• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
G.
A.
CLARK
Neandertal Archaeology—Implicationsfor Our Origins
ABSTRACT This article identifies key aspects
of
the metaphysical paradigms under which European Paleolithic archaeological re-search is conducted and contrasts the anthropological approaches typical
of
anglophone New World workers with those of the "his-
•
tory-like" natural science-based traditions
of
Latin Europe. Because the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe is thought bymany to correspond to the biological replacement of Neandertals by modern humans over the ten millennia bracketing 40 kyr B.P., gen-eralizations about the archaeological transition invoked in support of biological replacement are examined and are found to lack
em-
pirical support. Patterns in lithic technology, typology, raw material variability, reduction strategies, blank frequencies, bone
and
antlertechnologies, Paleolithic art, subsistence strategies, and settlement patterns all indicate a temporal-spatial mosaic of changing moni-tors
of
human adaptation over the transition interval that cannot be reconciled with any construal
of
a relatively abrupt and completebiological replacement. [Key words: conceptual frameworks, research traditions, archaeological systematic, Middle-Upper Paleolithictransition, Neandertals, adaptation]
At the heart
of
science
is
an essential balance betweentwo seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness
to
new ideas,
no
matter how bizarre
or
counterintuitive,and
the
most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny
of
all
ideas,old and new.—Carl Sagan,
The
Demon Haunted World
T
HE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS that structure thelogic
of
inference
in the
various national and
re-
gional archaeologies involved in Paleolithic research oftendiffer profoundly from one another
in
ways that are notobvious or immediately apparent, even
to
those engagedin this research (see, e.g., chapters
in
Clark 1991; Clarkand Willermet 1997; Smith and Harrold 1997). These
dif-
ferences are thrown into sharp relief by the nexus of ques-
tions,
problems, and issues surrounding what might
be
called "Neandertal archaeology,"
a
focus
of
inquiry
in
modern human origins research in which,
of
course, theyfigure prominently.
In
1987
1
was invited
to
give
a
paperat
a
conference
in
Cambridge organized by archaeologistPaul Mellars and paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer,
two
well-regarded British workers active in Neandertal research(Mellars 1990; Mellars and Stringer 1989). Some 50 peopleattended, including Paleolithic archaeologists, human pa-leontologists, and molecular biologists representing a widerange
of
Intellectual traditions and research domains.
It
was,
as
such things go, "successful"—socially enjoyable,intellectually stimulating, and
so
forth. What struck memost about this conference, however, was what was
not
said.
It
became evident, just below
a
thin veneer
of
in-formed and sophisticated debate, that there were enor-mous differences
in the
biases, preconceptions, and as-sumptions that the participants brought to the resolutionof problems thought
to be
held
in
common.
At
timesthese differences were
so
great that there was literally nocommon basis for discussion.Those
of us
who
do
this kind
of
research are con-cerned with making inferences about biological and cul-tural evolutionary process
in
"deep time,'' removed fromus
by
tens
or
hundreds
of
thousands—even millions—of
years.
To do this well is by no means a straightforward en-deavor, and most
of us
will have
to
admit that we havenot done
it
particularly well. With the accumulation of
ra-
diometric dates, and with ongoing discoveries
of
humanfossils and ancient archaeological sites, we are getting abetter handle
on
the distribution
of
the material remainsof evolutionary process
In
time and space. However, wehave not been very successful at
explaining
much of inter-est about the processes that have produced these remains.Sometime In the late 1970s,
I
began
to
wonder why thiswas so. This eventually led me
to a
concern with episte-mology—how we know what we think we know about theremote human past—and, more specifically, with the logic
AMERICAN ANIHROPOIOGISI
104(1):50-67.
COPYRIGHT
O 2002,
AMIWCAN ANTH«OPOIOGICAI ASSOCIATION
 
Clark • Neandertal Archaeology—Implications for Our Origins 51
of inference underlying research protocols in Paleolithicarchaeology and human paleontology.I noticed a couple of things. One is that archaeologistsare assiduous "pattern searchers," but they usually do notworry very much about how they go about this search.They tend to adopt the prevailing systematics in the re-search tradition in which they were trained and proceedpretty much on the assumption that those systematics areadequate to the task at hand. This means that the logic ofinference has seldom been examined in an explicit wayand that in consequence people have tended to "talk past"one another. Proceeding from different biases and precon-ceptions about the human past, and defining differentlyterms and concepts thought to be held in common, theyliterally do not understand what their colleagues are talk-ing about.Thinking about these things, it occurred to methat—before we can build strong inference—it is first nec-essary to examine the existing logic of inference in orderto be able to understand what it does well and what it doespoorly. A concern with the logic of inference is not astrong suit of this type of research, which tends to be "dis-covery" and "data" driven and dominated by "strict em-piricists"—people who think that pattern is latent in na-ture, that it is easily accessible to the prepared mind, and,in some extreme cases, that "the facts speak for them-selves." Strict empiricists are omnipresent in archaeologyand human paleontology worldwide; in fact, they are themost common kind of paleoanthropologist,
1
which is oneof the reasons why we have not made as much progress aswe might have done were we part of a more critically
self-
conscious discipline (for a discussion of strict empiricism,see Clark 1993:212, 213). I argue here that, despite nomi-nal acknowledgment of the powerful conceptual frame-work of Darwinian evolution, there are big problems withthe underdevelopment of theory in Paleolithic archaeol-ogy and with the theory-laden nature of "facts.'
