John R. Cole

On Criticisms of "Some Paleolithic Tools From Northeast North America": Rejoinder

did not happen, or at least happened at a level I missed. The New Archaeology inthe United States was composed of papers read, shouting matches after them, gossip, bull sessions in hotel rooms, victory celebrations, and cutting lances which told whether or not you were one of the boys. Obviously, Klejn was not in a position to experience this. Texts played some part in the development ofthis affair, but I do not think they played the key part. For one thing, if they had, the New Archaeology would not have been as provincially self-referential within the United States as Klejn correctly says it was. By giving theoretical texts an importance they did not have in the American context, Klejn creates an international world of reading and interacting archaeologists which did not exist. (In no way do I mean this to detract from the accuracy of his scholarship on these texts or on the quality of the international education he has provided this provincial through using them.) While Europeans may have read American texts, Americans did not generally reciprocate. A second point arises from his use of textual materials, and the question I would pose here is intended as a genuinely collegial one. We can reason that texts are artifacts and that, like all human productions, they permit us to read from them some aspect of human life-society, culture, personality. In this context, two artifacts are of special interest o us: the texts of archaeologists and the archaeologically verified reconstructions that we open to tourists in one form or another in museums, folklife centers, historical parks, and so on. My question to Klejn is: What are we to make of these? How are we to regard them? An impressive number of people have argued that reality is not what it appears to be on the surface. There is always something behind it, hidden from view. In the social sciences this message comes most recently from Levi-Strauss, who in making it calls forth the support of both Freud and Marx. Although there is no consensus on what is behind the surface manifestations we live in, it is accepted that the surface is molded by structure, orthe unconscious, or class conflict, or something like these. It is these, transformed or inverted, that produce what we perceive as obvious in the world. Unseen realities govern what we do and what we think. They govern us in everyday life as well as in special pursuits like scientific work and thought. Therefore they may also govern what archaeologists come up with, and if they do, do we want to know how they operate? I think we might, but I am not entirely sure and would appreciate an opinion. A self-reflexive endeavor built on Marx, for example, would hope to distinguish the ideological influences within archaeological interpretations from the factual material the interpretations arebuilt upon. Beyond this, hypothetical reasoning and specific hypotheses do not come from thin air; they come from cultures which are structured inspecific ways, and it seems reasonable to want to know how hypothesis and structure are interrelated. This is a different endeavor from the relativistic hopelessness Klejn accurately attributes to Daniel via Collingwood, which asserts that all knowledge of the past is a function of the present and so the past is always a re-creation. This highly and perhaps destructively relativistic view of the past stresses the meaning the past is given and sees meaning as a product of the present. This view is supported by the German school of phenomenology and of course is shared in this country by the whole nterprise of symbolic anthropology. Its most radical form asserts that anything apart from oneself and ones society is fundamentally inaccessible. This would of course extend to the past as well as to other living peoples. I think Klejn is right o see this position as broadly spread in European and American archaeology and as pernicious because it is unproductive. Its relativism is paralytic. With the intention of skirting this relativism, I offer a brief example of what I am asking. To use one understanding of Marx, we might assume that ideology masks actual economic and political relationships and that at least that part of archaeology the public is exposed to contains ideological statements. Then we can ask two questions: First, if Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia (a site I am interested in which can serve as an example here), is a faithful representation of prerevolutionary America, then that America was one without classes. poverty, or exploitation-one without conflict and not in need of revolution. To what extent, and in what ways, does modern ideology operate through archaeology to say, in this instance, that America is what America was, and that what it is is what Americans see in Williamsburg? A second question spots a broader issue. What is our notion of time, object, and person? Time is both continuum and segment for us. One implication of this conception is that concentrating on one point of time diminishes the importance of others, halts change, and prevents comparison. It is important to know how this works because it specifies how we form hypotheses and come to alternative conclusions. I would like to ask Klejn if, from his vantage point, systematic answers to these questions are possible and worthwhile and whether the reasoning supporting these questions eems sound or familiar.

Enigmatic Stone Structures in Western Massachusetts

A.D./B.c ............. Roman Roman Novacka Cuprija, Kutrice, Mramorac 500-1000 B.C La Tene Jerinin Grad, Nova6ka Cuprija, Kutrice, Mramorac Bosut Jerinin Grad 1000-1500 B.c........ Mediana II Mediana II Novacka Cuprija, Ive, (?)Vrela 1500-2000 B.c.. (Paracin) I Paracin Crkvina Slatina Slatina Crkvina 2000-2500 B.c.. Bubanj-Hum III Bubanj-Hum II Baden-KoFtolac Crkvina, Jerinin Grad (surface), Novacka Cuprija 2500-3500 B.c.. Bubanj-Hum Ib 3500-4000 B.c.. Bubanj-Hum Ia Vin6a-Plo6nik II Vinca-Plocnik II Medvenjak, Selevac Vin6a-Plo6nik I Vinca-Plocnik I Vinca-Tordos 4500-6000 B.c........ Starcevo Starcevo