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Archaeology in Britain: a Marxist View

by L. S. Klejn

1967 saw the centenary of the publication of the first volume of 'Das Kapital'; 1968 was the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Karl Marx's birthday. Dr M. W. Thompson wrote on Marxism and Archaeology in ANTIQUITY in 1965. We now present the views of Leo S. Klejn, Candidate hist. in the Faculty of History, University of Leningrad, in an article which he initially called 'English Archaeology versus Marxist Archaeology'. Mr Klejn specializes in fieldwork in the steppes (barrows of the Bronze Age); from 1964 he has led the Archaeological Problems Seminar. He is author of some 60 articles (and, he adds, 'some popular ones'). We must apologize to the author that his article, although received in 1968, was for various reasons mostly beyond our control delayed until now. He good-humouredly suggests that we might now 'attach' it to the Lenin centenary of 197O - or even to the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Engels, also in 1970, and thus 'celebrate the entire Marxist pantheon at one stroke'.

Many scientific journals throughout the world have marked these anniversaries with papers on various aspects of Marxism and its significance, written from various viewpoints. The journal ANTIQUITY, showing itself, as usual, more active and alert than the others, commissioned an article in 1965 from M. W. Thompson on 'Marxism and Culture' (1965,108-116). However, Dr Thompson's review of the significance of Marxism for archaeology is quite contrary to my own and amounts, in fact, to a completely negative appraisal. I feel, therefore, that it would be appropriate to answer Dr Thompson's article in celebration of the anniversaries not only because my basically positive appraisal is more suited to the jubilee mood (I well understand that this anniversary is interpreted in different ways in various circles), but also to clear up certain misunderstandings, and to help readers to form a more objective opinion of Thompson's article by listening to the other side.

As a result of the character and stipulated dimensions of my paper, it would be impractical systematically to state and substantiate the basic principles of Marxism with regard to archaeology. I intend to limit myself here to those aspects regarded by Dr Thompson as opposed to the Marxist approach to archaeology, which he considered as the English approach, although the contrast does not seem to me to have been altogether successful.

The fact is that in English archaeology, as far as I can tell from the literature (and not least from the brilliant works of the Editor of this journal), there exists at the moment not one scientific approach, not one methodological concept, but at least three:

1. The ecological approach of Crawford, Fox and Grahame Clark.
2. The sceptical (perhaps it would be better to say agnostic or relativist) approach advocated by Daniel.
3. The third approach in which, under the influence of Childe, modified diffusionism was mixed with modified evolutionism under the clearly visible influence of Marxism. Although Daniel apparently regards this third approach as having been extinguished at Childe's death, it still consistently makes itself felt in practical research.

Thus, there are three mutually exclusive 'ideas of prehistory'. It is probably possible to find features which are common to all of them, but such a slight subtraction from the basic ideas would hardly deserve the title of the English idea of prehistory. Thompson becomes even less logical: he links mutually exclusive and incompatible principles from the different 'schools' and with this eclectic mixture con^_trasts the Marxist concept of archaeology.

I do not see how the pessimistic agnosticism of Daniel, which is so liberally represented in Thompson's article, can be combined with an attempt to make propaganda for the regular influence of the geographical environment on society in the spirit of Fox, or with the optimistic enthusiasm of Childe or Hawkes in discovering the laws of social evolution.

Krylov's (our Russian La Fontaine) fable about a swan, a crab, and a pike, yoked to a single wagon, goes:

The swan strives to reach the heavens,
The crab crawls backwards,
And the pike pulls towards the water.

But I must follow the antithesis made by Thompson.

Agnosticism Versus Marxism

Not quite repeating Daniel, Thompson writes: 'When we use the expression "Wessex chieftains", this is evidently an ethnographic parallel, since there is no direct evidence of the form of society in Wessex in 1500 BC. The sort of picture we have in mind is probably a confederacy of tribes with a common language. At all events we can reasonably infer that there was some kind of social organization and that it was based on kindred. However, as prehistoric archaeologists, we recognize that there are large sectors of the life of the people that we study that we can never know: their religion, language and social organization; because they have left no trace, or very enigmatic traces, in the archaeological record. These things have gone with the wind; we are content to study what is accessible to us and leave it at that.'

For the Marxist this is not the case. The economic foundation, the means of production or subsistence, can sometimes be studied in detail, but unless he knows the superstructure that this bore, one side of the equation is missing. What Morgan claimed was that in studying vanished pre-literate societies you could fill in the equation from the evidence of existing non-literate societies (Thompson, 1965, 109).

