Barry Cunliffe, Wendy Davies & Colin Renfrew . Archaeology: the widening debate

Antiquity, Sept, 2002 by Anthony Sinclair

ix 627 pages, 84 figures, 4 tables. 2002. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 0-19-726255-4 hardback 45 [pounds sterling].

2002 is the centenary of the British Academy and to celebrate this event the archaeology section decided to commission a review of the past and future state of the discipline. Recognizing that archaeology and the British Academy had a fairly fruitless relationship for the first 50 years, until the arrival of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Secretary to the Academy from 1949, the period of review chosen is the last 50 years. So we have a series of essays by well-known, predominantly academic (and male) archaeologists looking back over recent developments and, in a few brave cases, predicting developments in our future.

With a subject so broad, it must be practically impossible to determine the shape of such a review: one could follow chronology, geography, particular themes, and so forth. The editors have chosen a mixture of approaches. There are seven thematic reviews, including hominid evolution, archaeological theory, genetics and language, archaeology and heritage, archaeology and texts, the archaeology of the very recent past, and archaeology and computing. Eight essays are defined by their geographical scope, with essays on circumpolar archaeology, North America and Mesoamerica, South America, Oceania, South and Southeast Asia, Eurasia east of the Urals, Western Eurasia, the Mediterranean. Essays on the first civilizations in the Middle East, and Africa and the World, combine both approaches.

Most of these essays are interesting and thoughtful and, in all cases, carry the academic personality and preference of their author(s). For example, Foley includes a discussion of hominid phylogeny and technology, whilst the late Rhys Jones writes about the earliest colonization of Australia, dating and the hominid use of fire. Inevitably, perhaps, the thematic essays work better than the geographical. Carver's discussion of archaeology and texts provides an insightful precis of a tricky relationship. Hall's reflections upon Africa as a constant source of timeless ethnographic analogy and yet at the same time as the original human cradle concisely illuminates tensions in African archaeological practice. Rathje, Lamotta & Longacre's discussion of how archaeology variously deals with the material remains of the most recent past is truly stimulating. The geographical reviews were clearly the more difficult to write and co-ordinate. Politis, in discussing South America, gives much space to politics of the early dating at Monte Verde and Pedra Furada, yet initial colonization is only briefly mentioned in an exemplary review of North America, that instead gives greater space to domestication and the rise of civilizations. Harding tackles the whole of Western Eurasia from the perspective of ethnicity and identity, social evolution and world systems.

With only 600 pages, there must be omissions. Classical archaeology receives a crisp but very brief review by Schnapp, three-and-a-half pages in length. It is a sign that we now take the date of things `for granted', that there is no review of developments in dating technique and their impact. When Wheeler was secretary to the Academy, dating would surely have been the first interest. Genetics is well covered, but other scientific contributions are not. There is no discussion of geophysics or non-destructive archaeology, and just brief mention of the contribution of stable isotope analysis to understanding human diet and the impact of subsistence change (in the North American review). Furthermore, how about experimental archaeology, materials science and technology, and so on? A more interesting omission is any discussion of the professionalization of archaeological work. As states begin to favour the preservation in situ and the restriction of archaeological excavation to rescue or salvage by private archaeological contractors, so academic archaeology is getting ever more distant from the most recently discovered evidence.

Most surprising perhaps is the absence of a review of the long-term relationship between archaeology and the British Academy in the form of the British Schools, Institutes and Societies of archaeology abroad. Hall and Politis remind us that archaeological practice is still intimately affected by the unconscious agendas of its colonial origins. At the end of the British Empire, Mortimer Wheeler, through the British Academy, furthered a world archaeological agenda in the expansion and securing of the British Schools and Institutes abroad and in the fieldwork and project grants given out by the Academy. Archaeology has benefited enormously from Wheeler's vision and legacy here. The breadth of this book, whatever its omissions, is a testament to this. There is, however, considerable debate about whether we should continue to be so favoured and how these institutions might best contribute to the widening field of archaeology and the arts in the modern world. This is an unsaid aspect to the relationship between archaeology and the British Academy that merits further reflection.