1
Theseproblems are exacerbated in a research domain like theMiddle-Upper Paleolithic transition, which is of interestand importance to several quite different intellectual tra-ditions.Suffice it to say that 1 do not think that "the factsspeak for themselves,'
1
do not think that pattern is latentin nature, merely awaiting discovery, and so forth. 1 be-lieve that pattern or structure is imposed, to a very consid-erable extent, on nature by humans and that data do notexist independent of the conceptual frameworks that de-fine and contextualize them. What exists independent ofour conceptual frameworks are stones and bones in an-cient geological contexts and DNA in petri dishes and elec-trophoretlc gels, but they do not constitute data until theyare observed, measured, and classified according to Inves-tigator-derived schemata. It Is how we go about doing thisthat makes our Inferences strong or weak, naive or sophis-ticated.To argue for an explicit concern with the logic of In-ference In archaeology Is nothing new. It was a corner-stone of the Americanist processual approach of the mid-1960s (e.g., Binford 1964, 1965). However, 1 suggest thatprocessualism has had relatively little impact on Paleo-lithic archaeology, especially as practiced in the OldWorld (see also Cleuziou et al. 1991; Coudart 1999), andthat epistemological angst seems pretty much confined tothe anglophone research traditions. There is almost nodiscernible evidence for, or even awareness of, a concernwith epistemology in the paleoanthropological researchtraditions of Latin and Central Europe. Proceeding from anatural science tradition, many Latin European prehistori-ans even today treat the archaeological record as if it weredirectly analogous to that of paleontology or geology,with type sites, sequences, and index fossils that suppos-edly embody the full range of variation expected in thematerial remains of what are often taken to be extinct"cultures" (Sackett 1988:422, 1997).Underlying this view is the preconception that prehis-tory is history projected back into the preliterate past andthat process in "deep time" can be treated as analogous to,and an extension of, process in recent historical contexts.This bias is characteristic of the paradigms that governsome Continental research traditions (especially those ofLatin Europe), but it is by no means universal in these tra-ditions (i.e., they exhibit their own histories, patterns ofvariability) or in the Old World generally. However, it con-trasts sharply with the preconceptions and assumptionsthat underlie elements of the English and U.S. researchtraditions (cf., e.g., Binford and Sabloff 1982; Higgs andJarman 1975). Paradigms are logically coherent assertionsabout the way the world (or some relevant part of it) isperceived to be (Casti 1989; Clark 1993). They exist at anumber of conceptually distinct levels (Masterman 1970)and at the highest, most abstract level (that of the meta-physic) have no objective reality, are only with difficultyamenable to scrutiny, are typically unquestioned withinresearch traditions, and are seldom made explicit.Despite their admittedly subjective nature, any meta-physical paradigm can be described in terms of three crite-ria, perhaps best expressed as questions (Guba 1990). Firstis its ontology: According to the tenets of the paradigm,what is the nature of the "knowable"? What is the natureof the reality that is the target of inquiry? The second cri-terion is its epistemology: What is the nature of the rela-tionship between the "knower" and the "known" (orknowable)? The third is its methodology: How should theinvestigator proceed in the process of investigation? Onecould argue that the answers to these questions outlinethe basic belief systems according to which inquiry pro-ceeds. Controversies like the nature of the Middle-UppeTPaleolithic transition stem from a failure to consider epis-temology in the various disciplines and intellectual tradi-tions Involved in the research. The empirical and logicalsufficiency of knowledge claims can only be establishedwith reference to a paradigm, but If the paradigm Is neversubjected to critical scrutiny, there can be no consensus. Itshould be emphasized that these belief systems cannot be
 
52 American Anthropologist • Vol. 104, No. 1 • March 2002
