Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T00:44:50.054Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The ‘to be or not to be’ of archaeological enquiry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Francesco d'Errico ,
Paola Villa ,
Ilaria Degano ,
Jeanette Lucejko ,
Maria Perla Colombini  and
Peter Beaumont
Francesco d'Errico
Affiliation:
CNRS UMR 5199, PACEA, Université de Bordeaux, Allée Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, CS 50023 F–33615 Pessac CEDEX, Pessac, France (Email: francesco.derrico@u-bordeaux.fr) Evolutionary Studies Institute and DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences & School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits, 2050 Johannesburg, South Africa
Paola Villa
Affiliation:
CNRS UMR 5199, PACEA, Université de Bordeaux, Allée Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, CS 50023 F–33615 Pessac CEDEX, Pessac, France (Email: francesco.derrico@u-bordeaux.fr) University of Colorado Museum, 1030 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80309-0265, USA
Ilaria Degano
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, via Risorgimento 35, 56126 Pisa, Italy
Jeanette Lucejko
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, via Risorgimento 35, 56126 Pisa, Italy
Maria Perla Colombini
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, via Risorgimento 35, 56126 Pisa, Italy
Peter Beaumont
Affiliation:
Archaeology Department, McGregor Museum, Egerton Road, Kimberley 8300, South Africa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Pargeter and colleagues do not escape the dangers inherent in the exercise they embark on. The first is that of creating a straw man argument in which one exaggerates and misinterprets what was said in the article being criticised. The second is that of using your time to look at the speck of dust in your brother's eye instead of paying attention to the plank in your own. The third, if you are lucky enough to find a sympathetic journal, is to rehash the same criticism over and over in multiple articles, changing the tone from very moderate (Mitchell 2012) to more aggressive (Pargeter 2014), which inevitably pushes your opponents and any sensible reader to wonder about your motivations.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 352 , August 2016 , pp. 1079 - 1082
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beaumont, P. 1978. Border Cave. Cape Town: University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
d'Errico, F. & Backwell, L.. 2016. Earliest evidence of personal ornaments associated with burial: the Conus shells from Border Cave. Journal of Human Evolution 93: 91–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2016.01.002 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
d'Errico, F., Backwell, L., Villa, P., Degano, I., Lucejko, J.J., Bamford, M.K., Higham, T., Colombini, M.P. & Beaumont, P.. 2012. Early evidence of San material culture represented by organic artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 109: 13214–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1204213109 Google Scholar
Mitchell, P. 2012. San origins and transitions to the Later Stone Age: new research from Border Cave, South Africa. South African Journal of Science 108: 11–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajs.v108i11/12.1447 Google Scholar
Pargeter, J. 2014. The Later Stone Age is not San prehistory. The Digging Stick 31: 1–4.Google Scholar
Vanhaeren, M.F. d'Errico, Van Niekerk, K., Henshilwood, C.S. & Erasmus, R.. 2013. Thinking strings: additional evidence for personal ornament use in the Middle Stone Age of Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 64: 500–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2013.02.001 Google Scholar
Villa, P., Soriano, S., Tsanova, T., Degano, I., Higham, T., d'Errico, F., Backwell, L., Lucejko, J.J., Colombini, M.P. & Beaumont, P.. 2012. Border Cave and the beginning of the Later Stone Age in South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 109: 13208–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1202629109 Google Scholar
Wadley, L., Trower, G., Backwell, L. & d'Errico, F.. 2015. Traditional glue, adhesive and poison used for composite weapons by Ju/’hoan San in Nyae Nyae, Namibia. Implications for the evolution of hunting equipment in prehistory. PLoS ONE 10 (10): e0140269. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0140269 Google Scholar