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Re Archaeological Tools and Jobs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Julian H. Steward
Julian H. Steward*
Affiliation:
Bureau of American EthnologySmithsonian InstitutionWashington, D. C.
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Extract

Dr. McKern's recent remarks on “Taxonomy and the Direct Historical Approach” serve, though no doubt unintentionally, as a red herring to my plea for the importance of the direct historical approach. Since much attention has been devoted recently to the matter of research tools in anthropology and the social sciences, I should like to comment briefly on what seems to me increasing confusion of tools, methods, approaches, and theories in archaeology. For I do not conceive the direct historical approach to be a tool. And I am not wholly clear how the taxonomic method is a tool adapted to further a historical objective.

There are two general levels or types of procedure in archaeology: collecting and interpreting data. Much is said about the permanent solidity of sacred fact and the ephemeral nature of theory. But facts are totally without significance and may even be said not to exist without reference to theory.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , July 1944 , pp. 99 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1944

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References

1 American Antiquity, vol. 8.1942, pp. 170-172,

2 “The Direct Historical Approach to Archaeology,” American Antiquity, Vol. 7, 1942, pp. 337-343.

3 For an extremely valuable analysis of the similarities and differences between biological and cultural phenomena, I strongly recommend A. L. Kroeber. “Structure, Function, and Pattern in Biology and Anthropology,” Scientific Monthly, Vol. 56,1943, pp. 105-113.

4 Element complexes which had demonstrable stability in time and space—often these are “patterns” in the ethnological sense—may be revealed by history; they are not comparable to the categories—“patterns,” etc.—of the taxonomic scheme.

5 American Antiquity, Vol. 7, 1942, pp. 197-201.

6 American Antiquity, Vol. 6, pp. 366-367.