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Year One: Radiocarbon Dating and American Archaeology, 1947-1948

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Greg Marlowe
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Abstract

This paper both expands and reconceptualizes our knowledge about the early (January 1947 to January 1948) and formative responses of American archaeologists and anthropologists to word and rumor about W. F Libby's 14C dating system. Drawing principally from primary sources for the first time, integrated with literature from the history and sociology of science, new and interpretative information is offered relative to several topics. They include: (1) the profession's inefficient communication networks and their influence on the year-long course of truncated dialogue about purported radioactive dating investigations afoot; (2) the divergent ways in which competing factions of elite specialists labored to formulate strategies to address the perceived implications of Libby's novel technique; (3) the particularly important roles in this period assumed by Chicago's Robert Redfield and Fred Eggan, the R. S. Peabody Foundation's Frederick Johnson, and the Viking Fund's Paul Fejos, among others; (4) the degree and manner in which the effort to grapple with the 14C dating proposal was integrally connected to an ongoing campaign to enhance the professional standing of American archaeology; and (5) clear indications that some archaeologists exhibited ambivalence, if not resistance, to the prospect of "physics" intruding into their domain.

Résumé

Résumé

Este ensayo extiende y reformula nuestro conocimiento sohre las prímeras reacciones (Enero 1947-Enero 1948) de arqueólogos v antropólogos de los Estados Unidos al sistema de fechado por radiocarbóno-14 creado por W. F. Libby. Su contenido, extraido principalmente de fuentes primarias, y de literatura sobre la historia y la sociología de la ciencia, ofrece información nueva e interpretative en relación a varios tópicos. Ellos incluyen: (1) la ineficiencia de las redes de comunicación de la profesión y su influencia a lo largo de un año de diálogos entrecortados acerca de las investigaciones sobre el uso de radioactividad en el silema de fechado; (2) los diferentes caminos por los cuales los altos especialistas trabajaban competitivamente para formular una estrategia enfocada en las aparentes implicaciones de la nueva téchnica del Dr. Libby; (3) los roles particularmente importantes que asumieron en este período Robert Redfield y Fred Eggan de Chicago, Frederick Johnson de la R. S. Peabody Foundation, y Paul Fejos del Viking Fund, entre otros; (4) el grado y forma del esfuerzo utilizando para tratar esta propuesta de fechado por radiocarbón-14 que fue la esencia de una campaña llevada para elevar el nivel de la arqueología de los Estados Unidos, y (5) claras indicaciones de que algunos arqueólogos mostraron dudas, si es que no fue oposición, a la idea de que la "física" infiltre su campo.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , January 1999 , pp. 9 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1999

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