‘Mission impossible!’ Comment on Kristian Kristiansen, ‘Genes versus agents. A discussion of the widening theoretical gap in archaeology’

Extract

‘Theoretical archaeology’ as it exists today is – as we all know – primarily a product of anglophone archaeology. It developed as a challenge to traditional archaeological thinking in the 1960s under the label ‘New Archaeology’ and it flourished in the late 1970s and 1980s with the productive confrontation of ‘processual’ and ‘postprocessual’ approaches. In these ‘wonderful years’ theoretical archaeology gained reputation and influence far beyond its early centres. All over Europe and beyond mainly younger archaeologists found it useful and fascinating to join these debates (Hodder 1991).