Archaeology with a short, isolated time-scale

New Zealand

Bibliographic Data

ID3919628
AuthorsWilfred Shawcro, Wilfred Shawcross (University of Auckland, corresponding author)
Year1969
Volume1
Issue2
Pages184-199
Publication date1969-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWorld Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-8243 • E-ISSN: 1470-1375
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00438243.1969.9979438
OpenAlexW2076235011
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited8

New Zealand (fig. I I) was probably one of the last fertile, substantial areas of the earth to have been colonized by prehistoric man. It marks the end of migratory movements and its former isolation seems to have ensured little or no cross-play with other societies. Thus, within limits, what took place in New Zealand must have resulted from the inherent powers of its settlers, rather than from cultural and technological 'leapfrogging', found in areas more open to the diffusion of influences from centres of development. Such a situation is most suitable for the study of cultural processes, which, indeed, the archaeology of the country amply shows to have taken place (see Golson and Gathercole I962 for a useful outline). But any study of cultural processes will require some control over the time dimension, the weak point in the logic of earlier generations in ethnology. The need for this control is taken for granted by archaeologists, who normally divert a considerable amount of effort towards establishing and refining time-scales. Yet the archaeologist also experiences difficulty over handling time, perhaps more than he suspects. The root of the difficulty seems to lie in the archaeologist wishing to perceive historically exact events, when his methods of time measurement would permit him only to make generalizations. How many cultural sequences throughout the world are there, neatly divided into boxes of time, with exact boundaries, which are quite outside the archaeologist's power to define? They would be harmless enough if so much more was not erected on such spuriously exact foundations. It is not, however, the purpose of this paper to hunt out 'wrong-thinking' in others, though a surprising amount of selfrighteousness may be hidden beneath the surface of academic writing; the intention is rather to face up to the fact that there is no known method of time measurement which will yield the precise age of an event. This is well reflected in the misunderstandings of archaeologists over radiocarbon dates. It is not to be wondered at that an exact-seeming figure, although followed by a mathematical recognition of vagueness (?:), may be mistaken for an event. The true situation has been lucidly explained in one of the few available texts on radiocarbon dating for the layman, that by H. A. Polach and J. Golson (I966: I5

Archaeological record · Archaeology · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Leapfrogging · Power (physics · Prehistory · Scale (ratio · Ecology · History · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

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