Three questions have been mixed together in this statement:

1. The question of the possibility of using ethnographic parallels in archaeological evidence.
2. The question of the possibility of conceiving the superstructure by means of the mode of production.
3. The question of the possibility of recognizing this superstructure from the archaeological material.

Thompson drew a single straight demarcation line through all three questions, but this transects them, in reality, unequally.

The first question concerns not only the 'superstructural phenomena', but also the discerning of tools, houses, etc. They answer positively who recognize the existence of regularities in the history and evolution of culture as well as the uneven tempo of development in different regions; this idea was suggested not so much by Morgan, as by other evolutionists: Taylor, Lubbock, Bastiano, de Mortillet, etc. Marxists also accept this idea as justified. English archaeologists take varying views; Childe accepted it; Daniel, it seems, rejects it. Thompson, himself, sits on the fence. He remarks that 'social organization' is among those phenomena which 'can never be known', but, at the same time, he takes it for granted that there was 'some kind of social organization' based 'on kinship' among the bearers of the Wessex culture, and even admits that 'no doubt . . . private property was incompatible with primitive society' (p. 109). Such details could be obtained only with the help of 'ethnographic parallels'.

The second question concerns one definite regularity. It has been answered positively not only by Marxists, but also by representatives of a number of idealistic schools of thought. The argument is one which is primary and definable in a given case: the basis or the superstructure, economy or politics, productive work or ideas, and so on. In this discussion, Morgan has placed himself obviously on the Marxists' side. The views of contemporary English archaeologists are, as above, varied. Some do not recognize a necessary correspondence (Daniel?); others recognize it and give the idea decisive weight (Childe, to a certain extent). I shall refer to a third group below; the position of Thompson himself is not made clear in his article.

The third question is related to the preceding two. Like Marxists, both Childe and Hawkes have answered it positively; evidently the representatives of the 'Geographical' (Ecological) school have no interest in it, while Daniel and Thompson give a decisively negative answer. The nature of this third question depends on the answers to the preceding two, but unless they are treated separately confusion will arise.

From reading the cited text, I received the impression that for Thompson this third question specifically formed the basis of an antithesis, pieces of the other two only being mixed in because they are inseparable from the third. This is a pity because, treated independently, they have no small significance in the discussion of the value of Marxism in archaeology, and its comparison with other concepts. In a short article it is not necessary to provide detailed reasons for attitudes towards these two questions; our concern is with their clear definition and a statement of positions held. In spite of the fact that, to a very large extent, the answer to the third problem, considered as the main one by Thompson, lies in the solution to the other two, I shall refrain here from giving detailed grounds for Marxists' position in these two questions, which would take us too far from our subject. The literature and evidence connected with this subject is enormous; these questions are, quite naturally, among the fundamental problems with which the Marxist philosophy of history - historical materialism - is concerned. Archaeology has provided excellent evidence to support and justify the Marxists' solution to these two problems, but an examination of this would need a separate study.

I shall limit myself here to matters which bear directly on Thompson's preferred third question; in particular that archaeological material should be used exclusively for studying the economy. Ideology, the world of ideas may also be represented in a material form; we have rock-carvings, cave-paintings, and figurines. Graves containing burial gifts indicate that the living population had notions about the world of the dead, and, not infrequently, enable us to make more concrete statements about the content of these notions. And what about political events? Even these are recorded in our evidence in the form of arrowheads, injuries to bones, ramparts around hillforts, and the shifting of cultures and races within a single region. In his very interesting book, Leroi-Gourhan (1964) demonstrated that it is possible to learn a certain amount about various aspects of the life of Palaeolithic man without having to resort to the use of ethnographic parallels, although we can find out immeasurably more if we interpret this material with their aid. As must be clear from the above words, the rejection of these methods seems completely unjustified. Deductions from the basis to the superstructure may appear helpful too.

All this does not mean that Marxism requires an acknowledgement of the unlimited possibilities of modern science or calls for oversimplified solutions. We find these in archaeological and historical investigations everywhere, not only among Marxists, but so what? As early as in Engels we may read a warning against making ridiculous attempts to learn every detail of the ideology of prehistoric man (Marx and Engels, vol.37, 719). There has been some discussion among Soviet scholars about the limits of the capabilities of contemporary archaeology and its main potentialities as a science. So where does the divergence lie between Soviet Marxist archaeologists (Mongait, 1967, 53-76) on the one hand, and sceptics, like Dr Daniel, on the other? They disagree not so much as to whether or not limits to the capabilities of archaeology exist, but as to where they should be drawn.

