Alternative Archaeologies: Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist

Abstract

This chapter considers what factors might shape similarities and differences in the general orientation of archaeology from one country to another. It suggests that the nature of archaeological research is shaped to a significant degree by the roles that particular nation-states play, economically, politically, and culturally, as interdependent parts of the modern world-system. The chapter distinguishes three different social contexts, each of which produces a distinctive type of archaeology. It describes these contexts and the archaeology associated with them nationalist, colonialist, and imperialist or world-oriented. Most archaeological traditions are probably nationalistic in orientation. The development of European prehistoric archaeology was greatly encouraged by the post-Napoleonic upsurge of nationalism and romanticism. Colonialist archaeology, wherever practiced, served to denigrate native societies and peoples by trying to demonstrate that they had been static in prehistoric times and lacked the initiative to develop on their own. The first imperialist archaeology developed in the United Kingdom.