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The industrial archaeology of deep time†

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2016

JENNY BULSTRODE
JENNY BULSTRODE*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, UK. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

For geologists and antiquaries of the late 1850s debates over ancient stone tools were frustrated by a lack of accepted criteria. The artefacts were hard to interpret. It was not self-evident how to judge whether they were ancient or modern, natural or man-made; or indeed whether stone tools could pre-date the use of metal tools at all. Antiquary and papermaker John Evans provided a system that offered to resolve these issues. His criteria and his use of re-enactment, making his own stone implements, gained acceptance among flint experts across fluid disciplinary boundaries and enabled authoritative interpretations of the underdetermined objects. This paper explores how Evans drew on the concerns of his industrial culture to make sense of prehistoric artefacts and support his claim to access the past through his own actions. Situated industrial concerns provided the resources for his flint work: from a patent dispute with astronomer and fellow industrialist Warren de la Rue, through his role in the Victorian arms trade, to the struggle to displace skilled manual labour in his factories. Evans is remembered for pioneering the techniques and classificatory system of modern Palaeolithic archaeology and as one of the founders of the re-enactment science of experimental flint knapping. His work played a significant role in helping reconceive the antiquity of man, yet the system of proof for this grand claim was deeply situated in his industrial culture. This paper explores how the industrial resources of a Victorian papermaker made human history.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 1 - 25
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Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2016 

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Footnotes

†

This is an expanded version of one of the two essays jointly awarded the Singer Prize of the British Society for the History of Science for 2014.

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