proven or dlsproven. They are simply rational assertionsabout how we might go about investigating the world ofsense experience.Because many problems and questions generally re-garded as "significant" are held in common by distinct re-gional or national research traditions (e.g., modern hu-man origins, emergence of social complexity, etc.), it isilluminating to try to catch a glimpse of the metaphysicsthat appear to underlie their "worldviews" (Clark 1993). Ithas long been my contention that prehistoric archaeologyin the Old and New Worlds proceeds from fundamentallydifferent views of the past, founded on fundamentally dif-ferent metaphysical paradigms. Continental scholars tendto treat prehistory as a kind of history, projected back intothe preliterate past, and process—even in remote timeranges—as analogous to, and an extension of, process inhistorical contexts (cf., e.g., Clark and Lindly 1991; Otteand Keeley 1990). This contrasts sharply with the anthro-pological biases that underlie U.S. research traditions (see,e.g., Dunnell 1986; Meltzer 1979; Meltzer et al. 1986) (Ta-ble 1). Because metaphysical paradigms are typically notsubjected to much critical scrutiny
within
research tradi-tions and have no objective reality beyond that concededthem by their adherents, it becomes important to developcriteria to choose among them. From a philosophicalpoint of view, of course, one metaphysical paradigm is "asgood as another" (i.e., its internal logic is consistent andits explanations are coherent given that logic). However,because the assumptions underlying the metaphysicalparadigm determine the character of its subordinate para-digms (which in turn determine research protocols in anyproblem context), conflicts often arise with respect to thenature of explanation and what kinds of explanations areregarded, a priori, as plausible or not (for a splendid cur-rent example of paradigm conflict, compare Bosselin andDjindjian 1999, 2000, with Straus and Clark 2000). Fromthe perspective of U.S. anthropological archaeology, thereare major problems with the contention that prehistory isan extension of history, and these have far-reaching impli-cations for some European construals of pattern and whatit might mean.
REPLACEMENT OR CONTINUITY?
Although all who study human origins now agree that theevolution of modern morphology extends back further intime than credible evidence for the appearance of modernbehavior, they disagree sharply as to how to interpret thedata that make up the substance of the debate. Two funda-mentally different construals of our origins have nowemerged (or reemerged) out of preexisting models andtheories that go back to the last quarter of the 19th cen-tury (Baiter 2001; Frayer et al. 1993; Gibbons 2001;Stringer and Brauer 1994). Each side grounds its argu-ments in ill-defined paradigm-like formulations that act asfilters or lenses through which scientists perceive patterns.Seldom examined by their adherents, they determine thevariables considered significant to measure, the methodsdeemed appropriate to measure them, and, ultimately, themeaning assigned to pattern in the various disciplines andresearch traditions involved in the debate (Clark 1987b,
1992,
1997a, 1997b; Clark and Lindly 1989a, 1989b, 1991;Clark and Willermet 1995; WiUermet and Clark 1995).
TABLE 1.
Metaphysical paradigms in prehistoric archaeology (1940-70): biases and preconceptions of the anglophone New World and theLatin Old World conceptions of culture.
The Definition of CultureNew World ParadigmOld World ParadigmDeveloped out of culture area studiesReceived its mandate from cultural anthropologyEssentially gradualist, emphasized continuity over spaceand timeLed to normative (I.e., variety-minimizing) views ofculture manifest in diagnostic artifact types(e.g., projectile points)Recognizes some vectored change within temporally andspatially large and vaguely defined analytical unitsCoherent; cultures equated with trait complexes thatcohere over space and time unless or until the physicalenvironment changesCulture existed at a level
above
that
<>
social, ethnic, andlingistit groupsSocial organization, ethnicity, and language vary Independentlyof one anotherMany definitions of culture; sunn- ideatlonal, othersphcnoiiH-nologkal.Sourer dark 1993; Binford -uul Sabloff 1982.Developed out of European history and nationalismReceived its mandate from natural science (especially geology,paleontology)Characterized by punctuated equilibrium; emphasized discontinuityin that aspects of material culture were believed to correspond tosocial, ethnic, and linguistic groupsAlso normative; cultures equated with differentiated packages ofdiagnostic traits (I.e., archaeological index fossils)Essentially static within equally large and vague analytical unitsIncoherent; when cultures changed they changed
en
bioc
and relativelyabruptly; the principle cause of culture change is populationreplacementCulture existed
at the level
of social, ethnic, and linguistic groupsSocial organization, ethnicity, and language covary directly with oneanotherDefinition of culture essentially ideational; culture comprises amonothetic set of norms and values in people's heads that aremanliest In their material remains
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...