nationalism, local histories and the making of data in archaeology

NATIONALISM, LOCAL HISTORIES AND THEMAKING OF DATA IN ARCHAEOLOGY

Silvia Tomá ková

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The last twenty years have witnessed animated debates in archaeology about the influ-ence of context on the production of archaeological knowledge. This article argues thatsocial and historical context affects archaeology not only at the level of interpretationbut also at that of basic practice. I illustrate this claim about the historical nature of datathrough a comparison of two Palaeolithic central European sites, Willendorf and DolníV stonice, examining the way in which particularities of each context affected the col-lection, analysis, and subsequent circulation of their lithic collections in regional recon-structions. Beyond a concern for more overt ideological forms of nationalism, I concludethat we need to pay greater attention to the local histories of archaeology, and their influence in transforming facts into data.

Introduction

Unlike laboratories, natural sites can never be exclusively scientific domains. They arepublic spaces, and their borders cannot be rigorously guarded … cultural translationremains a persistent and pervasive possibility in the field sciences, far more than in thelaboratory disciplines.

(Kuklick & Kohler 1996: 4)

Archaeology is defined around fieldwork, that is, the recovery and analysis ofmaterial remains. It is therefore crucial that in any discussion of method andtheory we pay close attention to practices in the field, as well as to interpre-tations of recovered remains. By addressing the method of comparison ofarchaeological materials, I seek to show in this article that the manner inwhich materials come to be data sets should lead us to take a more cautiousapproach to assumptions about what they may have been in the past,particularly the more distant prehistoric past.

It has been noted that the development of archaeology as a discipline wasclosely intertwined with the needs and strategies of colonial rulers and anti-colonial nationalists.1 This aspect of archaeology’s history has been recognizedin theoretical debates within the field, but has had comparatively little impacton the everyday practices of archaeologists.

My aim in this article is twofold. I seek to highlight the importance of historical knowledge about archaeological research, showing how particularhistorical contexts can situate studies in dramatically different domains. In adiscussion of twentieth-century research in the central European Palaeolithic,

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I explore the ways in which local and global historical forces affect the pursuitof archaeology, not only in extreme cases of political influence (exemplifiedby Nazi involvement in prehistoric research), but also in less dramatic, ideo-logically charged contexts. By focusing on research at two Palaeolithic sites incentral Europe better known for solid work than for controversy (Willendorfand Dolní V stonice/Pavlov), I seek to highlight the ways in which archaeo-logical data is constructed from artefacts. Thus, I also wish to focus attentionon basic archaeological methods as producers of data. My interest here is notto offer a definitive new interpretation of the collections from these sites, butrather to show how the larger context surrounding them has shaped the basicmethodology employed in their research, as well as the resulting data and itscomparison. If different scientific traditions and practices produce differentpatterns of data, then that difference itself can be read back into the past,appearing to be the result of diverse prehistoric activities.Yet the comparisonof data produced in varied national or regional contexts is not the same asan unmediated comparison of prehistoric facts. Thus attention must be paidto the context of discovery and scientific practices of the local archaeologicaltraditions, not only when seeking the relationship between facts and data inmoments of theoretical discussion, but also when actively engaging in com-parison between data collections. History, I suggest, has practical consequencesfor contemporary archaeological analysis.

Facts and data in the field

As a useful starting-point, I offer for consideration an apparently clear andunproblematic account of the relationship between prehistoric facts2 and databy a leading figure in North American processual archaeology. The author isLewis Binford, and in a discussion of archaeology as a scientific discipline hewrites:

It has been said that any science can be operationally defined with respect to the way itinteracts with its empirical domain or subject to study … While a fact exists in an eventor part thereof that occurs once and is gone forever, data are the representations of facts bysome relatively permanent convention of documentation (1987: 391-2, emphasis added).

As Binford’s understanding of data is widely shared in archaeology, my aimhere is to examine these notions and their underlying premisses as theybecome apparent in a central analytic principle in archaeology: comparison.

Of course, both the ‘hard’ and social sciences have long been familiar withthe claim that representation is not a straightforward and unproblematic exer-cise, but is rather a matter of complex information transfers played out inseveral dimensions (e.g. Daston [2000]; Hacking [1983]; Keller [1992]; Latour[1999]; Lynch & Woolgar [1988]; Rudwick [1985]; Van Reybrouck [2002]).The space between a given fact and its representation as data, then, may befar greater than one might initially imagine, since the manner in which ‘theconvention of documentation’ intervenes depends on local particularities ofscientific tradition and training, and the broader historical and cultural context

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at a specific point in time.Yet in archaeology the nature of data as represen-tation of facts is often forgotten in search of either a firmer ground of sci-entific testing and proof, or of a past that may provide an alternative to thepresent. In a discussion of ethnographic practice Gupta and Ferguson notethat fieldwork has a selective influence on the knowledge it produces: ‘thefield enables certain forms of knowledge, but blocks off others’ (1997: 15).For prehistoric archaeologists this point may be doubly true, as sites not onlydelimit our access to empirical elements of the past, but also define the veryentities we imagine in the past.

In keeping with their idealist materialism, processual archaeologists havelargely filtered out the context of discovery, relegating the topic to historiansof archaeology as a curious but inconsequential side-show. Rather, the contextof justification takes centre stage, exemplified by the testing of hypotheses andillustration of general processes. Processualists have emphasized problem ori-entation, research strategies, and explanation, thus attempting to improvearchaeological inferences and strengthen the scientific nature of the discipline.As Linda Cordell writes: ‘processual archaeology devoted little attention to theorigins of research problems … Within the conventions of traditional philos-ophy of science, the activities of discovery and those of justification must bekept separate … Processual archaeology followed the method of inquiry’(1992: 138-9).

Postprocessual archaeology has paid much closer attention to the socialcontext of archaeology by focusing on political issues involved in research,and highlighting issues of class, race, and gender as influential in the inter-pretations of the past.3 Thus, post-processual literature addresses the topic ofknowledge construction mainly through issues of politics and nationalism inarchaeology, revealing a priori agendas, and the manipulation of archaeologi-cal narrative for political ends. The focus is again on interpretation, suggest-ing that it is in this final stage of archaeological research that bias is revealed,and the theory-laden nature of data is thereby exposed. In arguing for thecrucial need of critical theory in archaeology, Leone, Potter, and Shackel write:‘Archaeologists are invited to consider critical theory by, for one thing, thefact that archaeological interpretations presented to the public may acquire ameaning unintended by the archaeologist and not to be found in the data’(1987: 284). ‘The past is politicized in the process of interpretation whetherarchaeologists like it or not’, adds Tilley more recently (1998: 317, emphasisadded).

