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Explanation in Prehistory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2014

J. C. Harriss
J. C. Harriss
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge
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Extract

Jacquetta Hawkes in a paper called ‘The Proper Study of Mankind’ (Hawkes, 1968) has made an impassioned plea against what she considers to be the ‘dehumanization’ of prehistory at the hands of those who have sought to apply to it numerical methods and the techniques of the natural sciences. There can be few who do not sympathize with her denunciation of aimless manipulation of data and the use of techniques for their own sakes; and many must share Clark's fear that prehistoric archaeology will serve merely ‘… to provide intellectual games for the meritocracy’ (Clark, 1967, 472). But such comments as these only prompt the question ‘what are we studying prehistory for?’ or ‘what is prehistory about?’

The well-being of any academic discipline depends upon the posing of questions like these, for if a subject is to develop at all, it must undergo periods of self-analysis when some of its practitioners take stock of what they themselves and others are doing. The analysis may be concerned with methods and techniques and may either tacitly or openly accept the existing philosophy. Or it may consider the philosophy of the subject directly, by asking if the priorities of a past age are still acceptable or whether in the different climate of thought of the present, they must be changed. Self-analysis of this kind may however produce a state of unease and disquiet.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , July 1971 , pp. 38 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1971

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