Archaeology and the Luddites

Abstract

The views of Jacquetta Hawkes give vent to the uncomfortable feelings that many older archaeologists have been harbouring against the ‘intrusion’ of science into their exclusive domain of ‘humanistic’ archaeology. I am not so bothered here about the protests of the ‘passing generation’ which is ‘suffering from universal decay’ (using her own words) as with the problems of the two cultures, the methods and meaning of archaeology, its relation with other sciences and the direction towards which it is heading.