Most discussions of the role of ideology in archaeological interpretations inthe Anglo-American world draw on Marxist perspectives, suggesting that‘Archaeological work … is firmly bound up with social processes and valuesin the capitalist West. All too often the vision of the past produced is a capitalist vision’ (Tilley 1998: 317). Or as Leone puts it even more directly:‘Critical archaeology forcefully asserts with Marx that history is always pro-duced in the service of class interests’ (1998: 52). Critical post-processualarchaeology reveals the political nature of archaeological work, yet all too oftenreplaces the previous models with a meta-narrative implying a singular history,that of the capitalist West.This effectively marginalizes the archaeology of deepprehistory, as well as archaeological traditions in political systems that cannot

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easily be classified as capitalist (for example, the former Soviet Union or mostof eastern Europe throughout the twentieth century). Thus, I suggest thatdetailed historical work will uncover histories of archaeologies, rather thanone unified history of archaeology. We need to examine in much greater detailthe interaction between the global and the local in our discipline’s history,and to do so we need to pay closer attention to methodology and actual prac-tices in the field, as well as interpretations of the past.

Feminist theoretical discussions in archaeological literature have moved mostsuccessfully in this direction, noting the crucial importance of practice inarchaeology.4 As Conkey and Gero note: ‘The implications of the feminist cri-tique, taken seriously, point ineluctably to a recognition of the bias inherentin how archaeology is practiced, and to a dedicated effort to develop a morefeminist-friendly archaeology’ (1997: 429).Thus in seeking to go beyond ide-alized arguments about scientific method and its potential biases on a theo-retical level, we need to develop more detailed consideration of the methodsand knowledges particular archaeologies have produced. My aim is thereforeto ‘focus on science as practice rather than content, as process rather thanproduct’ (Longino 1990: 48), and to examine the ‘coming into being of scientific objects’ (Daston 2000: 1) by exploring the methods employed by archaeologists at the two sites in central Europe.

Nationalism and archaeology

There have been a number of studies of the influence of nationalism onarchaeology. While these have been insightful in their insistence on dealingwith the need to recognize political motives in the practice of the discipline,they have also tended to focus on the extreme cases – Nazi Germany, SouthAfrica, and the turbulent regions of the Middle East. The context for most ifnot all of these are totalitarian regimes or situations of severe political oppres-sion (e.g. Abu-el-Haj 2001; Arnold 1990; Kohl & Fawcett 1995; Meskell1998).These examples certainly demonstrate the centrality of politics to somescientific contexts.Yet they may also have the unintended effect of convinc-ing readers that most research is uncontaminated by political aims and biases,and thus in no need of critical scrutiny. Palaeolithic archaeology is particu-larly prone to this belief. Most national myths are focused on the emergenceof civilization and culture defined in opposition to nature, leaving the StoneAge, the longest period of human history, outside the field of blatant politi-cal manipulation. Thus the paucity of national myths based on the glory ofthe Palaeolithic allows archaeologists dealing with this time period the comfortof feeling morally superior compared to those researching the much morecontested later prehistoric and historic periods.

Yet I would argue that social and historical context is crucial from theoutset of any project, affecting the basic concepts and methods employed byarchaeologists.We need to pay much closer attention to what constitutes ‘data’in any research, and recognize that all archaeological data have a history ofdiscovery that influences how the data are collected, treated, analysed, andinterpreted. Furthermore, that history involves cultural practices of science thatcan be perfectly sound, professional, and principled, and yet at the same time


can be the result of local variations in training, application, and professionalambition which produce different research outcomes. In the comparative casestudy presented here, I show how different patterns of received knowledgeand practice can produce different data, and thus suggest uncertainties of com-mensurability. My focus is on defining moments in the historical and socialcontext of two sites, along with a reconsideration of artefacts from each in amanner that renders them comparable (whether ultimately similar or differ-ent). Particular attention is paid to the changes in these contexts during thetwentieth century, and the effect that this has had on the particular archaeo-logical materials from the sites. My own analysis of stone tools from thesesites shows difference in the conventions used to define the collections, sug-gesting that the historical and political contexts are closely tied to the methodsused to define the recovered materials and construct data sets. Nationalism, Iargue, is a complex social phenomenon that varies over time and place, andis not by itself always a useful label, as it tends to mask local histories ratherthan reveal them.

Prehistoric facts and data in central Europe

The starting-point of this investigation was a puzzle presented by the relativepaucity in the archaeological literature of detailed comparison between twowell-known central European Palaeolithic sites, Willendorf and Dolní V stonice/Pavlov,5 despite their geographical and temporal proximity. Less than100 kilometres apart (equidistant from Vienna) and having overlapping C-14dates (Haesaerts, Damblon, Bachner & Trnka 1996), the two sites have been apart of the archaeological record since the early twentieth century. (See Map.)

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Key: Willendorf II Pavlov sites

Map. Pavlov sites and Willendorf II, as of 1918.

While both sites appear in general discussions of the European Palaeolithic,and more specifically in accounts of the Gravettian6 culture complex, the question of whether or not their occupants may have been linked was rarely raised (Bosinski 1967; Broglio & Laplace 1966; Felgenhauer 1956-9;Gamble 1986; Otte 1981). While it is interesting to examine prehistoric sites or collections that have been compared (more frequently in search of links and similarities than in recognition of differences), it is possibly moreinteresting to investigate those that have not been chosen, for it reminds us that comparison is not an automatic methodological move in the presence ofavailable data.

