Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
Summary
This volume of essays is an unanticipated outcome of a formal archaeological exchange program initiated between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. This collaboration is sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Soviet Academy of Sciences and is administered in the U.S. by the International Research and Exchange Board. To date three symposia have been held: Cambridge (1981), Samarkand (1983), Washington (1986), and a fourth is to be held in Tbilisi (1988). In addition, collaborative excavations at the Bronze Age site of Sarazm, Tadjikistan, S.S.R., have involved the participation of Philip Kohl, of Wellesley College, and myself. A number of years ago Professor Kohl conceived of the idea to edit a volume of essays addressing aspects of method and theory as practiced and written by Soviet archaeologists. That book, being edited by Philip Kohl, contains over twenty essays, and will be published by Cambridge University Press. There is a widely held belief among American archaeologists that Soviet Archaeology conforms to a particular “school,” loosely referred to as Marxist, which implies that all Soviet archaeologists interpret the past according to the evolutionary dictates as set down by Marx and Engels. This is a narrow, ill-informed, perhaps even politically motivated, conception of the real diversity of approaches which characterize Soviet archaeology.
Structural and methodological differences, however, are readily apparent in the archaeological practice of the U.S.S.R and U.S.A. Some of these may be enumerated.
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- Archaeological Thought in America , pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989
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