> Among the many examples of this phenomenon that I can think of are
> > 1) the almost psychotic inability of North American prehistorians to
> accept
> > any of the evidence from Latin America for pre-Clovis occupations, and
>
>
> As a North American who never had any emotional attachment to Clovis, I
> would like to point out that a) Until Monte Verde was actually
> published, there was little to no credible evidence to support
> pre-clovis;
>
This is precisely what I refer to: your statement that "there was
no credible evidence" is simply not true. There was credible, published
evidence that was at least strongly suggestive, but it was published by
Latins, both French and Latin Americans, whose views and scientific
reputations apparently do not provide them with sufficient credibility for
some people. The work at Pedra Furada comes to mind in this regard, but
there are other publications as well. The fact that the evidence suddenly
becomes acceptable when it is published by a North American only emphasizes
how pointedly the prior evidence was ignored or or was "discredited" by
being subjected to tests that would not normally have been applied to
archaeological description and reporting. I don't expect you to agree with
or concede this, but I think the historical record will show that North
American archaeologists were extremely closed-minded about this subject in
the 1970s and 1980s. I think that many fair-minded people perceive or
suspect a subconscious racism in the ease with which North American
archaeologists dismiss evidence published by Latins.
> b) now that they've actually seen the evidence, rather than
> anecdotes, Monte Verde is now accepted by many of the most hard-core
> Clovis types as representing preclovis (see Meltzer et al's Am. Ant.
> article). c) Please note that one reason preClovis sites were looked on
> with extreme scepticism was due to the fact that they advocated very
> early dates that are now invalidated--Adovasio's original 19k dates for
> Meadowcroft have been downgraded to 13k, as have Dillehay's original
> claims of circa 36k for Monte Verdes.
>
>
> 2)
> > the evident inability of most North American processualists and
> > neo-evolutionists to accept that migrations have had any meaningful
> impact
> > on prehistory.
> Again, this is a misrepresentation, and a very glaring one at that.
> Most North Americans reacted against the extreme
> migrationalist/diffusionist models of the 30s and 40s. However, the
> 'standard processualists' discuss migrations of importance in the
> southwest (e.g., Navajo/Puebloans), Plains (e.g. Coalescent Tradition),
> Arctic (e.g., Thule/Dorset), Mississippi Valley (e.g., Oneota/Middle
> Mississippian), Great Lakes (e.g., ProtoIroquoisan Algonkian and Sioux
> speakers in Late prehistory). What processualist *do* say about
> migrations is that 1) they shouldn't be invoked at the first sign of
> change of material culture, as had too often been the case in the past;
> and b) they don't explain why change has occurred--that is, why
> movements at that time/place?
>
>
Processualism has a very strong theoretical bias against diffusion
as an explanation. This bias is a natural outgrowth of a systems theory
based on cultural ecology and (neo)-evolutionism. If adaptation and
evolution are the prime explanations of cultural patterns and change, then
it would be contradictory for migration to be important factor, except
perhaps in quite local situations. In fact, as anthropologists like Lowie
admitted at the time, their appeal to diffusionism (in the 1920s and 30s)
was a reaction to Morgan's evolutionism. That is, if cultural patterns and
culture history are explicable in terms of migration, that implies that in
situ evoltion did not take place. This does not mean that no North
Americanist ever discussed a migration in prehistory, but processualists
have typically downplayed and, when possible, ignored evidence for them.
One example that occurs to me is Southeastern U.S. --Mesoamerican
connections. The evidence for them is rather good and was immediately
recognized by many people inlcuding C. B. Moore and Phil Phillps, but any
serious discussion of the topic has been taboo for upwards of twenty years.
Now, I know that here have been some publications on the topic, but I think
my characterization of the situation is fair.
> >
> > To these two one can add the remarkable ability of
> processualists to
> > ignore the whole postmodern critique. They are like people humming to
> > ignore someone else talking at them.
>
> Actually, the antiprocessualist critique has not been ignored at
> all--some parts have been accepted and assimilated, the more extreme
> aspects (e.g., relativism) have been discredited. Read Kuznar's
> "Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology" for one good response to the
> critique. Read Alison Wylie's 92(?) Am. Ant. article on feminist
> archaeology--where she gamely pats Tilley, Shanks, and Hodder on the
> back while having to point out that their relativistic arguments are
> "incoherent". Read Proucel's (ed.) Processual and Post Processual
> Archaeologies, where you'll see a good dialogue between pomos and
> nonpomos.
>
> You should know your North American archaeology a bit better before you
> make claims about what North Americans do.
>
I really don't wish to offend, but the heated quality of your
response might make one think that there is more than dispassionate
scientific reasoning at work.
> Labels can be very confusing. I consider myself to be a pretty hard
> core processual archaeologist--but having "grown up" in a hotbed of
> Binfordism (my profs were Stuart Streuver, James A. Brown, Robert K.
> Vierra, Robin Torrence), I learned to do an archaeology that is entirely
> unrecognizable from the caricature painted by antiprocessualist
> writers.
> Amazingly, two years ago, in a SAA symposium on science, agency and
> lithic technology, I was called by Richard Gould a
> postprocessualist--right alongside folks like Ken Sassaman and Charles
> Cobb (both very good guys, but whom I would consider much more pomo than
> I am).
> Go figure.
>
> Cheers,
> Bob
> --
> Dog Haiku
> How do I love thee?
> The ways are as many as
> My hairs on your clothes.
>
> Robert J. Jeske, Ph.D.
> Department of Anthropology
> University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> Milwaukee, WI 53201
> 414-229-2887 (Office)
> 414-229-2424 (Lab)
> 414-229-5946 (Fax)
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
Best wishes,
Clifford T. Brown
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