Dear Constanze,
I am replying to you personally because I don't want to give offence to
any German archaeologists who might be subscribers to Arch-theory (seems
unlikely but you never know). Between 1986 and 1991 I wrote a thesis on the
production and exchange of late Iron Age (La Tene C2 - D2) slip decorated
pottery in Central Europe (Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary) with a brief
foray into Germany to see the material from Manching. My experience was
that German archaeologists and archaeologists in the German influenced
sphere (ie most of Central Europe) were at best apathetic about explicit
theory of any sort and at worst actually and actively hostile.
The political situation in my study area at the time was deeply hostile
to anything but a pedestrian version of Marxism, which may explain
individual local reactions (and some of the younger Czech archaeologists
were heavily influenced by Schiffer and the New Archaeology - leading to all
sorts of trouble with the authorities) but by and large the attitude amongst
the establishment was one of deep scepticism or outright hostility to
anything which appeared to be 'theoretical'. The political dimension was
only one aspect of this and the dominant Germanic tradition of research made
it very easy to stick to data-gathering, classification and typology.
Reading German texts (and working in West Germany for a short time in
1982 and 1983) concerning my period it was clear that Culture-History was
not merely the dominant paradigm, it was the only permissable paradigm. I
remember finding a book (I forget the title unfortunately, but it was West
German) with a chapter entitled something like 'Models in archaeology' and
turned to it thinking that it might mean models in the sense used by David
Clarke and Binford - out of date, maybe, but better than another 500 pages
of pot drawings - only to find that it meant actual models, little
reproductions in plaster and clay of hillfort entrances and ramparts with
miniature huts and figures!
No one seemed willing to move away from questions concerning the Celtic
status of different 'cultures' or of going beyond typology and dating.
Granted, this tradition of scholarship has given us a fantastic data set in
the form of cemeteries and settlements - lavishly published and with museums
full of raw data, but as you will be aware, nothing at all in the way of
interesting explanations or innovative approaches.
More seriously, and indeed tragically, this obsession with culture
history and ethnicity seems almost designed to fan the flames of nationalism
and I often wonder, when I read attacks on post-processualism as a
relativism, whether the critics have really considered the ways a ethnic /
culture-history account of the past legitimises the type of attitudes
prevalent in the former Yugoslavia (to take just one example, Lebanon is
another). This has been briefly discussed in Archaeological Dialogues and I
have touched on it in a paper (as yet unpublished) about Lebanon.
I wonder if you might find some more informed discussions of the
subjects that you are interested in if you were to look at work being done
in the Czech Republic. As I mentioned a number of people were interested in
the New Archaeology and have subsequently (subsequent to 1989 I mean) found
good jobs in the Institute of Archaeology in Prague and have continued to
read, write and think. I have pretty much lost touch with what is going on
as I had to move on in order to make a living and I now work mainly on
medieval pottery in northern England, but a look at Archeologicke Rozhledy
or Pamatky Archeologicke might be informative. The Slovaks have remained
(so far as I am aware) very traditional, but Sloveneske Archeologia might
also be worth a look.
A chap named Heinrich Harke, who now lectures in Belfast (or did when I
last heard of him) did attempt to break the mould of German archaeology, but
the fact that he works in Ireland probably tells you soimething about the
extent of his success. He organised a seminar group who called themselves
the Onkel Kreise (or something like that) in order to discuss theory, but it
didn't last long. He has however written a number of papers on German
archaeology from a fairly critical perspective. There is also a volume in
the British Archaeological Reports International series by Sabine Wolfram
which compares British and German approaches to archaeology - it's in German
and I have never read it as my German is rather poor, but it might be worth
looking at.
I hope that this is of some interest. To those of us who were working
in Central Europe at the time German archaeology was always a source of good
anecdotes about endless data gathering and huge storerooms full of stuff.
Indeed, in some circles in Britain it is practically a by-word for rigid
and unthinking othodoxy - but as you are probably aware, the British are
good at satire and often excessively self-satisfied with it.