My initial reaction to the lack of comparison between Willendorf and DolníV stonice and Pavlov was to suspect that this was a simple case of a modernboundary projected into the past, the border between Austria and Czecho-slovakia (and simultaneously the post-Second World War border between theWest and the East) overshadowing the study of prehistory.7 Initially, it appearedthat all that needed to be done was to examine the archaeological materialsfrom both sites, and look for the presence or absence of similarities. Theextended process of comparison, however, revealed greater complexities. His-torical study of research at both locations suggests that the move from factsto data took different routes at each site, and thus produced assemblages withindifferent domains. Subsequent treatment of the data was framed by a muchwider context of prehistory as local history writ large, and the importance ofthe site, or lack thereof, was read through this lens. To illustrate this point Inow embark on a broader historical detour.

Willendorf: nature and culture at the end of an empire

On Christmas Eve 1857, the Habsburg emperor Franz Joseph I issued animperial decree ordering the demolition of the defensive walls surroundingthe city of Vienna (Schorske 1980; Springer 1979; Wagner-Rieger 1969).Centuries of struggle with their Ottoman neighbours were now officially over,and Vienna was to become a European city, self-confident, unthreatened, nolonger an eastern outpost, but a part of the grand classical tradition of Europe.The Austro-Hungarian empire had numerous reasons for wanting to assert itsimportance and identity. Anxious over its geographical position at the easternedge of Europe, it had faced historical threats of Turkish invasions and endur-ing uncertainties about its relationship with the ‘Orient’.Thus the decision todestroy the city walls which were the overt sign of this constant threat was amajor historical event. The replacement of the city walls with a wide boule-vard lined with the empire’s notable cultural institutions – an opera house,theatre, archive, library, museums, palace, and the parliament – was a consciouspublic statement, a permanent architectural expression of the victory of cultureover nature. The two largest and most important museums in Vienna were apart of this Ringstrasse project: the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum ofArt History), and the Naturhistorisches Museum (Museum of NaturalHistory). The imperial collections were thus divided into two distinct sets ofcultural and natural artefacts. All items that could be thought of as falling into

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the category of European artistic achievements were moved to the art historymuseum. Objects produced by peoples outside Europe were moved to themuseum of natural history (Springer 1979),8 together with stuffed animals,geological specimens, and botanical materials. At the same time, this divisionalso defined a new space for scientific research as a domain that dealt withnatural phenomena. Quaternary field research, particularly prehistoric archae-ology and geology, played a major role in developing the new imperial scienceat the end of the nineteenth century.The establishment of the prehistoric col-lection within the multinational Habsburg state had furthermore beendesigned internationally, with imperial science being defined as a specificallyEuropean enterprise, rather than a specifically national effort.9 This case thuspresents a striking contrast to that of the many other nineteenth-centurymuseums which were conceived as national institutions presenting a morelocalized vision of history, as will be seen below in relation to Czechoslova-kian materials.

One of the first major enterprises carried out under the auspices of theMuseum of Natural History was the excavation at Willendorf, led by JosefSzombathy, then the head of the archaeological and ethnological collections(Antl-Weiser 2000-1; Kossack 1992).The site had been known to researchersfor some twenty years, but systematic digging did not begin until the springof 1908 when those involved were able to take advantage of excavation workfor a new regional railway line (Antl-Weiser 2000-1; Felgenhauer 1956-9;Szombathy 1909). The collaboration of Hugo Obermaier, Josef Bayer, andSzombathy turned out to be highly productive but, as Antl-Weiser poignantlydescribes, their relations were also clouded by personality clashes, career rival-ries, and differences in intellectual outlook (2000-1).10 The research focusedon geological and faunal developments through prehistory, with stone tooltypology as an equal concern.As Kossack stresses in an overview of the historyof archaeology in German-speaking lands: ‘In the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Prehistoric Commission) and in the National Museum, prehistorywas treated as a discipline of natural history’ (1992: 84).Yet despite the focuson nature, Austrian prehistory evoked cultural connections as well, relatingstone tool typologies to established French sequences, thus blurring theculture/nature division in a defining moment of comparison. There were anumber of reasons for this qualified embrace of cultural themes and per-spectives, most notably an unusually critical stance towards evolutionism(Andriolo 1979; Kossack 1992).

At the turn of the century the main concern of prehistoric research inGerman-speaking countries was not an evolutionary one but rather a concernwith spatial distribution of cultures.11 This served to establish links withFrance, the foremost area of prehistoric research at the time, connecting Franceand Austria not only as cultural entities but also as scientific partners (Felgenhauer 1995-6; Szombathy 1909). As Felgenhauer writes, ‘central European Palaeolithic research, following the cradle of all Palaeolithic research– France, was consumed with identifying Palaeolithic “cultures” ’, while rec-ognizing that ‘France alone is not the whole of Europe’ (1995-6: 251).12 Thusthe first discovered Austrian Palaeolithic location was identified as Magdalen-ian, while Willendorf was first defined as Solutreen, only to be subsequently


reclassified as typical Aurignacian.13 The archaeological term ‘Willendorflayers’, assigned to stratigraphic layers that supposedly corresponded to asequence of prehistoric cultures, was introduced in 1909 and described as ‘gen-erally corresponding to the French Aurignacian with certain central Europeanpeculiarities’, with France being the ultimate measure of comparison (Felgenhauer 1995-6, 1: 252). Szombathy’s classification of the recovered arte-facts was only on the most general level, listing items such as scrapers, borers,and burins,14 comparing them to existing French specimens, and describingthe raw material used for their production (Szombathy 1909).

The representation of facts at Willendorf thus took the form of a naturalscience database, housed in a museum of natural history, connected to researchinto French prehistory, and disconnected from the cultural heritage of theregion. The western-orientated cultural outlook of Austrian archaeologists atthe time connected the recovered Palaeolithic materials to the existing FrenchPalaeolithic research, indicating that western Europe did not end in Francebut rather extended into Austria as well. On the other hand, Austrian history,as a separate entity from prehistory in terms of official cultural interest, startedonly much later with the Iron Age site of Hallstatt (700-400 BC), which was clearly tied to the Mediterranean world (Cunliffe 1994; Neugebauer-Maresch 1993). Consequently, when Palaeolithic sites in neighbouringCzechoslovakia were uncovered several decades later and presented as uniquecultural phenomena (see below), it is not surprising that there was littleresponse from the Austrian side. The prehistoric objects in Vienna were tiedto French scientific research into prehistory, and unlike those in Czechoslo-vakia they were not attached in any way to national cultural heritage andhistory. Inadvertently, the Palaeolithic finds from the Austrian territory wereassigned by Austrian prehistorians to a different category from the same materials just across the border, preventing comparison at even the most basic conceptual level.

