The New Archaeology and the Classical Archaeologist Author(s): A. M.

Snodgrass Reviewed work(s): Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 89, No. 1, Centennial Issue (Jan., 1985), pp. 3137 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/504768 . Accessed: 02/12/2011 13:42
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This article was presentedas the first in a series of lectureson archaeologysponsored jointly by the ArchaeologicalInstitute of Americaand the 92nd StreetYMHA in New York City in April 1984.

The New Archaeologyand the Classical

Archaeologist*
A.M. SNODGRASS The topic of this paper is no longer a novel one. It is now over four years since my colleagueat Cambridge, Professor Colin Renfrew, delivered a clarion call in the shape of his lecture at the Centennial celebrations of the Archaeological Institute of America, "The Great Tradition versus the Great Divide."' Since then, we have had Stephen Dyson's conciliatorypaper "A Classical Archaeologist'sResponseto the New Archaeology," in the Bulletin of the American Schools of

OrientalResearchfor 1981, not to mention a few other attemptsby Americanand British archaeologiststo address themselves, briefly and usually in passing, to similar questions2;while from France has come the one really extended treatment of the problem, emanating from within what Renfrew called the "Great Tradition" and taking a searchingly critical look across his "GreatDivide":Paul Courbin'sconsistently witty and often scathing book of 1982, Qu'est-ce
que l'Archdologie? 3

What is the issue that has so agitated all of us? Roughly speaking (and there is no analysis of the problem that would commanduniversal acceptance), it is this. There exists a more-than-century-old tradition of archaeology in the Mediterranean lands and the Near East. Becauseof the historicalimportanceof the civilizations with which it deals, it occupies some place in the intellectualbackgroundof every educated man, woman or child. Because of the material brilliance of these same cultures,it has filled half the museums of the world with impressiveobjects.Becauseof the select recruiting ground from which many of its practitionershave come, it has produceda literature which contains its fair share of works, whether exca* I am most grateful to Paul Halstead for guidance amid unfamiliar literature. 1 C. Renfrew, "The Great Tradition versus the Great Divide: Archaeology as Anthropology?" AJA 84 (1980) 287-98. 2 S. Dyson, "A Classical Archaeologist's Response to the 'New Archaeology'," BASOR 242 (1981) 7-13. Compare also J. Wise-

vation reportsor syntheses,which have become"classics." Without being by any means universally acceptedas a universitydiscipline-a point on which we might reflect-it is in every other way an established subject,occupyingthe time of a small armyof academics and government employees in every developed country,and enjoyingat least the statusof an up-market hobby among tens of thousands of others. For many laymen, and for the whole of the entertainment industry, it represents what the word "archaeology" actually means: indeed there is one language, German, in which it actually is a large part of what the word "Archiologie"means, in contradistinction anto otherterm, "Praihistorie" "Vorgeschichte," or which is used for the archaeologyof all pre-literate and most non-literate cultures. Archaeologyin the Mediterranean world and the Near East is closely linked with, and was indeedfor a long time merelyan integralpart of, the linguistic, literary and historical study of the parts of the globe in antiquity. corresponding The New Archaeology,by contrast, is even today less than twenty years old, and is generally describable in terms of a polarity with the kind of archaeology that I havejust described.It and its practitioners have little or nothing to do with linguistic, literaryor historicalstudies. It deals primarilywith past cultures which are not recognizedas having had an important role in history, and it is emphatically not orientated toward the recoveryof objects,beautiful or otherwise. Geographically, its origins lie in two areas of research, North America and northern Europe; but from this base it has expandedits scope to coverwork in Africa (which is still "Vorgeschichte"), Latin in
man, "Conflicts in Archaeology: Education and Practice," JFA 10 (1983) 1-9, with references to earlier papers; J. Boardman in briefer references, e.g., CR 25 (1975) 118-20; "The Athenian Pottery Trade," Expedition (1979) 33-39; "Remnants of History," Encounter 40.4 (April 1973) 67-69. 3 P. Courbin, Qu'est-ce que l'Archdologie? (Paris 1982).

