Contested deep pasts

negotiating the French-Anglophone divide in Pleistocene lithic studies

Hussain, Shumon T.

This book offers the first in-depth analysis of French-Anglophone research conflicts in Palaeolithic archaeology. By carefully examining a range of case studies and discursive contexts, the author shows that French and Anglophone approaches to the lithic evidence are anchored in opposing cognitive frameworks.
The mainstays of this division are outlined by drawing on the work of American philosopher Stephen C. Pepper, who captured the totality of credible Western thought in terms of four equitable world hypotheses. The book demonstrates that French lithic research gravitates towards contextualistic and organicistic modes of inquiry, whereas Anglophone approaches tend to rely on formistic and mechanistic modes of inquiry. The implications of this difficult condition for mutual understanding and critical practice are explored and it is argued that the French-Anglophone divide can only be satisfactorily navigated if practitioners endorse scientific pluralism, cultivate a more reflexive stance towards their own work, and begin to seriously take into consideration the strengths and shortcomings of different cognitive frameworks.
While the book seeks to clarify the methodological, theoretical and epistemological landscape of Palaeolithic stone artefact analysis and will therefore be of a key source for lithic specialists, it may also be of interest for a broader readership from Science and Technology Studies (STS), the history and philosophy of science, and nascent interdisciplinary science studies.