Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACT  In this article, I distinguish between evolutionary and historical perspectives on the past, adopting the concept of "social fields" to argue for a macrohistorical interpretation of the archaeological record. The unit of analysis is not an archaeological culture or civilization but social groups inextricably involved with other groups in weblike interconnections in which technologies are diffused and modified by other groups caught up in these same processes. Such interconnections can best be traced archaeologically by examining the spread of technologies and subsistence practices. Other macrohistorical perspectives on the past, such as world systems analysis, often demand too much of the archaeological record and are used anachronistically. Prehistory documents the ever‐increasing participation of groups in social fields that ultimately converge. I conclude by emphasizing the need for a perspective on the past that emphasizes its shared nature in which all peoples have contributed and benefited from interactions with their neighbors.

Rethinking World‐Systems: Diasporas, Colonies, and Interaction in Uruk Mesopotamia. Gil J. Stein. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999. 206 pp.

▪ Abstract  Nationalism requires the elaboration of a real or invented remote past. This review considers how archaeological data are manipulated for nationalist purposes, and it discusses the development of archaeology during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the relationship of archaeology to nation-building, particularly in Europe. Contrastive conceptions of nationality and ethnicity are presented, and it is argued that adoption of modern constructivist perspectives is incompatible with attempting to identify ethnic/national groups solely on the basis of archaeological evidence. The political uses of archaeology are also reviewed for the construction of national identities in immigrant and postcolonial states. The problematic nature of nationalistic interpretations of the archaeological record is discussed, and the essay concludes with a consideration of the professional and ethical responsibilities of archaeologists confronted with such interpretations.

This volume contains the majority of the papers presented during a conference that took place on 16th-21st May, 1997 in Łódź, Poland. The conference was organized by the Institute of Archaeology, University of Łódź and Département d'anthropologie, Université de Montreal (Canada). The conference was funded by the University of Łódź and by IREX (International Research & Exchanges Board), which also supported this publication. The publication was partly founded by the University of Łódź and by the Foundation of Adam Mickiewicz University, too. The major questions of the conference were, 1) what is the current evidence for eastern or southern influences in the development of eastern European Mesolithic and Neolithic populations, and 2) to what extent are current political trends, especially the reassertion or, in some cases, the creation of ethnic and national identities, influencing our interpretations of the prehistoric data. The idea for such a conference came into being through the co-organizers' long-term studies of the development of those prehistoric human populations which inhabited the vast region stretching north and east from the Oder river and Carpathian Mountains to the foothills of the Urals. In a tradition established in modern times by Gordon Childe, virtually all of the transformations of Eastern Europe's Neolithic Age human landscape have been assumed to be responses to prior developments in the Balkan peninsula and Danube basin. We think that a body of new evidence requires a renewed analysis of the distributions of cultural products, peoples, and ideas across Eastern Europe during the Mesolithic through the Early Metal Age within a much wider geographic context than previously has been the case. This includes giving adequate attention to the far-ranging interactions of communities between the Pontic and Baltic area with those located in both the Caucasus and the Aralo-Caspian regions. We hope that this volume will contribute to such a redirection of future analyses.