Digging for the Truth: Social and Political Factors in the History of Archaeology and Related Disciplines

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Thomas Kuhn attuned us to the problem of non-scientific factors in the history of epistemic (or, in Kuhn's terms, paradigmatic) shifts. After all, it was not just good arguments alone, but also social and political developments that contributed significantly to changes in explanatory models, methods, terminology, and so on. In the history of archaeology, the gradual professionalization of the discipline has often been linked to political factors – such as rivalry and cooperation between empires and competing claims to the past. But how have archaeologists themselves reflected on their discipline's past? How did they criticize outdated ideas? Was epistemic change experienced as liberation? This panel is based on three case studies – archaeologists and Byzantinists in the late Tsarist Empire, Soviet archaeologists in the early 20th century, and Polish and East German archaeologists during the state-socialism period. We will discuss the scientific, social, and political conditions of disciplinary self-reflection.

Sub Unit

• Anthropology, Cultural Studies

Chairs

• Vitalij Fastovskij, U of Münster (Germany)

• Luke Jeske, UNC at Chapel Hill

Papers

• 'From a Russian Point of View': Criticism of Western Byzantine Studies in the Works of Tsarist Scholars - Vitalij Fastovskij, U of Münster (Germany)

• Challenging Heredity: Early Soviet Marxist Endeavors in Revolutionizing Deep Time Studies - Dmitrii Blyshko, U of Houston

Discussant

• Luke Jeske, UNC at Chapel Hill