Geographical Determinism Versus Marxism

The contrast between the 'Geographical school' of Fox and Marxism is maintained by Thompson in two ways: subject matter, and their way of entering scholarship. He summarizes the substance of Sir Cyril Fox's conclusions, and the importance of them for English archaeology, and endorses 'the tendency of the geographical school . . . to nterpret nearly all the remains in economic terms' (p.111), since 'the evidence by its very nature allows itself to be used for this purpose'. Then, in the paragraph quoted below, he states the opinions of Marxists on the role of the geographical environment in history:

The Marxist sees man overcoming nature and not nature overcoming man, and also sees the form of society dependent, not on the direct influence of the environment, but on the level of the productive forces, the means of production. Soviet criticism of the preoccupation of some English prehistorians with matters of environment has produced the curious paradox of avowed materialists denouncing alleged idealists for attributing too much importance to the material environment (p. 111).

Oh no, Mr Thompson! Nothing of the kind!

The whole picture has been very distorted. In the first place, the Marxist regards the mastery of nature by man not statically but dynamically as a process: the closer to modern imes, the more the power of man over nature; the deeper in the past, the more the power of nature over man. Lenin once remarked that 'prehistoric man was completely exhausted by the effort for subsistence, by the strain of the struggle with nature' (1959, 103). Secondly the 'form of society', a complex matter, and the role of the geographical environment in its establishment, is certainly not denied by Marxists. The fact is that in the 'form of society', the most important factor is the social structure; since it is the social structure which changes, even when the environment remains stable, Marxists have a right to see the cause of change and the basis of the social structure, not in the environment, but in the development of the productive forces of society.

The geographical environment is responsible, in large measure, for the more specific variations, whereby different forms of social structure emerge in different regions; it determines the tempo of development, and so on (Mongait, 1963, 57-64). Marxists are greatly interested in the study of connexions between the geographical environment and the life of a community (Grahame Clark's book, Prehistoric Europe, has been translated and published in the USSR). Soviet scientists themselves have also carried out research in this field; for example, the work of the ethnographers Levin and Cheboksarov (1955), and the work of the historian and archaeologist Gumilev (1966). A study of my own, written along the same lines, is now in press (1970).

We do not consider that those scholars, who regard changes in the geographical environment as the chief cause of development in society, are idealists; they are, of course, materialists, although, from a Marxist's point of view, neither profound, logical, nor consistent ones. This is what Marxists criticize them for. There is nothing paradoxical in this; I would see rather a paradox in an avowed idealist (and Thompson showed himself as such in declaring his agnosticism) defending one group of materialists from another.

The situation is no better when we turn to the means by which both theories - Marxist and geographical determinism - have entered archaeology. According to Thompson, the Marxist concept has been imposed on archaeology from the outside, as an already established theoretical dogma:

"If Morgan and Engels sketched out the history of pre-literate man, then the function of archaeology is a fairly humble one, to dot the i's and cross the t's, to illustrate events already decided. . . . In Marxist theory cultural remains are mainly of interest in illustrating a preconceived form of social evolution" (p.109).

With regard to the English 'geographical school' this:

"is a method rather than a theory which has grown from the material itself, whereas the besetting weakness of all Soviet theory is precisely that it is theory brought in from elsewhere. And Thompson defines this as the 'basic difference in the interpretation of culture between the English and Soviet archaeologists'" (p.111).

However, in every important archaeological concept, it is possible to discover significant contributions and influences from other sciences, as Daniel showed very well in relation to the 'geographical school' (1964). The concept of primitive society, created by Marx and Engels, took into account the principal results of archaeology and anthropology of the time, with which their recurring references and general works show they were quite familiar (Ravdonikas, 1939, 61-73, 80; Klejn, 1970). In the subsequent period, this concept has been re-examined several times in the light of new evidence, and certain important sections have been altered or replaced by others; but if it has survived substantially intact this is because it has not been refuted by the facts (Anon., 1959; Semenov, 1959; 1964).

To call the Marxist concept of prehistoric society pre- conceived, is to ignore an enormous mass of facts, which have been brought to light and are still being produced in Marxist literature, which confirm the concept, beginning with 'Das Kapital' and the 'Origin of the Family', and ending with contemporary archaeological studies. In their 'German Ideology', Marx and Engels remarked that 'the premises with which we begin are not arbitrary, they are not dogma' (Marx and Engels, vol. 3, 18). In contemporary Soviet archaeology, facts are used, not for illustration, but for verification of theoretical points - either to prove or to refute.