The only object from the site that made a regular appearance in discussionof the Ice Age was a small limestone female figurine, the now well-known‘Venus of Willendorf ’.15 At a major international conference in 1909,Szombathy displayed a plaster copy of the object. In contrast to the stonetools, he described the figurine in minute detaila, comparing it to a well-known statue from Brassempouy (Piette 1895; Szombathy 1909: 87-8). Thisobject aroused great interest among writers on prehistoric art, for whom the rest of the site’s finds were of little or no interest.While Bayer, one of theoriginal excavators of Willendorf, spent the rest of his life dealing with thematerial from the site, it was not until 1954 that Fritz Felgenhauer, a profes-sor at the University of Vienna, systematically organized and classified the stonetools (Felgenhauer 1956-9). By then Austro-Hungary was long gone. Germanand French were overshadowed as scholarly languages by English. The detailsof Willendorf were a purely local matter within a small central Europeancountry, a museum collection that seemed to have resonated little on a wider European or world stage.16 The discoverers of the site regarded the signifi-cance of Willendorf as deriving from its ties to a pan-European science ofprehistory with its centre in France.This link ceased to be of importance afterthe break-up of the Austro-Hungarian empire.The archaeologists’ ideas aboutwhat initially constituted the importance of Willendorf became irrelevant


when the European map changed, and when the imperial resonances of thedebates to which the archaeologists were contributing acquired a newmeaning for prehistorians both within and beyond Europe. The only objectfrom the site that has retained a transnational character is the female figurinethat is regularly featured in discussions of prehistoric art, a domain that con-tinues to cross boundaries and unite prehistoric sites across Europe. Whenviewed as ‘art’, the figurine of Willendorf is removed from its local settinginto a timeless pan-European tradition of symbolic expression (Tomá ková1997). Associated ‘non-art’ artefacts are thus separated off and studied on theirown in the context of a purely ‘archaeological’ record at individual sites separated by national research traditions.

Nation in the making: research at Dolní V stonice

Only a few years after the initial research at Willendorf ended, a new bordercame into existence and with it a new set of impulses for archaeologicalresearch. Czechoslovakia was created in 1918, together with the other nation-states that replaced the defeated Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of theFirst World War. The site of Dolní V stonice is located near a village of the same name, in the southern part of the Moravia region of what is nowthe Czech Republic. Pavlov is an adjacent locality in the foothills of the Pavlovmountains. The site has been known to archaeologists for almost as long asDolní V stonice. Systematic excavation began in 1952, with the name ‘Pavlov’being given to the whole region, signalling that it was to be understood as asingle cultural complex.

The hilly region of southern Moravia was already the object of historicalinterest, having long been identified as the site of the first Slavic state, theso-called ‘Great Moravian empire’ of the ninth to tenth centuries. The searchfor physical traces of this once great polity had captured the imagination oflocal patriots from the eighteenth century onwards. Given the increasing identification of land and nation in the popular imagination (Gojda 1991),members of the intelligentsia of central Europe – most notably local medicalpractitioners and naturalists – came to play a dual role as men of science andnational revivalists. These two concerns came together in the quest for ‘sci-entific’ evidence about the location of historic sites and landmarks. This was especially true for communities living in larger multinational politicalentities such as the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the patriotic quest for antiq-uities became even more rigorous after the birth of Czechoslovakia as a newnation-state.

Large-scale excavation began at Dolní V stonice in the summer of 1924.17

Dr Karel Absolon, a professor at the Charles University at Prague and a curatorof the Moravian Museum at Brno, led the project, and for the next fifteenyears served as its director, publicity manager, fund-raiser, and principal author(Absolon 1925; 1927; 1938). Dolní V stonice turned out to be an immenselyrich find with large numbers of artefacts; the first evidence of portable artwas located in the initial weeks of excavation in 1924. The foremost prehis-torians of Europe, gathered for the International Anthropology Congress inPrague in September 1924, were immediately invited to inspect the site and

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to participate in the experience of archaeological discovery (Absolon 1938).The difference between the public nature of the research conducted at thissite, and the specialist, museum-driven research conducted at Willendorf couldnot be more striking.The major sponsors and overseers of the Dolní V stoniceproject included both the local historical society (consisting of amateur archae-ologists and a few historians) and the university, a national centre of scientifictraining and research.

Publicity was as much a part of the representation of the prehistoric factsas the accumulation of data.The first brief account of the archaeological findsin Moravia appeared in The Illustrated London News on 31 October 1925, underthe arresting headline: ‘A discovery as wonderful as that of Tutenkhamen’sTomb: Moravia over 20,000 years ago’ (Absolon 1925). This popular journalgave extensive coverage to the Dolní V stonice project over the next few years,thus serving as the major source of information about these excavations bothfor the English-speaking world and for readers in western Europe. The arti-cles in the series thus constituted a strong appeal for the acceptance ofCzechoslovakia as a European country with a past that was as distinctive andglorious as that of Europe’s other great nations.There was also an implicit callfor its local scholars to be recognized as sophisticated archaeologists with the same level of knowledge and expertise as other members of the European scientific community. In search of their country’s unique place inEuropean history, Czechoslovak archaeologists concentrated only on the localsite, never searching for possible connections in neighbouring countries, assuch connections might be thought of as diminishing the primacy anduniqueness of Dolní V stonice.

