focused on chronological studies based on typology. At the time his main themes were periodization and synchronization of prehistoric cultures, their origin and absolute chronology, including the calibration of radiocarbon dates. However, for him this was the path towards further reconstruction of the past rather than the main aim.

As the director of the Rescue unit of the Institute of Archaeology in Most (NW Bohemia) from 1957 to 1966 he proved his organizational skills by establishing a very efficient heritage institution. The evenings after exhausting fieldwork he devoted to his own theoretical research, writing his memorable Beginning of Patriarchy (1967). He also made valuable contributions to settlement history and demography in a jointly authored book on the Knovíz Culture with Jan Bouzek and Drahomír Koutecký from 1966. Then in 1968, when the people of Czechoslovakia hoped for a more democratic society, the Soviet invasion terminated all struggle for freedom. At this time Evžen had to make a very difficult decision between emigration and a free professional career abroad, and political discrimination in his home country. His choice was fortunate for his homeland and Czech archaeology but severe for himself. His job in the Prague Institute of Archaeology was endangered and his position very weak. In this difficult time he focused on various environmental methods, prehistoric demography and subsistence, mathematical methods and programming of first computers. He summarized his views in the Antiquity article (1971): Whither Archaeology? With no chance for travelling across the ‘Iron Curtain’ and attending international conferences or reading Western publications, he continued developing his own archaeological paradigm. It was based on a similar theoretical background as the processual paradigm, but Evžen gave it his own touch with a stronger emphasis on archaeological formation processes and the natural sciences, as reflected in the Antiquity article.

Fig. 1.1. The participants at the meeting held in Bechyně (Czech Republic), where the first statutes of the European Association of Archaeologists were drafted in 1992. From left to right: Evžen Neustupný, Arek Marciniak (Poland), Ilze Loze (Latvia), Mike Rowlands (UK), Anna Marie Bietti Sestieri (Italy), Henry Cleere (UK), María Isabel Martínez Navarrete (Spain), Bogdan Bruckner (former Yugoslavia), and Kristian Kristiansen behind the camera.

After the deconstruction of the communist regime in 1989 he became the director of the Prague Institute of Archaeology (1990–1993) and played an important role in the Czech Academy of Sciences. This was also the time when one of us (Kristian Kristiansen) approached Evžen and asked him to join the working group that formed the new Association of European Archaeologists, and the Journal of European Archaeology. Evžen hosted one of the preparatory meetings in Prague and in the Bechyně chateau (Fig. 1.1).

Around this time Evžen published his approach to archaeology with Cambridge University Press in the book Archaeological Method from 1993. It summarized and further developed his earlier writings, and demonstrated his deep theoretical and methodological understanding of the archaeological record, as the starting point and necessary prerequisite for all interpretations. During this period he also gathered a group of talented young archaeologists around him and they carried through a large, methodologically advanced project that was published in Prehistoric Space in Bohemia (Neustupný 1998a), a classic book today. Although much of his previous methodological thinking was applied here to practice, it was also clear that Evžen had by then reflected on the developments in the post-processual theoretical stream, although he cited it only sporadically. He felt very strongly that Czech and Central European archaeology could and should stand on its own feet (see also here his contribution to Ian Hodder’s book Archaeological Theory in Europe from 1991). From this standpoint he effectively criticised the hegemony of dominant archaeological paradigms of the big nations in his much-cited article (Neustupný 1998b).

Fig. 1.2. The editors congratulate Prof. Evžen Neustupný and announce the forthcoming publication of this volume on behalf of all the contributors at the EAA session dedicated to him (EAA Annual Meeting in Plzeň, September 2013). Photo by Jan Tauber.

In 1998, at an age when most of his peers were heading towards retirement, he founded a new Department of Archaeology at the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň. In his most recent position at the department he continued to actively influence postgraduate students and undertook research in the field of archaeological method and theory following his ‘paradigm’ (analysis of contexts, synthesis and interpretation of structures). His theory of the Human World stresses the central role of artefacts in human life, discussing questions of cultural inheritance, complexity of artefacts, the purpose and expressive nature of artefacts, structures and events, as well as formal, spatial and temporal properties of artefacts (Neustupný 2007). According to his paradigm, artefacts and their transformative processes are the starting point of the whole archaeological inquiry into the means of human adaptation, specialisation, communication and expression of identity (Neustupný 2010).

In retrospect, every step in Evžen’s professional career may seem to have had a strictly logical meaning and purposeful direction. However, we believe that his ability to stay relevant is rather inherent to his personality, his perseverance and also his ability to adapt to the changing archaeological and political environments in which he has lived (see Kuna 2012). Although he remains a strong advocate of his own paradigm, it has developed through time, and Evžen always welcomes a good debate. It has been a privilege for the three of us to work with Evžen during different periods and contexts of our lives. We congratulate him with his 80th anniversary (Fig. 1.2), which he celebrated by publishing his new book, providing a comprehensive overview of the Eneolithic period in Bohemia (Neustupný 2013).

