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from The Editorial: ANTIQUITY September 1973 vol. 47: 174-5

We asked Professor Hawkes to give us his views on the so-called 'new' archaeology, especially as preached in Britain by Dr David Clarke, and he has done so in an article which we print in this number. Meanwhile our postbag fills with letters about the David Clarke article. We print three more comments and then this is, at least for the present time, over. The first is a crisp postcard from Frances Lynch, who says:

I'm amazed to see from your Editorial this month that David Clarke actually did write that article - I'd thought it was a spoof by Hogarth! It's interesting that when he wants to convince, as in Beaker Pottery, Clarke can write in English.

And the second a letter from Oliver Dickinson of the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology in the University of Birmingham:

In his oblique rejoinder-by-review to his critics, David Clarke seems in great danger of persuading himself that, while protesting against his mode of expression, they are in reality opposing everything which he advocates. Nobody likes to be told that they write unintelligibly, but I feel that he should give more thought to this, and especially to Peter Salway's comments. It is not merely a matter of a few technical words, nor is it simply his august seniors who are complaining; his contemporaries and juniors are likely to have just as much trouble unless, like Peter Salway or his own students, they have been exposed to the vocabulary over a period of time.

Part of the problem may be that he frequently uses words with a Greek base, whereas the common learned language, current for a considerable time, derives mainly from Latin. Most archaeologists will be familiar with the latter, but few nowadays will have enough Greek to work out the meaning of an unfamiliar word or the patience to consult a large dictionary, which will give a variety of definitions (when faced with bastard words like taxonomy and taxon, even the classically-trained may feel doubts; the former has the blessing of the OED(1933) as an irregular formation (taxis goes taxeos in the genitive), but seems to be equivalent to classification (your definition is of taxology). Why use taxonomy instead of classification, or paradigm instead of model?

But this is a relatively minor point; it seems to me that it is the form of Clarke's writings that gives most difficulty. The close packing of concepts, in complex adjective-noun groups occasionally broken by verbs or prepositions, makes for heavy going. While this sometimes appears to be gratuitous (e.g. 'rapid generational turnover' for 'short life-span'), it seems on the whole to derive from an admirable desire for succinctness (and also from the less admirable latinity to which all scholars are prey?). But it is no good straining for brevity when dealing with such unfamiliar matter; if he does not wish to remain a voice crying in the wilderness, Clarke must simplify and expand. Otherwise his prose will continue to resemble those translations of Greek and German philosophers in which the meaning is continually concealed in the terminology and syntax.

Those who run and publish excavations (of whom I am not one, I hasten to say) are forever being nagged to add to their quota of skills. The adoption of new methods of recording is one thing; but if they are expected in addition to grapple with theory expressed in such forbidding terms, one can hardly wonder if some refuse to try. I feel that David Clarke should leave the pulpit and mix with the congregation; he might then learn how and why what he is saying goes over people's heads.

(Mr Dickinson might also mix with a scientific congregation, who have for years regularly and usefully used the word taxonomy not just to mean classification but as the OEDsays: 'Classification, especially in relation to its general laws and principles; that department of science, or of a particular science or subject, which consists in or related to classification'. We have always been trying hard to persuade archaeologists that taxonomy and typology are two quite different things, as they are. Taxology is new to us, and the dictionaries available in Artois, where this is being written, do not distinguish between taxonomy and taxology.)

And the third comment is from Dr Peter Salway, who is Regional Director of the West Midlands Region of The Open University (10 Greenfield Crescent, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 3AU). We printed an earlier comment from him in the June number of ANTIQUITY and regret, as he does, that David Clarke replied to that very sensible comment in an oblique and evasive way.

It is sad and ironical that Dr David Clarke's oblique reply to the criticisms of his article quite missed the point. My own had nothing at all to do with willingness or not to make use of techniques recently imported into archaeology from other disciplines. It was about communication. Dr Clarke may not like it, but the main medium of communication is still the common English language.

In choosing to reply through a review about a particular application of computing to archaeology Dr Clarke reveals an innocence perhaps even more alarming than the obscurity of his language. I am not in the least surprised that a carefully run experiment such as that he reviews should have produced a very low percentage of error. The real question is what happens when these techniques become large-scale and routine. As director of a regional organization that handles substantial quantities of computerized information daily and as chairman of a committee at the national level that takes the policy decisions for a large computer operation, it is an everyday fact of life for me that there are strict practical limits on how flexible, how complex and how accurate the output can be, imposed by the equipment and staff available - mostly, but not entirely, a matter of money. Some things can only be done by computer but it is often a finely balanced question whether to employ manual or computer procedures, particularly as the more computerized a system the less easy to prevent errors remaining undetected to the point where they require much time and trouble to put right. And there are some consequences - such as reputation for reliability - that cannot be quantified in terms of 'cost-benefit-analysis'.

However, Dr Clarke's innocence goes even further. We are to believe such techniques more objective. As far as computers go, this barely conceals a basic misapprehension. Current computers do not think. They can only answer the questions put to them. Even in an ideal world this would involve human decisions and under the pressures of the real world this means the establishment of priorities - what data to put in and what analyses to require. Since these priorities have to be established before the computer operation can be designed or run (and in the case of a system intended to produce results in the course of excavation that means long before the start of digging), it implies predicting in advance what is likely to be significant. However rigorous the 'decision-making process' the element of 'subjective' or 'intuitive' opinion based on experience is central to it. If Dr Clarke does not recognize the crucial role of 'intuitive' recognition of what is significant he must have overlooked the history of science and the nature of scientific method.

These controversial issues must now be discussed elsewhere. We are always happy to start discussion and promote sensible controversy, but, with the material we hope to print in the next three numbers already bulging suspiciously large in our files, we must for a while forget the new clarke-aeology, however she is wrote.

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