In the year following the 1938 Munich Pact under which Nazi Germanyeffectively dismembered Czechoslovakia, Bohemia and Moravia became aGerman protectorate, a situation that would last for the next six years. CharlesUniversity in Prague began teaching in German; and prehistory, labelled ‘thenational science’, became one of the most popular subjects. The head of theDepartment of Pre- and Protohistory at the German University in Prague,Professor Lothar Zotz, published a number of articles on the prehistory of theregion, arguing for German ancestral ties to the land (Zotz 1940; 1944). Hisstudent, Gisela Freund (the only woman in this circle of Moravian Palaeolithicarchaeologists, and the only woman to have published in this field), began acomparison of the Dolní V stonice material with other Palaeolithic materialsfrom the wider central European region, including the Willendorf collection,which had been the subject of her doctoral research (Freund 1944). For thefirst time, in the context of a German university (established by the Germansin Prague after the takeover) and a redefined Germanic sphere of influence,it seemed that a wider region was to be considered in a comparative frame-work. However, due to a variety of political factors in academia and the government in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, this projectnever materialized (Freund 1944: 3-10).18

In 1948 Czechoslovakia fell firmly under the control of the Soviet Union,and collaboration with western countries (among which Austria graduallycame to be counted) was outside the scientific practice of the day. Neverthe-less, excavations at Dolní V stonice in the 1950s and 1960s recovered still moree

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unique prehistoric materials: remains of a kiln with fired ceramic pieces, aburial of a woman, several pieces of human skeletons, and more mammothbones (Klíma 1963; 1967; Svoboda 1994). All these attracted interest inCzechoslovakia as well as elsewhere in the eastern bloc, indicating the uniquenature of the locality. The spectacular nature of the finds thus deferred anyneed for a detailed comparative project, as very few sites in the region, orindeed in central Europe, offered such rich material. It was at this time thatthe term ‘Pavlovian’ was born.

As Klíma recounts, the new term was not born out of a systematic analy-sis of the recovered materials, but rather out of a ‘strong impression that Pavlovwas the richest and most important settlement in the region, and the one thatprovides the most complete picture of life during the Palaeolithic’ (1961: 104).Designating Delporte as the godfather of the term ‘Pavlovian’, Klíma writes:‘H. Delporte, having examined the collections in 1958, could not contain hisadmiration, which he later expressed also in writing [Delporte 1959], sug-gesting that Pavlov should be considered the eponymic site for the entire eastGravettian, and the term “Pavlovian” was used for the first time’ (1961: 106).Klíma was aware of the existence of an Austrian locality in Aggsbach butviewed it as too local and too insignificant to serve as a regional name. LeavingWillendorf completely out of the discussion, he argued for a Czech term todistinguish central Europe from France and western Europe (Klíma 1959;1961).This was clearly a case of methodology being driven by wishful think-ing, since Klíma admits that

only a detailed systematic comparative analysis of the stone tool typology will provide us with the statistical data needed to provide a precise, more realistic and clearpicture of the differences of eastern Gravettian, and social aspects of the Pavlovian …statistical distribution of the materials from these sites has so far not been done (1961:107-8).19

While leaving Willendorf out of the discussion, Klíma initially presentedthe invention of the Pavlovian tradition in German-language Austrian publi-cations in 1959 (Felgenhauer 1995-6; Klíma 1959), and only subsequently inthe main Czech archaeological journal (Klíma 1961). Furthermore, eventhough this was essentially the same article in both languages, one major addi-tion appeared in the Czech version. To strengthen the case politically, Klímaappeals to Marx, Engels, and Stalin – this being the end of the 1950s, thesethree were standard Marxist figures of all scholarly discussions in the EastEuropean sciences – arguing that Pavlovian as an archaeological culture satis-fied the definition of a social unit based on Marxist understanding of tech-nology. ‘Archaeological materials cannot directly prove the existence of anysocial units, but on the basis of Marxist teaching we can legitimately assumetheir existence’ (Klíma 1961: 108).Thus Delporte’s assessment,Austrian accep-tance, and Marxist justification led to the projection of Pavlov away from allregional comparison into a defining type, even in the complete absence ofnumerical and statistical support. It was only in 1995 that Felgenhauerexpressed his doubts about the validity of the term ‘Pavlovian’ in print.20 Bythen, the term had been firmly adopted by most archaeologists working inthe area, and successfully exported to the rest of Europe.


Scientific method and history

While the historical and cultural context of archaeological projects providesan account of the setting in which research questions are formed, actual scientific methods carry these questions into the realm of practice. The recovered prehistoric materials can only become data through representationby ‘some relatively permanent convention of documentation’ (Binford 1987:392). It is precisely in this domain that differences in training, background,and practices, as well as aspirations, are exposed, as the methods produce aspecific, tangible, and very real product: a database that can be handled,examined, and compared by other researchers (see Van Reybrouck 2002 for adiscussion of materials being produced through lines of communication).When categories created in this process are compared, the specific characterof the prehistoric materials is discussed within the boundaries of assumed conventions, that is, in what Binford identifies as ‘some relatively permanentconvention of documentation’ (Binford 1987: 392). But the differences or similarities between the materials depend on those conventions, and on adher-ence to them, as much as they depend on the factual prehistoric differences.However, as the case before us shows, the method does not always precedethe interpretation, but rather can be directed by it.

The absence of comparison between Willendorf and Pavlov was based onthe assumption of difference in stone tool typology that translated into dif-ferent ‘archaeological cultures’. Materials from Willendorf were from thebeginning placed in the context of a wider European Gravettian phenome-non, with a centre in France.The Czech sites on the other hand were groupedunder the heading of an eastern Gravettian, with a centre in Pavlov.The argu-ment in favour of cultural differences between the two prehistoric locations,obviating any need for further comparison, was only later based on the actualrecovered stone artefacts, once the archaeological culture had been named andadopted.

The ‘Pavlovian’, the local archaeological designation for the occupationlayers, described as a self-contained ‘culture’, was subsequently defined on thebasis of a proportion of specific stone tool types. A particular stone tool formcame to represent an intersection between nature and culture, culture actingupon nature, shaping it and giving it a cultural meaning. Material culture wasviewed as a distinct symbolic expression of cultural differences, and an indi-cation of boundaries between archaeological cultures that strongly resembled‘ethnic’ groups. This was particularly the case with the Pavlovian, which wasnamed within a national context with analysis following only much later. Inthe context of European archaeology this is not at all a surprising position totake, as prehistoric archaeology has been traditionally viewed as an extensionof history into the past. However, what the case before us suggests is the needto consider the extent of the cultural groups that are being created, and theirparticular centres. As Felgenhauer (1995-6) writes in the only detailed dis-cussion of the ‘invention of a tradition’ in Pavlov: ‘the taxonomic position ofPavlovian is at present not clear at all, and the justification for the classifica-tory existence of Pavlovian remains a question’ (1995-6: 255). Arguing foreither the precedence of Austrian terminology (Aggsbachian had been sug-gested in 1928 before being discarded by Felgenhauer himself in 1951 in


favour of French terminology), or the French pan-European tradition,Felgenhauer suggests that the natural history model of zoology should be followed, bringing us almost full circle to the early twentieth century whenmuseums of natural history were among the leading sites of European science(1995-6: 256).