31 American Journal of Archaeology 89 (1985) Centennial Issue

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America (thus enteringthe domainof "Archiologie"), and even in certain periods of the past of lands like Mesopotamia, Greece and Italy, thus at least marginally overlapping with the field of the traditional archaeology that I spoke of first. It has a tremendous following among archaeologists under the age of about 35; it has establisheda definite niche, as an intellectual approach, among a somewhat wider range of disciplines, mostly lying within the social sciences; but it has, as yet, made little impact on the imagination of the educated general public. Its commonest stance in regard to the traditional school of archaeology ranges from reasonedcriticismand remonstrance to contemptuous indifference. The main charges brought against the traditional archaeologyare those at which my earlier descriptionperhaps hinted. It is an undisciplined discipline. It is pragmatic, and employs no explicit body of theory. Lulled into complacency by the benevolentinterest of the educatedpublic, it is content with the goal of description. It describes everything, analyzes and synthesizes a restricted range of aspects, and explains nothing. It is concerned with the unique and the particular, not with generalities: the classic works in its literature, which I mentioned earlier, betray this position by
their titles: books like Ur of the Chaldees, The Palace of Minos, The Tomb of Tutankhamen are unasham-

edly books about a single site. They rely on the importance of Ur, Knossos or the Valley of the Kings to determinethe importanceof what they describe.They use archaeologyas a means of adding to what was already known about these sites; they do not use their sites as exemplificationsof the principlesand methods of archaeology,and anyone who used one of them as a handbookto help in the excavationof, say, a pueblo in Arizona would be bitterly disappointed in the outcome. Where such books go beyond pure description and become interpretative, the interpretations that they offer are not testable by any objectivecriterion: rather, they reflect the unspoken prejudicesof their authors-by any European writing in the 1920s, for instance, imperialism and its concomitant features had been unconsciouslyassimilated as a way of life, and this acceptanceaffectedhis view of the past too. Thus there has grown up what Colin Renfrew called the "Great Divide." His own appeal was directed to the bridging of this divide by means of some splendid, no doubt cantileveredstructure,which was to be built from both ends until it met in the middle, thus letting loose an intense two-way traffic which would enormously enrich both sides of the gap. Stephen Dyson's proposal,on the other hand, seems to be

for a more modest rope-bridge over the gulf, which would allow some part of the intellectual baggage of the New Archaeology to be humped across into the "GreatTradition";while the result of Courbin'smeticulous feasibility study is that, on balance, the huge costs of building a bridgewould not bejustified by the meager benefitsthat it would bring. Most of these writers, and several others whom I have not mentioned, have approached the problem from one side of the divide: they ask themselves the question, "What (if anything) is Classical ArchaeoI logy going to do about the New Archaeology?" wish to begin by raising the conversequestion:"Whatis the New Archaeology going to do about Classical Archaeology?"(and the other componentsof the "Great Tradition").Now ClassicalArchaeology,fromwithin which I speak, surely lies at the very heart of the traditional archaeology that has lately been put under scrutiny. It is the oldest componentof the "GreatTradition"in archaeology,and it is the biggest,in termsof the numberof its practitionersand its students,and of its published output. In its own estimation at least, it is also probablythe most distinguishedcomponentof that tradition.To adopt a more criticalvein, if the assemblageof data and the tidy orderingof materialare activitiesthat epitomize the sterility of the traditional archaeology,then what branch of it can offer a mass so large and so thoroughly ordered as Classical Archaeology? If the aim of mere description, however full, is stigmatizedas an unworthyone for a discipline such as archaeology,then what branch of it has accepted that aim with more complacencythan Classical Archaeology?If a concentrationon the particular at the expense of the universalwas one of the flaws at the heart of traditional archaeologicalthinking, then what could be more particularizedthan Classical Archaeology, in which half a dozen books may be devoted to a single building, and even two or three to a single statue, and in which everythingis conceivedin terms of its impact on a single culture? All of this suggeststhat a re-orientationof the discipline of archaeologymight be expected to begin with Classical Archaeologyand its methods,as a paradigm of the approachthat had been practicedhitherto, and that must now be either abandonedas sterile, or deflectedinto a more productivechannel. But nothingof the kind has happened.The pioneers of the New Archaeology have in the main ignored Classical Archaeology,whether for praise or for blame, almost as if it did not exist. The "traditional which archaeology" they have held up for scrutinyand ultimate dismissal, where it has been clearly specified,has appearedto be

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a version of European archaeologyin the generation after Gordon Childe, or of Mesoamerican archaeology (one thinks of that riotously funny and not entirely fictitious "strawman"createdby Kent V. Flannery, the "Real MesoamericanArchaeologist"4) the of same period. Thus most ClassicalArchaeologistshave been left with the feeling that they are outside the target area of the new criticisms, and that the conflict provokedby these hardlyconcernedthem. Let me give a statistic. One other major event in the four years since Colin Renfrew's address has been the appearance of a volume of collectedpieces by Lewis H. Binford, under the title In Pursuit of the Past.s This ex-

tremely stimulating work contains a bibliographyof, on my count, 293 items. Of this total, there is (again on my count) not a single one which is primarilyconcerned with any part of the Mediterraneanworld at any period: the nearest approach, geographically,is
perhaps Gordon Childe's The Danube in Prehistory.

