Citation

Vencl SI. J. Anthropol. Archaeol. 1984; 3(2): 116-132.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0278-4165(84)90009-6

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

For a long time, archaeologists have tended to deal preferably with the most voluminous, most numerous, and most conspicuous remains of the past and to base their reconstructions of the past only on these phenomena. This procedure has led frequently to typical distortions of our image of prehistory [our vision of the past from the so-called archaeological perspective (S. Vencl, 1979, Archeologické rozhledy31:680)], bordering sometimes on absurdity. This kind of interpretation presents, for example, the production of pottery, bone and stone implements, and other types of frequent finds as a dominant preoccupation of prehistoric populations. The comparison of all the archaeological evidence from a given spatiotemporal unit with the information offered by analysis of contemporary written sources [e.g., the comparison of data of Merovingian archaeology with information provided by M. Weidemann (1982, Kulturgeschichte der Merowingerzeit nach den Werken Gregors von Tours, Teil 1,2,RGZM Monographien, Mainz), who analyzed the writings of Georgius Gregorius, the archbishop of Tours in 573-594 A.D.] does, however, point out the often peripheral position and frequent irrelevance of archaeological data with respect to the sum total of past activities of man. Obviously, written texts do not reflect past reality without gaps and, on the contrary, without undue stresses (introduced both by omissions and by the character of origin and contextual biases of the documents in question), but their image of past societies is, in any case, undoubtedly to be preferred to the testimony of archaeological sources. This can be seen in the universally acknowledged gap or fissure emerging throughout the world at the transition between prehistory and history, that is, at the very moment at which the basis for description of the past is transferred from archaeological data to textual evidence. I take up this phenomenon with respect to war and warfare as one of the history-making aspects of the past hitherto overlooked by archaeology. The study of war in archaeology represents a special case of research in an area in which the importance of things perished distinctly surpasses the importance of the retrieved testimony. I try here to demonstrate (1) that an adequate interpretation of archaeological remains is impossible per se but always must be carried out in complementary opposition to the parts of past reality that have perished, and (2) that it is, then, relevant to indulge not only in archaeology of remains preserved, but in archaeology of remains perished as well. This article sums up the conclusions of S. Vencl (1984, Problémy poznání vojenství v archeologii--Problems relating to the knowledge of warfare in archaeotogy. Archeologickýústav ČSAV, Prague).