As an aside, my own perspective involved a savage attack on
Core-Periphery models which struck me as excessively imperialistic in their
inspiration and which served to perpetuate a Rome-Paris-Wessex axis which
effectively denied the role of central Europe in the later Iron Age. It was
fun and exciting, but ultimately unproductive as the French are still
churning it out and every book published on the Iron Age in Britain seems to
have a title involving Celts and barbarians (that's an exaggeration, there
is a lot of good stuff about). I never really looked in detail at
peer-polity stuff as I was more concerned with a structural-marxist (or
marxian to be more exact) approach to the production and circulation of
goods.
I shall watch arch-theory closely to see how this develops.
all the best
Chris Cumberpatch
Archaeological Consultant
Sheffield, U.K.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constanze Witt <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, February 17, 1999 5:22 PM
Subject: Peer Polity in Germany?
Dear arch-theorists (those who read German anyway)
I sent the query below to the ARCH-DE discussion list, hoping to hear
whether/how German-speaking archaeologists are dealing with Peer Polity
Interaction theory, which has had a good airing in the English lit but
seems not to have made much impact on German published interpretations.
PPI specifically because it seemed to me to offer a model for late
Hallstatt - early La Tene interactions more suited to the material finds
than the old Centre-Periphery models.
The responses have rather astonished me, and I would welcome feedback from
anyone on this list in understanding them. In addition to questions asking
what PPI theory is, there have been one or two very useful summaries, but
no actual discussion at all, leading me to conclude that PPI has not in
fact made any impression on German-speaking archaeology. Is this correct??
Is German archaeology in general as anti-theory as it appears?
There was also a response, excerpted below, that I assume was meant
seriously -- the author considers Peer Polity to have something to do with
peers of the realm or nobility = Aristocratic Polity Interaction, as
opposed to "on an approx. even level, given certain variability." Is this
how PPI is understood by many??
TIA for any enlightenment
Constanze
-----------------
from mine to ARCH-DE:
Wie steht die "deutsche" Archäologie zum "Peer Polity Interaction" Modell,
insbes. auf die europäische Eisenzeit/späthallstatt-frühlatene bezogen?
Ich finde, daß die englischsprachige Archäologie das Modell aufgegriffen
hat und es weitgehend als Alternative zum alten "Centre-Periphery" Modell
ansieht; wie sieht's aus in der deutschen Arch?
Grundlegend:
Peer polity interaction and socio-political change / edited by Colin
Renfrew and John F. Cherry. Cambridge (Cambridgeshire) ; New York :
Cambridge University Press, 1986. New directions in archaeology. 0521229146
---------------------
from a response on ARCH-DE:
<snip>Das "Peer Polity Interaction" Modell hat nichts mit "gucken" (to peer)
zu tun, sondern mit "Adel". Die "Adligen" halten Kontakt untereinander,
betreiben Politik mit- und gegeneinander und auf diesem Weg wandern Ideen
und
Gueter. Als (nicht ganz gelungenes) Beispiel kann man sich den
mittelalterlichen
Adel vorstellen, der "abgehoben" vom gewoehnlichen Volk in eigenen Sphaeren
wandelte und handelte.
Diese Darstellung ist ganz einfach, aber mehr habe ich auf die Schnelle
auch nicht kapiert. Die ernsthafte [sic!] theoretische Betrachtung und
Gegenueberstellung der beiden Modelle fuellt ganze Baende, die zu lesen ich
keine Lust habe.
Wie aus den gewaehlten Beispielen hervorgeht, kann es nicht darum gehen,
welches der Modelle "besser" ist. Beide zeigen eine Seite/Ansicht einer
Gesellschaft. Primaer geht es darum, herauszufinden, ob es aehnliche
Strukturen gab und wie man sie nachweisen, untersuchen und weiter
gruppieren kann. Dass die Oberschichten benachbarter Gebiete untereinander
Kontakt hatten, ist meist leicht zu zeigen, aber wie lief das ab ?
<snip>
-------
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Constanze Witt
Instructional Technology Specialist
UT Austin Classics Dept; Waggener Hall 17, C3400
Austin TX 78712
[log in to unmask], (512) 471 8684, fax (512) 471-4111
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/
"I am as concerned as the next woman about the global recession, but what
I want, what I really really want is one of those new curvy, sexy iMac
computers - God, they're gorgeous." Suzanne Moore, The Independent
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