As a statistic, this may seem amazing, but it is not untypical or freakish in respect of the output of the New Archaeology.What attitudes or motives does it imply? One explanation that may suggest itself is a discreditableone that I shall not adopt: it is that the New Archaeologistsare afraidof venturinginto a specialist domain where a vast body of pre-existing knowledge has to be assimilated.I do not advancethis view, first becausethere are examples of distinguished work which has been undertakenin areas like the archaeology of Roman Britain,6 where the difficulty mentioned exists in almost as intense a form as in Mediterraneanlands; and secondlybecausethe problems of such an undertakingcould anyway be readily overcomeby collaborationbetween a theory-oriented New Archaeologist and a sympathetic Classicist (as we have seen, this latter breed does exist). A more likely explanation is surely that New Archaeologists do not considerthat such an attemptwould be worthwhile or justifiable. Nor would such an attitude-if I have correctly diagnosed it-be altogether an injustice to the sentiments of Classical Archaeologists themselves. The view that, for example, the general principles of archaeology consist of nothing more than common sense, or that archaeology is not an independent branch of knowledge, is sufficiently widespread among Classical Archaeologiststo need no individual attribution. It constitutes a major deterrent to New Archaeologists,against holding up their principles to
York 1976).
4K.V. Flannery ed., The Early Mesoamerican Village (New

potential discreditby testing them in a context which the practitionersthemselves often do not consider a fair and comparable one; where the formulation of free hypotheses is constrained on every side by the body of pre-existing knowledge-and I am not referring only, nor even mainly, to the knowledgeprovided by documentaryand historical sources: the body of purely archaeologicalknowledge is, in its own right, colossal,as may be seen by comparingthe size of holdings of a really well stockedlibrary of Classical Archaeology and a comparableone of general archaeology: the sheer volume will bear no resemblance whatever to the proportionsof the two geographical areas covered, and will indeed be by no means disparate in absoluteterms. But, whatever the reasons for it, the gulf undeniably persists:the criticismsof the New Archaeologists are primarilydirectedat, and the rejoinders primarily come from, the non-Classical fields of traditionalarchaeology. The New Archaeology has not pressed home any criticism of Classical Archaeology, and Classical Archaeologyhas thereforefelt free to ignore both the criticismsand the constructiveproposals. But there are Classical Archaeologistswho do not share this feeling, and it is because I am one of them that I am speakingon this subject.Like Stephen Dyson, like James Wiseman,7 I feel that Classical Archaeology could learn salutary lessons from the writings and the example of the New Archaeology. Indeed, I shall go further than they might wish to go, and certainly I do not want to saddle them with any complicityin what I am going to say next. I feel that traditional archaeology has, in the past generation, entered some kind of minor intellectualcrisis, at least in Britain and in some other Europeancountriesthat I could name. The traditionally minded archaeologists seem to me rathercut off from the mainstreamof that kind of intellectual advance which can manifest itself in several disciplines at the same time. Their work does not elicit productiveresponsefrom people in other subjects, beyond the immediately adjacent ones (such as the historiansof the same culturewhose archaeologythey themselves practice.) It is not easy for them to point to exciting theoreticalor methodological advancesin the recent history of their subject, as distinct from the new application of technical advances made in other disciplines: obvious examples here are the "radiocarbon revolution"of more than a
6 See, e.g., I.A. Hodder and C. Orton, Spatial Analysis in Archaeology (Cambridge 1976); Renfrew (supra n. 1) 297, ns. 28-33. 7 See supra n. 2.

s L.H. Binford, In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record (London 1983, J.F. Cherry and R. Torrence eds.).

