Progress and Archaeology

Name: Progress and Archaeology
Author: Vere Gordon Childe
ISBN: 0837147794

by Vere Gordon Childe

Yes, Vera Childe’s Progress in Archaeology, published in 1944. Childe became one of the great archaeologists of his time and his account of cultural evolution is very powerful and convincing. Although people have moved away from these ideas in many respects it is still a very important and influential book. Yes, it was invented in the very early 20th century and was associated with the German prehistorian Gustaf Kossinna. Culture-Historical theory or, sometimes Settlement Archaeology, roughly says that where you find a given assemblage of material culture there you are dealing with a given people. If say, 300 miles away you dig another hole and find the same pots, the same sort of sickle blades, the same way of constructing a thatched hut you know the same ‘biological’ folk lived in both places and were speaking the same language and probably looking similar too. But there is a great big hole in the theory: similarity of material cultures does not necessarily mean similarity of ethnicity at all, otherwise every time in the future archaeologists dug up coca cola bottles they would say “oh Americans lived here”. See what I mean? There’s a big hole in the theory. However it was hugely influential. Kossinna died just before the Nazis came to power, luckily for him. They built a ferociously nationalistic pre-history out of this. They said: “We are going to show that the Germans were once predominant all over Europe. We’re going to dig a pit and find this Germanic culture and we will know that once the Germans were here and speaking this language”. So in the end Kossinna’s idea became an expansionist political gospel based on archaeology. Essentially: “All you have to do is dig a hole, if you find traces of Germanic culture that means the land once belonged to us”. Central Europe has never really recovered from the Kossinna method. Even the people who hated the Germans adopted exactly the same methods. The Slavs, the Czechs and the Poles for example, none of whom were independent until 1918, said the German archaeologists are telling vicious lies and we shall use the spade to show that we the Slavs were here before the barbaric Germans and so on and so forth. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount .

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Neal Ascherson

"Yes, Vera Childe’s Progress in Archaeology, published in 1944. Childe became one of the great archaeologists of his time and his account of cultural evolution is very powerful and convincing. Although people have moved away from these ideas in many respects it is still a very important and influential book. Yes, it was invented in the very early 20th century and was associated with the German prehistorian Gustaf Kossinna. Culture-Historical theory or, sometimes Settlement Archaeology, roughly says that where you find a given assemblage of material culture there you are dealing with a given people. If say, 300 miles away you dig another hole and find the same pots, the same sort of sickle blades, the same way of constructing a thatched hut you know the same ‘biological’ folk lived in both places and were speaking the same language and probably looking similar too. But there is a great big hole in the theory: similarity of material cultures does not necessarily mean similarity of ethnicity at all, otherwise every time in the future archaeologists dug up coca cola bottles they would say “oh Americans lived here”. See what I mean? There’s a big hole in the theory. However it was hugely influential. Kossinna died just before the Nazis came to power, luckily for him. They built a ferociously nationalistic pre-history out of this. They said: “We are going to show that the Germans were once predominant all over Europe. We’re going to dig a pit and find this Germanic culture and we will know that once the Germans were here and speaking this language”. So in the end Kossinna’s idea became an expansionist political gospel based on archaeology. Essentially: “All you have to do is dig a hole, if you find traces of Germanic culture that means the land once belonged to us”. Central Europe has never really recovered from the Kossinna method. Even the people who hated the Germans adopted exactly the same methods. The Slavs, the Czechs and the Poles for example, none of whom were independent until 1918, said the German archaeologists are telling vicious lies and we shall use the spade to show that we the Slavs were here before the barbaric Germans and so on and so forth. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount ."

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