Practices and methods in action

To illustrate some of the above-mentioned issues and problems with classifi-cation and typology as a form of representation, I outline a brief comparisonof the typological distribution in each collection. If one accepts the publishedstone tool distributions from each site, the typologies at Willendorf and Pavlovshow only basic Upper Palaeolithic similarities and the dissimilarities are quiteobvious (see Tables 1, 2). Yet it is worth examining whether some of the


Table 1. Pavlov: general typology

Typology Count %

blade 1,620 39.7burin 749 18.35débitage 660 16.17microlith 551 13.5point 182 4.46endscraper 177 4.34scraper 63 1.54backed 49 1.2core 22 0.54combination 8 0.2

Total 4,081 100

Table 2. Willendorf II layers: general typology

Typology Willendorf II layers

5 6 7 8 9

Count % Count % Count % Count % Count %

débitage 245 40.83 83 41.71 51 18.02 200 38.61 440 42.68blade 201 33.5 91 45.73 211 74.56 222 42.86 213 20.66microlith 64 10.67 2 1 4 1.41 37 7.14 68 6.6burin 35 5.83 8 4.02 4 1.41 8 1.55 116 11.25endscraper 35 5.83 10 5.03 6 2.12 44 8.49 116 11.25scraper 10 1.67 1 0.5 5 1.77 5 0.97 16 1.55point 7 1.17 3 1.51 2 0.71 1 0.19 45 4.36combination 2 0.33 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 0.78hammer 1 0.17 1 0.5 0 0 1 0.19 7 0.68borer 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0.19

Total 600 100 199 100 283 100 518 100 1,031 100

Source: Felgenhauer (1956-9), vol. 2; Otte (1981).

typological differences are not a product of the classificatory system. What isconsidered to be a part of the system and what is excluded influences therepresentation of the prehistoric facts, and channels the interpretation of the pattern observed. The classification itself creates boundaries around dis-crete categories, and in the final stage only the categories themselves are com-pared.Therefore one must always consider the possibility that some differencesmay disappear if one were to introduce an identical classificatory system, andactually compare similar categories.

The first striking difference between the typological organizations of thesetwo collections is the distinction made between the lithic materials as a wholeand formal tools as a smaller, refined category. At Pavlov, the focus and all theinterpretations were made on the basis of the tools alone, a much narrowergroup of lithics, leaving out all the unretouched blades and débitage.21 Con-sidering that a detailed analysis of the collection only started in the late 1980s,the selection of the few tool types that are unique to the Pavlov culture wasjustified by Klíma and his followers by the vast amount of the recovered material. As a result, the supposed uniqueness of the Pavlov culture was sup-ported by the unusually high proportion of burins, and the high percentageof microliths (see Table 3). Consequently, the typological distribution of lithicsfrom Willendorf II layer 5 appears dramatically different from that at Pavlov,containing only 11 per cent microliths, and approximately 6 per cent burins(see Table 2). Pavlov was said to have 31 per cent microliths and 42 per centburins (see Table 3). However, when only the same narrower group of formaltools is considered, and débitage and unretouched blades are excluded fromthe Willendorf II typology, the distinction becomes less clearcut. Indeed, layer5 at Willendorf II contains approximately 42 per cent microliths and 23 percent burins (see Table 4). The same change in proportions occurs in all Willendorf II layers, depending on whether the sample size includes orexcludes débitage and unretouched blades (see Tables 2, 5).

Clearly, the representation of some facts in a database can be seen as moresignificant than others, depending on the focus and goals of the study. Whenthe archaeologist’s aim is to establish the history of a given culture and itsproducts, tools will take precedence in the representation of prehistoric facts,


Table 3. Pavlov: formal typology

Typology Count %

burin 749 42.1microlith 551 30.97point 182 10.23endscraper 177 9.95scraper 63 3.54backed 49 2.75combination 8 0.45

Total 1,779 99.99

Source: after Klíma (1959); Svoboda (1994).

as was the case at Pavlov. The greater assemblage of all recovered artefacts –tools and débitage – represents a larger range of natural and cultural trans-formations occurring at a site, and constitutes a more comprehensive databasereflecting the whole history of human occupation of the site, as was the caseat Willendorf.

Once prehistoric artefacts are selected for classification as data, the next stepis their assignment to a particular typological category. This is a more exactand detailed process that follows from the initial classification, and involvesnot only a general recognition of an artefact as a ‘tool’ but also its measure-ment and the location of specific modifications on the tool itself. It is pre-cisely in the particularities of the process, that is, the local conventions of amore general scientific method, that different traditions of training and prac-tice appear, and conventions of documentation become apparent. There canbe considerable variation in units of measurement, standards of internal con-sistency, and the degree to which the same measurements and criteria areapplied throughout a collection, let alone between collections.

Examining the Pavlov and Willendorf II collections from this perspective,we can see evidence of this kind of variation in the conventions used for


Table 5. Willendorf II layers: formal typology

Typology Willendorf II layers

5 6 7 8 9

Count % Count % Count % Count % Count %

microlith 64 41.8 2 8.3 4 19.0 37 38.95 68 18.3burin 35 22.9 8 33.3 4 19.0 8 8.4 116 31.3endscraper 35 22.9 10 41.7 6 28.6 44 46.3 116 31.3scraper 10 6.5 1 4.2 5 23.8 5 5.3 16 4.3point 7 4.6 3 12.5 2 9.5 1 1.05 45 12.1combination 2 1.3 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 2.2borer 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0.5

Total 153 100 24 100 21 99.9 95 100 371 99.95

Table 4. Microlithic component of Pavlov and Willendorf II

Cultural layer Microliths (%)

Willendorf II, 5 38Willendorf II, 6 34Willendorf II, 7 30Willendorf II, 8 39Willendorf II, 9 36Pavlov 31

Note: The data is presented using the same criteria for both collections, Pavlov and Willendorf.

measurement and classification. According to the formal tool typology, thereare 551 microliths (31 per cent) in the sample from the Pavlov collection.According to my measurements (since none were provided in the artefact catalogue or the accompanying literature), these blades were 5 to 50 mm longand 2 to 17 mm wide (Tomá ková 2000). At Willendorf II, all items measur-ing 40 mm or less were defined as microblades; anything longer was placed inother typological categories.22 This difference of 10 mm in the way in whichthe category is defined at the two sites is clearly minimal, yet it resulted in atypological distribution at Willendorf that was very different from that atPavlov. When I applied the same criteria, the microblade collection in Willendorf II layer 5 changed from 64 to 230 pieces, increasing its propor-tion from 11 to 38 per cent of the lithic total, a share even higher than thatin the Pavlov collection (31 per cent). The same transformation appeared inthe other Willendorf II layers, resulting in a similar proportion of microlithsin the order of 30 to 38 per cent (see Table 5).