To contrast Fox's concept with Marxism as a method with a theory is completely absurd; certainly, in Fox's concept there is a definite methodological approach, albeit rather one-sided, that is the explanation of socio-historical phenomena as due to the influence of the geographical environment. This method is declared as the main and decisive one. Daniel has shown that the rigid theoretical scheme which was founded on this method quickly led to canonization (the famous 'Fox's laws') (1964, 21).

In contrast to this, in the Marxist concept of history - historical materialism - theoretical structures are not treated as dogma, for historical materialism is not only a theory, it is, above all, a method of investigation.

'Our understanding of history,' wrote Engels, 'is first of all a guide for study, not a lever for constructing in the Hegelian manner' (Marx and Engels, vol.37, 371).

That this is actually so is confirmed not only by the whole history of the creative development of the Marxist concept of history, but also by statements of western archaeologists about the fruitfulness of historical materialism, precisely as a method which reveals the basic connexions between historical facts. I am thinking, in this context, of the well-known statements of Childe (1946, v). 'The method may not please you, so avoid it as a method, but why deny that it is one?'

Diffusionism Versus Marxism

Thompson contrasts Marxism with diffusionism, above all as it was taught by Childe:

"Although the late Gordon Childe was widely admired and respected in the Soviet Union, his views were never regarded as orthodox and would be quite unacceptable to a Marxist purist (p. 111). The reasons for his being unacceptable are 'modernism' and diffusionism. The fact is that Diffusion from areas of higher culture in the east Mediterranean, the main theme of the Dawn, cannot be reconciled with Soviet view of the independent development of native cultures in Europe" (p. 111).

And although Thompson here remarks that Childe himself recognized the impossibility of convincingly proving the penetration of elements of civilization (it should also be remembered that Daniel noted facts which indicated the independent rise of civilization in America and eastern Asia), the contrast is made with inadmissible simplification.

Soviet archaeologists deny diffusionism, but not diffusion. Thus, they reject the principle whereby any new phenomenon in the culture is explained as an adoption from outside; they refuse to account for all historical cultures as the result of diffusion from one region to another. In as much as Childe was over-enthusiastic for diffusion as the chief factor in cultural development, he was criticized by Soviet archaeologists. At the same time, however, they recognize and respect the great value of his work, because, in the first place, in contrast to Elliot-Smith and other archaeologists of the 'Manchester school', Childe did not refer all cultural development to diffusion, but tried to bring out other factors. Secondly, Childe's demonstration of the reality of diffusion from the Mediterranean to Central and North Europe is an important contribution to scholarship. Soviet archaeologists, themselves, have also studied the phenomenon of diffusion; for example, its significant role in the formation of such cultures as the Tripolye (Passek, 1958; Bibikov, 1953) and the Catacomb (Klejn, 1963) cultures.

As Thompson represents them, the attitudes of Soviet archaeologists is reminiscent of those in vogue in the evolutionism at the end of the 19th century-Bastian style.

Thompson once more underlines the similarity of Marxism and evolutionism with reference to the Palaeolithic:

"The cultural terms are used by Soviet archaeologists to describe periods, and cultures, as we use the term, are not recognised. An interestingtheory is that of Semenov who regards the cultural terms as representing technological stages, as was done by some 19th century archaeologists" (p. 110-11).

It should be mentioned that the valuable work of Semenov does not represent a summary of the socio-historical or general cultural development as a whole, but is a specific monographic study of prehistoric technology, and the stages of its progress (Semenov, 1957). Some of Semenov's views on the relationship of his own method with the typological one are different from those of the rest of Soviet archaeologists. The earlier rejection of local variations in the Palaeolithic period has been transposed by Thompson to contemporary Soviet archaeology, obviously not taking account of the work of the late Zamyatnin on local variations in the Palaeolithic (1951), nor the studies of Efimenko, Grigoriev, and others, who have defined concrete cultures in the Palaeolithic, and their migrations and mutual relationships (Efimenko, 1956; Grigoriev, 1963).