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revolugeneration ago, and the "dendrochronological tion" of twenty years later, where the advances in ideas seem confinedto the more or less common-sense deductionsthat follow from the discoverythat a group of finds is much earlier (or less often, much later) than had previously been thought. Real conceptual advances are seldom sought, and even less often achieved. Consider, for example, the chilly reception that has been given, outside and at times even inside France, to the work of the "Paris School"in recent years. Here is a group of people studyingthe Classical world through what may (very roughly) be called a structuralist approach: an approach in which the methods of Classical Archaeology, or some of them, are closely integratedwith the anthropologicaltradition of Louis Gernet and others, and applied to many differentaspectsof ancientsociety,especiallyreligious cult and ritual, but also ancient literary works of many kinds. If there is anywhere in the world where the material of Classical Archaeologyis being put to novel uses, and the subject as a whole embroiled in wide intellectual explorations, it is here.8 Yet the reward has been, in general, the unjust one of being read, or at least taken seriously, by very few of their colleaguesin ClassicalArchaeology,and none at all of their counterpartson the other side of the Atlantic,the New Archaeologistswho are also (although in a very different way) linking the approachesof archaeology and anthropology. One reason for ClassicalArchaeologiststo welcome the challenge of the New Archaeologyis thus, in my view at least, the fact that they badly need the stimulus which it can offer. A second reason is that there are already at least one or two encouraging precedents, such as the case of Aegean BronzeAge archaeology to which I shall turn in a moment. First, however, I should state clearly what it is that I think the New Archaeologyhas to offer. Even in its short life so far, the new discipline has undergone some rather drastic re-orientations. A leading figure like Lewis Binford has to expend some of his energies in rebuking over-enthusiasticfollowers,who have pressednew doctrines too far.9 The early insistence on pursuing universal laws of human behavior,exemplifiedin the archaeologicalrecord, has (probablyjustifiably) met from within the New Arwith recent discouragement chaeology. This process of distillation has been salutary: it dispenses the rest of the archaeologicalworld
8 See, e.g., G. Gnoli and J.-P. Vernant eds., La mort, les morts dans les societis anciennes (Cambridge 1982); Institut d'archbologie et d'histoire ancienne (Lausanne) and Centre de recherches compar~es sur les sociitis anciennes (Paris), La cite des images (Paris 1984).

from the arrogantand laboriousoperationof "choosing the best"out of what the New Archaeologyhas to offer, since this operation has already been carried out, at least in part. And the contributionthat remains is still an importantone. It is to the New Archaeology that we owe our growing self-awareness,our realization of the highly debatable nature of what we are doing when we make archaeologicalinferences.Another of its services has been to inculcate respect for the quantitative method: so many of the arguments and generalizationsin traditionalarchaeologyhave a covertlyquantitativebasis, yet only recentlyhas it become common to express this basis in numerical terms-the size of a sample, the degree of a preponderance,the changes in a proportionthrough timeso that a preliminaryevaluation of the argumentbecomes possible, before one moves on to the more critical task of evaluating the basis itself--is the sample valid? is the proportionbiased?and so on. It is in this latter area, I believe, that the New Archaeologyhas made its most significantcontributionof all. Here we enter the territory of what Binford calls "Middle Range Theory,"10 of what David Clarke called "Preof depositionaland DepositionalTheory,"''" what still The differences others call "Behavioral Archaeology." in terminologyshould not disguise the fact that, most of the time, these different authorities are talking about the same kind of thing:that is, the true meaning of the archaeologicalrecord. For some of these insights, we should not have had to wait for the enlightenment given by the New Archaeology:the lessons could have been learnedfrom quite a differentsource, namely the view of archaeologytaken by the outside world. A good startingpoint would have been the cartoons of the New Yorkeror Punch: the image of the archaeologisthere is often that of an enterprisingperson, perhaps a lucky person, but not usually a very clever person. A recurrenttheme is the misinterpreof tation, by archaeologists the future, of some bizarre creationof our contemporary culture.The main point of such humor may be to ridicule the eccentricitiesof modern society, but a secondimplicationis that these very eccentricitiesare what make societyso difficultto understand,and so easy to misinterpret,for those who belong to anotherage. Now it would be possible to argue that Classical Archaeologyhas long been practicing,underdifferent names, the very proceduresthat the New Archaeology
9 Binford (supra n. 5) 15, 106-108.
1o Binford (supra n. 5) 76, 194-95, citing Binford ed., For Theory

Building in Archaeology (New York 1977) 1-10. '1 Cf. D. Clarke, "Archaeology: The Loss of Innocence," Antiquity 47 (1973) 6-18 (16).