My point is not to suggest that one approach or the other is superior, butrather to stress the degree to which a slight variation in the conventions usedin ordering facts (even at the basic level of size) can produce quite differentpatterns of data. While recognizing that both personal idiosyncrasies and/orsimple human error can play a part here, in choosing to focus on variationin the definitions and typological criteria used by archaeologists I am seekingto focus attention on the significance of a greater cultural and historicalcontext. Local traditions of research, training, scholarship, and communicationbetween scholars, as well as the cultural context of scientific tradition, all playa crucial role in the actual practice of science (Galison & Stump 1996; Keller1992; Latour 1999; Latour & Woolgar 1986; Longino 1990; Lynch & Woolgar1988;Van Reybrouck 2002). Archaeology is no exception. Basic classificationis a daily practice in archaeological research, and one of the unintended consequences is the difference in application of this elementary practice.Moreover, we should recognize the interpretative spaces that exist in themethod itself and the range of variation possible at every step. On the wayto becoming data, prehistoric facts must be translated into larger units, andthe conventions that guide this process are not timeless rules but rather localagreements based on particular logic. I argue that the underlying assumptionsof cultural uniqueness, as in the case of the Pavlovian, are part of, or even thedriving force behind, the whole analysis, and not only a consideration in thefinal interpretation of a prehistoric site.

A system of classification is informative on a general level and has anobvious practical value, yet a note of caution is warranted, particularly whenany comparison between collections is carried out. The process itself is notentirely neutral or consistent across the board. The exercise of classificationcan be rendered all the more complex through the impact of a number offactors which cannot be readily distinguished from one another, and whoseinfluence may therefore be rather difficult to detect and counteract. Depend-ing on the goal of the study, it is important to bring in other lines of evi-dence in order to provide genuine insight into a past society. Thus, when oneis seeking to establish both similarities and differences between particulargroups, typology alone is of limited value.This does not necessarily imply theneed for a revision of all typologies, although recognizing local variation

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would clearly be of benefit to those making such comparisons. But what wedo need to recognize is that while classification can be of great value in theorganization of large quantities of material, it is merely an initial and provi-sional tool and should be seen as a method with traditions, history, and culture,and definitely not as a permanent solution to all archaeological problems.Archaeology is not alone in its reliance on classification, as this method has been the basis of many natural and social sciences. Thus archaeologistswould benefit from closer attention to history and cultural studies of science,in order to understand the situated and local nature of the tools that definewhat we do.23

Conclusion

In this article, I have argued that the context of discovery cannot be separated from the context of justification, or in our archaeological case fromthe comparative assumptions of final interpretation. Discussing research at two Palaeolithic sites in central Europe, I have sought to show that a particu-lar historical and cultural milieu favours and advances certain questions in ascientific enquiry through particular methods, creating data that may beincommensurable. As the historian of science, Peter Galison, notes: ‘there issomething local about scientific knowledge’ (Galison 1996: 2). The local andhistorical context affects more than the ideas held by the researchers, the ques-tions they pose, and the interpretations they offer. It also shapes the scientificpractice, training, choice of recovery methods, the degree of adherence to conventions of documentation, and the use of classification in organizingrecovered materials.

The historical contexts of scientific practice are revealed in the interpreta-tive move from prehistoric fact to present-day data, when facts are transformedinto representations, and become archaeological data. By examining two well-known investigations, this article identifies the presence of a greater culturalmatrix in all science. In a detailed comparison of the history and methods ofresearch at these neighbouring sites, local differences in practice becomeobvious. I argue that in order to carry out any comparison of research results,it is essential to understand how these results were obtained. The practiceembedded in data includes the historical context of the work, in addition tospecific methods applied to the assemblage of discovered facts. Both the frameof chosen research questions and the methods applied are part of a larger localcultural context, one that changes over time, even as data from earlier periodsare preserved. Comparison thus implies a process of selection at a level beyondthe scope of the individual researcher; the presence of data in any one areadoes not automatically result in placing them into the same context with thatof an adjacent area. Data are therefore representations of prehistoric factsviewed through a modern-day lens, and depend as much on the way of seeingas on the existence of the evidence itself. The forms of the present are onlycomprehensible in relation to their respective pasts.

In identifying archaeology as a science, we should remember that it remainsa partial and historical one, in the sense that it addresses an incomplete recordof surviving materials, and seeks not only simple form or basic function from


these artefacts, but ultimately traces of past human practice. At the same time,it is a field science that involves physical recovery of materials followed bylaboratory analysis. Archaeology’s position between disciplines, and its twinlegacies of field and laboratory work, and material and cultural concerns,renders it particularly dependent on comparison, and hence on translationbetween data sets.Therefore we must pay greater rather than less attention tohistorical and local networks in the research practices through which we filterfacts into data, even before we begin to discuss them. As Rheinberger notes,writing about the relation between representation and objects:

Scientific objects, not things per se, but objects insofar as they are targets of epistemicactivity, are unstable concatenations of representations. At best they become stabilized forsome historically bounded period … [T]hey can become, within a particular scientificcontext, altogether marginal, because nobody expects them to be generators of unprece-dented events anymore (2000: 274).

NOTES

Funding for the fieldwork was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the SSHRC-Canada, and UC-Berkeley. For their advice and support I am grateful to Meg Conkey andRuth Tringham; for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article, I wish to thank JamesCarrier, Peter Redfield, and several anonymous reviewers.

