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Showing papers by "Stephen Shennan published in 1988"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, Mellaart's work at Catal Hiiyuk and Hacilar has been revisited by Warwick Bray and Ian Glover, who between them advertise their anxieties over the pursuit of archaeological research in Third World countries.
Abstract: invites a closer look at domestication in the light of James Mellaart's work at Catal Hiiyuk and Hacilar. He does so on the correct assumption that domestication affected human communities as profoundly as their animals and plants. In parenthesis one cannot help wondering why this author sets such special store by 'contextual' archaeology. Isn't this something most of us have been trying to practise for the last half century or more? It is puzzling to know why the Institute's Reader in Human Biology should have chosen to expose some of the sentiments he airs in this volume. After all he specializes in the study of a Primate which has made itself human by pursuing excellence. Furthermore he works alongside colleagues engaged in tracing how in the course of millennia men have created diverse civilizations as an outcome of sustained elitism and the unrelenting pursuit of excellence. In their joint contribution Warwick Bray and Ian Glover between them advertise their anxieties over the pursuit of archaeological research in Third World countries. Happily neither of them has carried his scruples to their logical conclusion. I say happily advisedly because both of them have operated with exemplary tact and sensitivity while exploring the archaeology of their respective zones. Moreover they work in an Institute that can rightly take pride in having equipped field workers from thirty countries or more, mostly in the so-called Third World. It has done so to help them reveal more fully the histories of their own distinctive cultures. As the final section in this volume shows, by means of a map and gazetteer, pupils and staff of the London Institute have helped to elucidate the archaeology of many parts of the world.

2 citations