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is advocatingwhen it urges the developmentof middle range theory, for instance. It would be a satisfyingindulgencefor me to developthis line of argument,but I am not sure that it would serve any greater purpose than to boost the self-confidence Classical Archaeoof logists. What I will assert, however, is that Classical Archaeologystill offers an incomparablefield for putting into further practice the principles of the New Archaeologists. Let it not be forgotten that David Clarke himself once offered encouragement:"Textaided archaeology,"he wrote, would "providevital experiments"by offering the control of documentary sourcesover purely material-basedinferences,as long as the inherent biases of each were borne in mind.12 Was this a declaration of intent, or an invitation to others? Whichever it was, he made the statement in 1973; three years later, he was dead; and his colleagues have not shown much inclinationto follow his lead. Yet I am convincedthat he was right, and that a phase of intensive experiment within a "controlled" field like that of Classical Archaeology would work wonders for the mutual respect,and the general credibility, of both sides. There are, of course,majordiscouragements in still the way. There is a deep differenceof mentalityon the two sides, shown by what each regards as "interesting."'3For Binford,particularizingapproachesare in their nature "trivial"and "uninteresting." Now it is in mathematicsor philosophyfor instance,to possible, use the word "interesting" a way that at least purin to be objective;that is, to use it of findings and ports arguments which have repercussionsor implications beyond the immediate context in which they arose. It may be that Binford uses these words, at times, in some such sense; but I am sure that he also means them in their familiar everyday sense (as indeed is of suggested by his also using the word "boring" particularizing approaches), and I am equally sure that he is sincere. Yet many Classical Archaeologistspursue the particularizedprecisely because they personally do find it interesting;a conclusionabout fifth century Athens, even if valid for no other society in history, nevertheless interests them very much. All that this shows is that the mentality of late twentieth century western man is still a very heterogeneousone. There is also the issue of language'4-the language in which the two sides express themselves:an especially sensitive area for Classicists, who are trained, often from their early youth, in the habit, whenever they use a word, of automatically asking themselves its
12

exact meaning. But I promised myself that I would say nothing about this, and I shall try to keep my promise. It is time, instead, to turn to what I consider the strongestargumentin favor of collaborationbetween the New Archaeology and traditional Classical Archaeologyin its strict sense:namely, the precedentoffered by recentexperiencein the closely allied field of Aegean Bronze Age archaeology.What I am going to say now will not, I fear, make me many friends-especially not in Britain, that longstanding stronghold of Aegean Bronze Age studies. But for some twenty years past I have been experiencinga feeling of growing unease about the progress of this subject, quite distinctfrom that arousedby contemplationof Classical Archaeologyproper. In the Bronze Age field, the feeling relates not so much to the methods,or the narrowness of the aspects usually studied, but to something harder to describe. I felt it again very strongly when, two years ago, I read a statementby one of the most thoughtfulAmericanpractitioners the subject: of "After more than a century of scholarship",writes Philip Betancourt, "Mycenaean studies are still in their vigorous youth."" What is worrying about this statementis that it is so absolutelytrue. The vigor of Aegean Bronze Age studies is of course a matter for satisfaction, but should they not by now have outgrown their youth? One is glad that the subject is a volatile and exciting one, but one would expect it to have acquired maturity as well. One of the connotations of youth is conveyedby a remarkof William Pitt the elder (from a speech made in his late middle age): "Youthis the season of credulity."In Aegean Bronze Age archaeology,indeed, too much has been believed too readily, and repeated in a series of secondary treatmentsto the point where it acquiredthe status of an axiom. The great names in Aegean Bronze Age archaeologyare the names not of its thinkersnor of its masters of the visual approach (as is largely true in Classical Archaeology), but of its excavators. The place which in Classical Archaeologyis occupied by the ancient sources,and in Near Easternarchaeology by the cuneiformand hieroglyphictexts and the Bible, is taken in the Aegean Bronze Age by the early excavators'interpretations their own discoveries(and, of much more sporadically,by Homer). By this I mean, not that these men's every word is believed until it is proved false, which today especially would be manifestly untrue, but that their vision of Aegean prehistory has been perpetuated as a framework within
1s P.P. Betancourt, "Introduction," Sixth Temple University Aegean Symposium (Philadelphia 1981) 1.