1 See, for example,Abu El-Haj (2001), Christenson (1989), Díaz-Andreu & Champion (1996),Kohl & Fawcett (1995), Rudwick (1985), Rupke (1983), and Trigger (1989a; 1989b).

2 For excellent discussions of scientific facts, objects, and the history of the modern fact, seeDaston (2000), Poovey (1998).

3 See, for example, Christenson (1989), Díaz-Andreu & Sørensen (1998), Gero & Conkey(1991), Gero, Lacy & Blakey (1983), Hodder 1992, Hodder et al. (1995), Layton (1989), Leone(1998), McGuire & Paynter (1991), Shanks (1992), Shanks & Tilley (1987), and Wylie (1992;1996; 1997; 2000).

4 See, among many, Brumfiel (1992), Conkey & Spector (1984), Conkey & Gero (1997),Dommasnes (1992), Engelstad (1991), Gero (1990; 1993; 1994; 1996), Gero & Conkey (1991),Gilchrist (1991; 1999), Joyce (2000), Wright (1996), and Wylie (1996, 2000).

5 More general treatments of the region began to appear in the 1990s, suggesting that ColdWar geopolitical divisions did play a role in viewing areas of Europe as either contiguous or non-contiguous – see for example, Feblot-Augustine (1993), Montet-White (1994), and Haesaerts, Damboln, Bachner, and Trnka (1996).

6 Gravettian refers to an Upper Palaeolithic culture named after a site in France: see Cunliffe (1994).

7 I conducted research across the border between the former Czechoslovakia (at Dolní V stonice) and Austria (at Willendorf ) from 1990 to 1994, comparing the collections, study-ing their history, and examining the stone tools under a microscope for traces of use-wear (seeTomá ková 2000).

8 This nineteenth-century division was not unique to Vienna, and was repeated in museumsall over Europe and North America. The separation of the imperial collections into these twomuseums was both a practical necessity due to the large and growing number of objects, andalso a conscious decision that these objects belonged in separate categories. Culture was theexpression of spirit that was to be aesthetically appreciated; nature was the embodiment ofmatter to be scientifically studied. Most archaeological exhibits of Palaeolithic artefacts werepresented in the nature category, as objects from the time when culture was non-existent, whenpeople were not only driven purely by the forces of the environment they inhabited but alsowere themselves incapable of any ‘artistic’ – for which read purely cultural – production. Stonetools, the ultimate Palaeolithic objects, were seen to connect humans to nature, their modified

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forms taken to represent only a struggle for survival.The classification of these artefacts as suitedfor a museum of natural history pre-empts any discussion of their role in human cultural pro-duction, and endows them with meaning in the context of natural history.

9 The first discussion of Willendorf appeared in 1903 in Der diluviale Mensch in Europa [Diluvial man in Europe] by Moritz Hoernes, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Vienna and the founding father of prehistoric research in Austria.

10 As Antl-Weiser points out, the argument turned public when it became unclear not onlywho was in charge of the excavation, but even who was actually physically present at the siteon the day when the Venus figurine was found (2000-1).

11 For a historical discussion of Kulturkreislehre see Andriolo (1979).12 All translations from German are mine.13 Moritz Hoernes (see above, note 9) describes the entire Palaeolithic in terms of the stan-

dard classificatory system of French prehistory and French archaeological sites in Der diluvialeMensch in Europa, and again in 1912, in Urgeschichte der Menschheit [Prehistory of mankind]. Mag-dalenian, Solutreen, and Aurignacian are Upper Paleolithic traditions named after sites in France:see Cunliffe (1994).

14 A burin is a short, pointed-blade stone tool with a chisel end, used to carve and engravewood and bone, associated with Upper Palaeolithic cultures.

15 The Willendorf II female figurine has been the single most commonly used Palaeolithicimage in textbooks and popular discussions of prehistoric art, closely followed by the second-most-common representation, the female figurine from Dolní V stonice (Conkey &Tringham 1995).

16 In the introduction to the Willendorf monograph, Felgenhauer calls for a need to write ahistory of the archaeology of German-speaking countries particularly after the break-up ofempires following the First World War (1956-9, 1: 14). This call seems to have been partiallyanswered only recently (e.g. Einwögerer 2000; Härke 2000; Kossack 1992).

17 For a fuller account of the history of research at Dolní V stonice, see Tomá ková 1995.

18 This was possibly due to a struggle between the University and the Forschungsstätte fürUrgeschichte des Ahnenerbe (Research Centre for the Prehistory of Ancestral Heritage), a newresearch organization established by Himmler (Freund 1944: 3-10).

19 All translations from Czech are mine.20 Felgenhauer presented the argument at a conference in the early 1980s, but it did not

appear in print until 1995. No archaeologist challenged him in the interim.21 Débitage refers to the stone chips that are the result of stone tool production.22 All stone artefacts in both collections (Willendorf II and Pavlov) were measured as a part

of a larger study of use-wear traces and seasonality patterns (Tomá ková 2000).23 For a similar argument with respect to the philosophy of science, see Preucel (1991).

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Nationalisme, histoires locales et production de données en archéologie

Résumé

La question d’une influence du contexte sur la production de connaissances archéologiquesfait l’objet de vives controverses depuis vingt ans. L’auteur affirme que le contexte social ethistorique influe sur l’archéologie, au niveau non seulement de l’interprétation mais aussi dela pratique. Elle illustre cette affirmation sur la nature historique des données par la com-paraison de deux sites paléolithiques d’Europe Centrale, Willendorf et Dolní V stonice, enanalysant la manière dont les spécificités du contexte ont influencé dans chaque cas la col-lecte, l’analyse et la diffusion des collections lithiques dans les reconstitutions régionales.Au-delà de la défiance envers les formes idéologiques plus affirmées de nationalisme, elleconclut que l’histoire locale de l’archéologie et son influence sur la transformation de faitsen données devraient faire l’objet d’une plus grande attention.

Silvia Tomá ková, Department of Anthropology and Curriculum in Women’s Studies, University of NorthCarolina-Chapel Hill, CB #3115, Alumni Bldg., Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3115, [email protected]

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nationalism, local histories and the making of data in archaeology

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