Customer Reviews

A History of Archaeological Thought

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Trigger's comprehensive synthesis traces the origins and developement of archaeological theory from antiquity to post-processualism. With a global perspective, Trigger explorers the philosophical and scientific milestones that altered or redirected archaeological thought throughout its history. An excellent and readable reference.

This is by far the most thorough and complete history of the development of archaeological theory. At times, the material is rather dense (certainly not for the lay armchair archaeologist), but it is informative none the less. All students of archaeology should read this text.

Trigger's work, first published in 1989, is one of the best syntheses available on the history of archaeology as a discipline and on the theoretical perspectives which have accompanied each stage of the development of the discipline.

Trigger carefully links each of the theoretical perspectives - such as unilineal evolution, cultural materialism, Marxism, postprocessual and historical theory - with the historic and cultural developments in archaeology and in Western and world society that each perspective is based on. Besides the value of this work to archaeologists, members of the general public who want to gain an understanding of why archaeologists "do" archaeology and anthropology should read Trigger's work as well.

Very well done, and highly recommended.

Trigger's book, "A History of Archaeological Thought", is an excellent addition to any archaeological method and theory (M&T) class at the graduate or undergraduate level. I purchased this book, as recommended by a professor of mine, to read in addition to all the readings assigned in my graduate M&T class. Trigger articulates in few words what many archaeological theorists take pages to explain (eg. Binford). It was extremely helpful, and made wading through different theoretical paradigms much more enjoyable.

I had to acquire this lengthy tome for a class entitled Theory & Method in Archaeology. I was extremely apprehensive due to its size and the topic, even as an archaeology student.

Once I opened the book, I was pleasantly surprised at the pace and tone of the writing. The book moves quickly, is very informative, and even has some nice graphics!

I have since become an archaeologist myself, in cultural resources management, and I still enjoy this book. It is a comprehensive compendium of archaeological theory through the years. Unlike the many theory articles I have read, it isn't pulling for one theory over another. A History of Archaeological Thought sticks mostly to the facts, leaving the read with an impression of how archaeology has evolved through time.

I had to read this for an MA Archaeology class it is almost bogged down with facts but great if you want to learn the entire history of the development of archaeology.

This was actually my second start down this path. Earlier, I bought a book about the great discoveries of archeological history and discovered that it was a boring book filled with the journal's of early 20th century archeologists. What a bunch of imperialist dicks. In fact, the main problem I have with archeology is the discipline itself. Archeology has been used to justify Nazism, Manifest Destiny and the superiority of classical civilization over that of the present. Hardly a resume which inspires confidence.

Most, if not all of the bad stuff from archeology dates from before World War II. As the author points out, 90 percent of all archeologists through out world history are active right now, so writing a history of archeology is surprisingly easy. It's like that for most academic subjects. Trigger first wrote this book back in the mid 80s, twenty years later, he wrote this update, then he died. This book is just about as thorough and comprehensive as you might expect, and it could guide self study in the field of archeology for a decade or more before you'd need to be brought up to speed with new developments.

Trigger's clear headed and comprehensive treatment of subjects like "antiquarianism" and "cultural historical archeology" are conversation enders. I simply don't think that anything he says about older archeological movements is even worth challenging. As he moves into more recent times, the filtering and discussion becomes a little more confused, a little more specialist then general audience. By the time he gets to his two hundred page discussion of "post processal" archeology, I was just about ready to through my hands up in the air.

Like all other social science disciplines, archeology has suffered by being subjected the the vagaries of the university cultural production world- an emphasis on increasing specialization and specialized discourse leading to fewer cross connections both intra and inter discipline. The impression I got was of a wave of knowledge slowly building, only to hit a pier of French inspired critical theory and American academic polemic. In covering the grand sweep of archeology as a discipline, Trigger makes many of the points that Kevin Collins made about philosophers in his excellent the Sociology of Philosophies. Trigger's grasp of cybernetics and systems theory seems limited but he seems to intuitively grasp these interdisciplinary concepts and their relevance of archeology. He also neglects a discussion of the intellectual networks that produced the writers whose ideas he discusses. For example, his discussion of Walter Taylor and his impact on the "new archeology" in the United States seems to directly parallel the network analysis of philosophers in the Collins books.

You really don't need to talk about networks until the volume of material surpasses the limits of rational comprehension, which happens surprisingly late if ever for most intellectual subjects. Few, if any, intellectual subjects outside of the hard sciences reached this level of complexity before the 1960s.

Despite it's flaws, archeology remains the main way that we can learn about cultures who either didn't write, or whose writing is incomprehensible to us, so we need to think about it. That doesn't mean the archeologists know what they are doing- quite the opposite, it would seem, archeological discourse should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt and all conclusions should be treated with skepticism.

It's not just the updated and critical revision of the historiographic literature of the last 18 years; necessary for all those archaeologist, historians, philosophers, or in general, social scientists interested in the historic study of the different dimensions of archaeological practice and theory. But, above all, it is the aufhebung of Trigger's previous work that allow us to put into a wide perspective the current issues of worldwide archaeology, inside the context of the social sciences as part of the global history of the modern world.