Clarke (supra n. 11) 18.

"13 Cf. Courbin (supra n. 3) 211-12. 14 Courbin (supra n. 3) 130-35, 147-48.

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which everyonehas worked-until, that is, the advent of a new approach in the last fifteen years or so, a point to which I shall return. What was that vision like? Essentially, the early excavatorsfelt called upon to presenttheir reconstructions in a historicalform, of the most traditionalkind. In these reconstructions, events dominated.A handful of these supposed events has survived, until recently, as the main landmarksfor most research,and almost all teaching,of the Aegean BronzeAge:the Comingof the Greeks, the Rise of Mycenae, the Eruption of Thera, the Mycenaean Ascendancyin Crete, the Fall of Knossos, the Trojan War, the Fall of Mycenaean Civilization and the Dorian Invasion.Most text books offer approximate dates for these events, and much research is devoted to refining the dates and investigating their causes, nature and effects. Why did the early excavatorsfeel called upon to offer a reconstruction so much more "event"-fulthan what has been proposed for other areas and epochs with a similar kind of archaeologicalrecord?The answer is in part that the strictly archaeologicalrecord is not the only one available in the BronzeAge Aegean. There is also Greek heroic legend, the avenue which first gave access to this field of study; legends deal, at the superficial level, with deeds and events; most people still believe that the Greek legends in some degree reflect the realities of the later Bronze Age, and in the past scholars went much further, acceptingthem in detail and trying to match them with the archaeologicalrecord. A furtheranswer lies in the deciphermentof Linear B. For a time in the 1950s there were some-and I was one of them-who really thought that the later Aegean Bronze Age was going to emerge as a semihistoricalepoch. A better understandingof the nature of the texts, together with the fact that no major archives have been found since, has broughtthis view-probably permanently-into eclipse. Finally, and more objectively,it is true that the archaeologicalrecord of the period is rich in destructionlayers. To colof late these destructiondepositsinto broad"horizons" destruction is a more questionable step, but it is an extremely tempting one. Its attractionsare still powerfully at work today, and I would argue that they exercise a patent influence on the discussion of the dates of such controversial episodes as the Thera eruption and the destructionof the palace at Thebes. But why should it be thought misleadingto see the
'6 H.N. Michael, "Radiocarbon Dates from Akrotiri on Thera," (First) Temple University Aegean Symposium (Philadelphia 1976) 7-9. 17 B.J. Kemp and R. Merrillees, Minoan Pottery in Second-Millennium Egypt (Mainz 1980).

Bronze Age of the Aegean in such terms? I would argue that the prime objectionarises from the nature of the archaeologicalchronology.The basis for the dating of the Aegean Bronze Age consists of a small group of associations,some of them at secondor third remove, between Aegean artifactsand datable Egyptian or Near Easterncontexts,or vice versa.The flimsy nature of this structureof dates is not always remembered.One episode which cast some doubt on it was the emergenceof radiocarbondating and, more particularly, the calibrationof radiocarbondates by cross-referenceto dendrochronology, which for this period resultsin a distinctly"higher" chronology.The impact on the debate about the Thera eruption was especially interesting. Here, the archaeologistswere in dispute over a margin of about fifty years:was the eruption to be equated with the end of Late Minoan IA (conventionally"ca. 1500 B.C.") or the end of IB ("ca. 1450")?By 1976, a scientistwas claimingon the datesthat it must have basis of calibratedradiocarbon 150 to 200 years before the earlier of these happened The view was receivedwith some deritwo dates.'16 sion in many circles,and taken as an illustrationof the dating methcrudity and unreliability of "scientific" ods as comparedwith the relativeaccuracyof the traditional, "protohistorical" chronology. But then in 1980 a book'7appearedwhich, by a close re-examination of the traditionalbasis of dating and altogether independentlyof the radiocarbonevidence,reacheda rathersimilar conclusion:in the earlier part of the Aegean Late Bronze Age, the accepteddates might indeed be more than a centurytoo late. But does the absolute chronologyreally matter? Is it not the relative dating of the episodes within the Aegean area which really counts, and does this not stand independentlyof actual dates in years? The answer is that absolute chronologymatters very much, as soon as connectionsare drawn (as they often are) between Aegean developmentsand the more securely attestedepisodesof early Near Eastern history and, I might add, between the Aegean and other cultures dated by radiocarbononly. There is a rather important point involvedin this last connection.Some years ago I argued-twice over, although that did not appear to increase the impact of the claim18'-that the dates available from the Aegean series of radiocarbon Bronze Age itself must be taken seriously, as an independentalternativeto the conventionalchronology
18 A.M. Snodgrass, "Mycenae, Northern Europe and Radiocarbon Dates," Archaeologica Atlantica 1 (1975) 33-48; "An Outsider's View of Radiocarbon Calibration," in T.F. Watkins ed., Radiocarbon: Calibration and Prehistory (Edinburgh 1975) 39-46.

