Preface. Beyond Dates to Chronology : Rethinking the Neolithic-Chalcolithic Levant - article ; n°1 ; vol.33, pg 5-10

Manning S.W.

Description

Paléorient - Année 2007 - Volume 33 - Numéro 1 - Pages 5-10
6 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Informations

• Publié par: PALEORIENT
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• Langue: English

Extrait

P REFACE

Beyond Dates to Chronology: Rethinking the NeolithicChalcolithic Levant

S.W. M ANNING

In a classic statement of the New Archaeology over three decades ago, D. Clarke wrote about archaeology and its loss of innocence. Clarke noted the potentials, power and restruc- turing role of scientific dating methods in archaeology. It is interesting to read again the section on chronology today:

“The chronological consequences of isotope and other dating methods [...] have infiltrated archaeological thinking in a manner which has largely concealed the significance of their repercus- sions. It has become increasingly apparent that the archaeologist must now think directly in terms of the kinked and distorted time surfaces of the chronometric scales which he actually uses [...] [e.g.Carbon-14 time] [...] where the error factors are almost more important than the scale graduations. In another aspect, the transformation of archaeological time from ultra-short to very long chronologies has had unsuspected and little-discussed conse- quences for archaeological metaphysics, entity concepts, pro- cesses and explanations. Under the ultra-short chronologies, archaeological time was confused with historical time and seemed packed with data and events; large-scale phenomena appeared to take place in swift interludes—hence the prevalence of ‘invasion’ explanations [...] A fundamental lesson emerges—theconsequencesarising from the introduction of new methodologies are of far greater significance than the new introductions themselves. We must move from the traditional model of archaeological knowledge as a Gruyère cheese with holes in it to that of a sparse suspension of information particles of varying size, not even randomly distri- buted in archaeological space and time. The first thing we may deduce from this revision is that many of our taxonomic entity divisions are defined by lines drawn through gaps in the evidence and zones of greatest ignorance; this does not make these taxa invalid but it does gravely alter what constitutes meaningful 1 manipulation and explanation of such entities.”

1. C LARKE , 1973: 10.

Paléorient, vol. 33.1, p. 5-10 © CNRS ÉDITIONS 2007

This vision of new actualities, synergies, and higher aspi- rations in the (then) coalescing modern discipline of archae- ology was impressive, prompted by how the radiocarbon 2 revolution hadreshaped understanding of European prehis- tory. Many of the agendas discussed by Clarke through his 1973 paper have occurred, and a great many things in archae- ology have changed dramatically since he wrote—a number different and far beyond any of the predictions or aspirations of the New Archaeology. But, rather ironically, one might argue that perhaps nowhere has been as intractable to paradigm change and a move to a “scientific” (in the sense of being evidence-basedversusassumption-led) approach as chronol- ogy in the Near East and Mediterranean worlds (contra,e.g., European prehistory). Here, in many ways, neither New (or Processual) nor Post-Processual archaeology, nor any of the other modernizing agendas in archaeology, have really seemed to change frameworks and enshrined thinking from an earlier period of the discipline. In later prehistory there has long been an excuse or intractable problem: proto-historical evidence creates a cultural and chronological framework that scholars can try to tie to material culture across much of the region especially via loving elaboration of art-historical associations. Science (the New Archaeology) or anything else can thus be ignored (especially when convenient). The result has been a long-running tension, even contradiction, for a generation between scientific (mainly radiocarbon) evidence and the conventional archaeological framework. Such a clash in scholarly cultures should not, however, apply to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic in the Levant. Scientific dating is the only plausible absolute time-frame, and scholars working in this geographic area were among the first to employ

2. R ENFREW , 1973.