Conclusion

Thompson is even ready to recognize some contribution of Marxism to archaeological science, but reckons that in filling a certain vacuum in archaeology, Marxists have exaggerated the significance of a factor, which non-Marxists had ignored:

"While we may have ignored technology too much in Palaeolithic studies, and no doubt Semenov's work will have a considerable influence on the subject, it is hard to believe that a very closely defined, possibly indeed one of the best defined cultures, the Magdalenian, can be explained entirely or even primarily in technological terms" (p. 111).

In this way, as Thompson puts it, 'Marxist purists' should explain the Magdalenian culture completely, or, at least, primarily in technological terms.

But what does the term 'to explain' a culture mean? Does it mean 'to characterize' it, or 'to distinguish its foundation and the main moving force of its development'? If the first, then one must realize that to claim a contemporary archaeologist, even if Marxist, even if 'purist', as attempting to characterize, let us say, Magdalenian art 'primarily in technological terms', is simply laughable. As for discovering the main force influencing the development of a culture, this is quite a different matter; but even here it may not be reasonable to represent the Marxist analysis as entirely dependent on technology, production, or economics.

The essence of the matter consists in determining the main and formative among the many forces influencing the development of a society and its culture.

To elucidate this point, let us return to an authority competent to deal with the question of understanding Marxism, such as Engels. In 1890, Engels wrote:

According to a materialistic understanding of history, the decisive moment in the historical process as a definite phenomenon is in the end production and reproduction of real life. Neither Marx nor myself ever maintained anything beyond that. If someone should distort this opinion by maintaining that the economic factor is allegedly the single determining factor, he would turn this opinion into an abstract, meaningless phrase. (Marx and Engels, vol.37, 394.)

Thompson, as well as Daniel (1965, 120), has grossly impoverished Marxism, reducing it to a narrow rectilineal and primitive economic determinism, which excludes all other factors and explanations in the social and cultural development. For this reason, Thompson considers the 'interpretation of prehistoric cultures in the Soviet Union' to be the interaction of three different ideological systems which came into being consecutively:

1. Original Marxism.
2. 'Japhetic theory' of linguists like Marr.
3. 'Ethnic interpretation' connected with the 'new interest in race and nationalism'.

We shall put the Japhetic theory of Marr to one side, since its influence was merely a passing phase. Let us turn to the 'ethnic interpretation', for which Thompson has great hopes, since this is a natural interpretation for archaeologists ('the search for one's ancestors is, without doubt, a legitimate . . . motive in archaeology'), and since unlike the other two 'purely determinist interpretations', it favours the professional archaeologists per se. He says on p. 111:

'The general result is to make Soviet ideas a good deal more intelligible to westerners'.

The ethnic interpretation is considered here as something foreign and in contradiction to 'original Marxism', so that the expansion of Soviet scientists in this direction resembles an exodus from 'original Marxism', and an approach to the viewpoint of 'westerners'. It is quite obvious that the 'original Marxism' of Dr Thompson and the 'original Marxism' of Engels are very different things.

In fact, the growth of concrete archaeological research, not only in ethnic interpretation but also chronological, demographic and other fields, represents an exodus, not from 'original Marxism', but from the simplified, dogmatic and scholastic interpretation, which was the result of a passionate, but superficial, grasp of new ideas by archaeologists inexperienced in Marxism. This was a feature of the early stages in the development of our science, but has gradually been eliminated.

I also hope that Soviet ideas become 'a good deal more intelligible to Westerners', not so much thanks to the 'ethnic interpretation', but as the result of a more objective familiarity with the concepts of 'original Marxism'.

Dr Michael Thompson writes:
I am delighted and honoured that Mr Klejn has read my 1965 article so carefully and that he has written at such length about it. His contribution would have been unthinkable in an English journal 10, 20 or 30 years ago and we must all welcome the changes that have made its publication possible.

Much as I am tempted to jump into the arena and join the controversy I will resist this temptation and confine myself to two points.

1. My article was the text of an invited lecture given to the Spring Conference of the Prehistoric Society in 1964. It was natural that I should contrast what was familiar to the audience with what was not; I did not envisage the alignment of two football teams as Klejn's original title for his article suggests (although I hasten to add that I am sure two very good ones could be fielded!).
2. Klejn puts his finger on the real issue in his rhetorical, almost despairing, question on p. 298. I do indeed deny that Marxism is a method that can be applied in archaeology; it is simply a set of 19th-century dogmas which you can ignore or accept, as you please. A good archaeologist may have Marxist leanings like the late Professor Childe or be a Roman Catholic priest like the late Abbé Breuil; there is no connexion between the personal beliefs of an archaeologist and the quality of his work.

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