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describedjust now. If an irreconcilablediscrepancy emerged between the two-and the then recent calibration of the radiocarbondates made it more clear than ever that it did emerge-then one (or both) of two conclusions must surely follow. Either radiocarbon dates, which elsewhere were often exclusively relied on for the dating of archaeological sequences, should not be relied on after all; or the conventional chronology was significantly wrong. This is just the sort of challenge that I have in mind for the New Archaeology to test its theories on in the Classical context. But the first alternativewas widely found repugnant; the second seemed very unlikely; and the point was not generally taken up.19 What the sequel has shown is perhaps that the second alternative is not after all to be excluded;the conventionalchronology may indeed be less trustworthy than had been thought, althoughthis in itself does not necessarilyreassure us on the other count-the radiocarbondates could be wrong too. The real lesson, reinforcedby the appearanceof furtherradiocarbondates from the Aegean, is surely that we must use these radiocarbon dates as the basis for all chronologicalcomparisons between the Aegean and other radiocarbondated sequences; for such relativedating, they are not only in the appropriate form, but they may also be the best evidence that we have. By comparisonwith this fact, arguments about the choice between different "calibration curves,"to establish the absolutedating, are a side-issue. My central point, however,concernsthe Aegean itself. Even where only the internal chronology is involved,the argumentsare sometimesbased on the absolute durationof periods:is a centurylong enough for this development?is fifty years too long for this interval? and so on. It is surely clear that any kind of "historical" narrative, for a culture in which any of the dates may be even fifty years out, let alone two hundred, in either direction,is an impossibility.The very language of political developmentsand military episodes, in which narrativesof the Aegean Bronze Age have for long been couched,seems inappropriate. But we come at last to the denouementof the story. In the last fifteenyears or so of researchin the Aegean

Bronze Age, the approachthat I have been criticizing has no longer been unchallenged. Alongside it have emerged the exponents, in ever-increasingnumbers, of a very different kind of archaeology. The newcomers deal, not in events, but in processes;they reconstructnot immutablepolitical and military events, but variegatedsystems;they study some previouslyneglectedclassesof evidence,but they also apply the traditional materials-including, conspicuously, the Linear B tablets-to the investigationof new problems. In short,they sharemany or all of the aims of the New Archaeology.I am speakingsubjectively,I know, but I find that these recentdevelopments offer Aegean Bronze Age studies a brighter future than their past, in terms of intellectual vitality, notwithstandingthe glamourof the early discoveriesin the field. Can this initiative be extended to Classical Archaeologyproper?For the New Archaeologists,as we have seen, Classical Archaeologyseems at best to be a small regional application of their subject; and at worst, not to be counted as archaeology at all. The most natural response to this position is also the one which will do most to reinforcethe existing attitudes of the New Archaeologists: is to stressthe contentof it Classical Archaeology, that is, the unique cultural achievementsof the Greeksand Romans.This is not a good line to pursue; and in any case, most featuresof Greek and Roman material culture are far from unique. A much better reply is one based on the state of the subject:the huge body of purely archaeological knowledge, and the close associationwith other, nonarchaeologicaldisciplines which have reacheda high level of sophistication.Even if the charge is true that all this knowledge was amassed in order to answer "yesterday's questions, if any,"which is highly debatdoes not the whole history of science teach us able,20 that such knowledge,acquiredfor differentreasonsor out of sheer disinterestedcuriosity,can be put to dramatically innovatoryuse?
MUSEUM SIDGWICK OF CLASSICAL AVENUE ARCHAEOLOGY

CAMBRIDGE CB3 9DA

ENGLAND

19 See, however, C. Renfrew, Problems in European Prehistory (Edinburgh 1979) 281-82, 326.

20 Renfrew (supra n. 1) 295.