References

Bouzek, J., Koutecký, D. and Neustupný, E. 1966. The Knovíz Settlement of North-West Bohemia. Pragae: Fontes Archaeologici Pragenses 10.

Kuna, M. 2012. Intransigent archaeology. An interview with Evžen Neustupný on his life in archaeology. Archaeological Dialogues 19/01, 3–28.

Neustupný, E. 1967. K počátkům patriarchátu ve střední Evropě. The beginning of patriarchy in Cenral Europe. Rozpravy ČSAV 77/2, 79, Praha.

Neustupný, E. 1971. Whither archaeology? Antiquity 45, 34–39.

Neustupný, E. 1991. Recent theoretical achievements in prehistoric archaeology in Czechoslovakia. In I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory in Europe. The last three decades, 248–271. London: Routledge.

Neustupný, E. 1993. Archaeological Method. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Neustupný, E. (ed.) 1998a. Space in Prehistoric Bohemia. Prague: Institute of Archaeology.

Neustupný, E. 1998b. Mainstreams and minorities in archaeology. Archaeologia Polona 35–36, 13–23.

Neustupný, E. 2007. Metoda archeologie. Plzeň: Aleš Čeněk.

Neustupný, E. 2010. Teorie archeologie. Plzni: Katedra archeologie ZČU v.

Neustupný, E. (ed.) 2013. The Eneolithic. The Prehistory of Bohemia, Vol. 3. Prague: Institute of Archaeology.

PART I

CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSES IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY

2. SCIENTIA, SOCIETY, AND POLYDACTYL KNOWLEDGE: ARCHAEOLOGY AS A CREATIVE SCIENCE

Timothy Darvill

The epistemic basis of knowledge creation has long been a subject of interest in archaeology and one that Evžen Neustupný has contributed to through his award-winning essay Whither archaeology? and his book Archaeological Method with their central concern for theory, methods and the validation of knowledge. Tensions between the epistemologies of east and west, and between sciences and the humanities, have been well to the fore in much of this, and remain at the core of many wider debates within archaeology. But there is a bigger picture, and one that also has importance in theoretical, practical, and professional terms. Taking one step back from the epistemology of knowledge creation, this paper considers a broader ontology of knowledge, providing an excursion into the metaphysical nature of archaeological knowledge, its constitution, and its application in contemporary society. It is suggested that archaeology is essentially a creative science, and that on an international compass embraces many different but connected kinds of knowledge. Like the fingers on a hand, the separate digits of polydactyl knowledge are of equal value and interest albeit prioritized in different ways by different societies and subcultures.

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Introduction

Following the publication in Antiquity of a high-profile and controversial article by Jacquetta Hawkes about the nature and purpose of archaeological endeavour (Hawkes 1968), the journal’s editor Glyn Daniel challenged younger archaeologists to say where they thought archaeology was going and where it should go (Daniel 1969, 6–7). The competition was entitled ‘Wither archaeology?’ The prize for the best essay was set at £50; contributors had to be under 40 years of age; and the closing date was 1 June 1969. Two winners were declared: Glynn Isaac from the University of California, Berkeley, in the USA, and Evžen Neustupný based at the Archaeological Institute in Prague within what was then Czechoslovakia (see Isaac 1971 and Neustupný 1971 for the winning essays). The debate stimulated by these papers continued in Antiquity (Watson 1972; Hogarth 1972; Clarke 1973) and beyond (e.g. Tuggle et al. 1972; Renfrew 1973), but at the heart of many contributions was a struggle to come to terms with the long-standing tension between positivist and relativist philosophies in archaeological thinking.

Neustupný recognized this tension in his prize-winning essay while also highlighting differences in contemporary approaches adopted in eastern and western Europe. He helpfully suggested that there were:

three main factors determining the evolution of archaeological thought: the number and quality of the record, the general position of the methodology of science and anthropological theory, and the prevalent ideology.

(1971, 34–5)

Such ideas were developed further some two decades later in his book Archaeological Method which starts with the memorable line that “No progress in archaeology can be achieved by simply accumulating finds” (Neustupný 1993, ix). But the focus of the book – implicit in its title – and much of the ongoing debate over the past 40 years revolves around reconciling methods and practices based on the notion that there is a ‘right’ way to do archaeology and that somehow its aims can be unified (cf. Barrett 1995). By implication, there would be an agreed epistemology based on established methods and procedures for the validation of preferred understandings and interpretations. Such a position stands in sharp contrast to the multivocal strains of much post-processual archaeology where critique focused especially on ideology and to a lesser extent on theory and field practice (Hodder 1992).

Such epistemic considerations are important, but they only provide part of the picture. In this paper I would like to take one step back from p...