Introduction: Writing Histories of Archaeology

Any one of several organic analogies, particularly that of the Tree of Knowledge, might usefully serve as the leitmotif of this volume, and to help justify our choice of the plural in its title—‘Histories of Archaeology’, as opposed to the singular case prefaced with The or A. ‘Trees of Knowledge’ and/or ‘Development’ were widely used to portray nineteenth- and early twentieth-century knowledge systems, be they in architecture, languages, or race, and Pitt Rivers, for example, was especially fond of them. Trees can also symbolize the growth of disciplines. Archaeology had its roots in antiquarianism, history, philology, ethnology, geology, and natural history generally. From this grew the trunk that eventually branched out into various sub-disciplines (e.g. biblical, Roman, medieval, scientific, and ‘new’ archaeology). The great meta-narratives of the history of archaeology have followed this approach, with ‘archaeological thought’ or ‘archaeological ideas’ having a common inheritance or ancestry in nineteenth- century positivist European science. From this main rootstock, it eventually branched into subdivisions and out into the world at large, fostering offspring archaeologies differentiated by geography, tradition, subfield, or time period (Daniel 1975; Trigger 1989). Our aim in this volume, and that of much of recent archaeological historiography, is to challenge this meta-narrative and to demonstrate that there has been a great deal more variability of thought and practice in the Weld than has been acknowledged. In this context we think that Kroeber’s ‘Tree of Life/Culture’ (1948) is a more accurate visualization of the growth of archaeology. Instead of just branching ‘naturally’, Kroeber’s branches have the capacity to grow back on themselves and coalesce in the way that ‘thought’, ‘subjects’, and/or ‘institutions’/‘networks’ do. Yet Kroeber’s model still relies on a single main trunk. If applied to the history of archaeology it would not distinguish, for example, that antiquarianism did not conveniently die out with the advent of archaeology as a discipline, and that its history and development has always involved multiple strands—in essence the existence of other possibilities and practices. We intend this volume to stimulate the exploration of these other possible archaeologies, past, present, and future, and to help us acknowledge that the creation of world archaeologies, and the multiplication of interests and objectives among both the producers and consumers of archaeological knowledge, will drive the creation of still further variability.