The Archaeology of Ethnicity

Abstract

Jones begins her book by noting that there is a long history of tying ethnic groups to archaeological constructs, with its most perverted form taking place during the Nazi Regime. Gustaf Kossina’s “settlement archaeology” was used with the genealogical method to trace the super Aryan race. Kossina was active in WWI propaganda, and used archaeological data to argue that Poland was actually part of the German peoples’ territory since the Iron Age. Himmler would use this in the Deutches Ahnenerbe (German Ancestral Inheritance) and commandeer SS officers in the digging for the “evidence” ) (Jones, 1997: 1-2). Though German scholars would vilify Kossina after WWII, they still used the basic “archaeological culture”=“ethnic unit”, while elsewhere this was termed “culture-historical” method. But even up to the present day there is a real lack of understanding how to interpret ethnicity in the past (Jones, 1997: 13). The nineteenth century had chronological and spatial frameworks set up in its drive to sort out the European archaeological material. Kossina developed his “direct ethnohistorical method” in 1911 in The Origins of the Germans, with the view that all archaeological culture areas are sharply delineated and fit a particular group so archaeological continuity means cultural continuity (Jones, 1997: 15-16). V. Gordon Childe was influenced by this and developed the culture concept as the “distinctive ways of life of a discrete group of people”. Unlike Kossina, however, Childe focused on the social heritage and not the racial one (ca.1935) (Jones, 1997: 16-17). He considered material assemblages to be more important than individual artifact types, with the archaeological culture based on formal types alone (though in practice very few formal artifacts came to mean a culture) (Jones, 1997: 18). European archaeology came from the assumption of continuity, which meant that chronology was key, while North American archaeology focused on description and typology (Jones, 1997: 19). The culture-historical approach arose as a means to order things, but still followed the notion that bounded, homogeneous cultural entities correlated with particular peoples. This normative view of culture was in keeping with Childe’s assertion that culture was conservative, so minor changes were internal drift and major ones seen as diffusion or invasion (Jones, 1997:24-5). Acceptance of Darwinian theory in the 1870’s had crushed the belief in true racial differences (at least in the face of acceptable logic), though race would still being constructed in a social light for decades to follow (Jones, 1997: 42-3). Tylor and Boas formalized culture as a social aspect, though Tylor’s cultural stages would conflict with Boas’ particularist view of culture (Jones, 1997: 45). American archaeology would then follow Boas’ approach to study diverse tribes (or archaeological sites) with the aim of delineating cultural patterns and comparing them (Jones, 1997:47). British anthropology, meanwhile, leaped into structural functionalism (Durkheim) and focus on broader social structure and society, though all were set up to counter racial determinism, particularly in light of the Holocaust (Jones, 1997: 47-8). But R.C. Brown’s “ideal systems” and the ensuing HRAF setup still favoured the idea of culture as a homogeneous entity, and was epitomized in archaeology by the “type site” (Jones, 1997:49). The processualists would come along and define culture as a system, and look at “why” cultures changed, following an ecological and functionalist paradigm. But historical archaeology and many would still retain the ethnic labelling, and the view of this system would prove to be untenable in explaining wider discrepancies within societies (Jones, 1997: 26-30). Anthropology had substituted ethnic group for the less palatable “tribe”, but by the 1970’s sociologists and anthropologists realized that ethnicity did not disappear in a melting pot, nor uniformly assert itself, making its discussion more complex (Jones, 1997: 52-4). The key problem was how to define ethnicity, and there were several approaches. Barth (1969) looked at the maintenance of ethnic boundaries, while Cohen used self-determination to develop a notion of ethnicity, but neither of these could always been used (Jones, 1997: 57-64). The conflict between the “Primordial Imperative” school and the “Instrumental Ethnicities” school was that the former was too deterministic and sociobiological, while the latter was too politicized with an overly rationalized human manner (Jones, 1997: 65-79). Both are too deterministic, which is why attempts to combine both generally fail, prompting Jones to suggest a better framework (Jones, 1997:80-2). She looks at Bourdieu’s notion of habitus or process of socialization with durable dispositions towards certain perceptions and practices. Habitus is malleable, for it shapes and is shaped by social practice, much like Gidden’s theory of structuration” and Sahlin’s (1981) look at cosmological dramas (Jones, 1997:88). To apply this, one needs to understand how ethnic identity is appropriated, beginning with the areas of conflict and difference that emerge at the borders (Jones, 1997: 92-6). Difference is therefore objectified within habitus and ethnicity can then be seen as an ongoing process, often with a patchwork effect of combined ethnicities (Jones, 1997: 97-100). Now comes the tying of material culture to ethnicity, and this is where Jones’ work seems to wind down, as she does not provide enough real examples to illustrate her case. Culture history had seen the possibility of equality past people with material culture, but was then critiqued by the New Archaeology as only seeing culture as something shared instead of participated in (Jones, 1997: 106-7). New Archaeology, however, over objectified culture and ethnic groups, and Jones assert that their self-identification can not be ignored (Jones, 1997:108). Archaeological cultures are another matter as well- Childe had a two-tier system, the perfect diagnostic types and then the inuitive practical fit (in practice most of the second tier was full) (Jones, 1997:108-9). Clarke used a polythetic definition, but even here there was the problem that ethnic groups are not fixed nor fully bounded entities (Jones, 1997: 109-110). The dichotomy between style and function was another matter. Function was the cornerstone of the New Archaeology, and was used to equate ethnic entities as being a received normative tradition. Style, for Binford, was an add-on feature to a functional artifact, while Sackett would see it as inherent in the choices of people (Jones, 1997:110-2). Archaeology still assumes that material culture transmission is a function of social interaction and proximity, even though that is not always the case (Lemonnier, 1992 and the Anga demonstrating technological arbitrariness). But if you take habitus with human agency then artifacts can have different meanings in different groups and at different stages in the life cycle (ex: what is a toy over your life?) (Jones, 1997:114-118). In this way, habitus can be seen as an active form of “social environmental possibilism”, at least to my mind. But even though Jones does do a bit of application to understanding how Roman culture was not a “tidy hegemony”, there is clearly not enough demonstration (Jones, 1997:131-9). I think this approach is interesting, and could make for an excellent test theory for a thesis, although its applicability to prehistoric groups would be difficult.