Saturday, March 23, 2013

Archaeological Ideas, Diffusion, and Cultural Change – Part II

Continuing from the previous post discussing the nature of most scientists regarding the understanding of cultures, dating of sites and artifacts, and the development of events in pre-history, and the stages, periods, and method of diffusion they use. Several examples of diffusion were listed in the previous post, and others will be included here.
But first, one of the problems is knowing that to the scientist there are stages and periods of human development, and it is their view that when one stage of development is determined (found) during excavation, study, linking, that it is assumed a previous stage existed before that…and one before that, etc.
 A few pottery shards to the archaeologist sometimes creates an entire civilization, maybe even an empire
Consequently, if broken pottery is found in the ground, it is automatically assumed by the scientist that a pre-pottery period existed before that. And if a pre-pottery stage existed, then there had to be a stage before that. If the ruins are found of an ancient fortress, there had to exist a pre-period of lesser building ability, and a non-polity period before that. If an advanced agricultural area is found, with terracing, aqueducts, channels, etc., then there had to be a pre-agricultural period before that, etc.
In its purest form, there was the Early Stone Age, Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age, Post-Stone Age, the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Classic Middle Ages, Pre-Pottery, Pottery, Archaic, Post-Archaic, Formative, Classic, Post-Classic, Pre-Contact, Post-Contact, Settlement, Post-Classic, etc. There are also the Roman Age, Early Medieval Period, Medieval Period, Post-Medieval Period, Industrial and Modern; there was also the Ice Age, the Epipaleolithic, Mesolithic, Chalcolithic, and the Hellenistic, Byzantine, and Ottoman periods.
The point is, to the archaeologist there is always a series of stages and periods of human development, progress and history. These stages and periods vary considerably from continent to continent, and from region to region, with three main stages: Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, based upon identifying tool manufacture and use in a given area, site, or culture.
Once the stage or period is determined, then there is the concept of diffusion—that is, how did this culture move about, affect, or determine the advancement of another culture, location, or people. Scientists use as an established example the use of cars and Western business suits in the 20th century to show how diffusion has worked recently.
On the other hand, the concept of diffusion meets similar difficulties to determine a single culture, or multiple ones. Take their example of the car—in contrast it should be noted that before and after World War II, American cars were exported to almost every country around the world—following the rebuilding of Japan, Japanese cars were exported to most countries, and with the impact of German technology after rebuilding, they appeared in countries around the world—without names and logos on these cars, it would be hard to tell who engineered and built them, and if something similar was to be found in pre-history cultures, we would find the archaeologist creating a single culture as responsible for this phenom, rather than the many cultures (countries) responsible.
Top Left: King’s Day ride in Britain of 1930s Fords for George V in 1935; Right: 3 American cars in Paris in 1950, including 1941 Nash and 1948 Cadillac; Bottom Left: Several Chevrolets in Istanbul, Turkey in 1965; Right: 2 American cars and several in background at East Gate, Chester, England in 1970s
In addition, contrary to the diffusion concept of archaeology, most foreign car makers did not get started as a result of diffusion, that is, the spread of automobile manufacturing to neighbors or from contact, but as independent inventive processes by people not known to one another and in far flung countries, most at the very same time. In addition, China is a perfect example of the very opposite of diffusion. Their automobile industry is state owned, state directed, state funded, etc., yet in 2009, became the largest manufacturer in production and sales of cars in the World, and by 2011, were producing more than twice the amount of the U.S. and Japan combined. Their origins did not begin with the U.S. or Japan, the two largest manufacturing companies at the time, nor with Germany, England, or Italy, who were the oldest automobile manufacturing companies in the world—but with Russia (Soviet Union), from whom they bought manufacturing plants and set up help. In fact, in 2011, three of the top auto manufacturers were Chinese.
Left: China’s BYD Company S6 SUV; Right: China’s Chery Company ZAZ Forza.
As for Western business suits, they have not been a constant in America, or other Western cultures, since they alter as cultures intermingle, but also alter based on “created style.” Take, as an example, the western wearing of Eastern Nehru jackets, though this was not based on intermingling, but a style change, which were similar to, but shorter than, the achkan or sherwani, and worn by western businessmen and women, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Then there was the introduction of Leisure Suits in the 1970s that did not come from intermingling at all, but a design creation. There was the mock knit turtlenecks worn under suit jackets to eliminate the wearing of ties that again was simply a design introduction. There were the drindle skirts from Germany, the Romanian and Polish peasant blouses, etc., that swept through Western clothing.
Left: Nehru jacket worn in America 1960s-1970s; Center: Leisure Suit worn by men in America 1970s; Right: Turtle neck with suit worn by men in America in 1980s-1990s
In addition, since fashion played the main role in clothing changes, rather than any type of cultural infusion, there was the Zoot (zuit) suit, Western suit, Nudie suit, Beatle suit, Mod suit, Safari suit, the Disco suit, and the Power suit. Many of these suit styles were restricted to specific areas, specific groups, and in some cases, strictly racial trends. They did not diffuse into other groups or cultures. The Zoot suit was strictly a Chicano and African American apparel, created by Chicago, Detroit and Memphis tailors in the 1930s and 1940s. In France, at the same time, there was the Zazous suit, a fashion developed in reaction and rebellion against the Nazi occupation.
Left: The Zoot suits of the 1940s; Center: The Western (cowboy) suit; Right: The rhinestone covered Nudie suit; all of these and numerous other styles were not established through diffusion and did not pass on through diffusion to other cultures
Is all of this to suggest a common culture, an intermingling culture, or simply change? If such was found in pre-history cultures, we would find the archaeologists creating an entire culture out of each of these, and considering it a “well-attested and also uncontroversial phenomenon.”
We are told by the scientist that: 1) Inter-cultural diffusion can happen in many ways, such as migrating populations carrying their culture with them. On the other hand, they can adopt the new culture and their previous culture completely disappear—which is what happened to the Mulekites;
2) Ideas can be carried by trans-cultural visitors, such as merchants, explorers, soldiers, diplomats, slaves, and hired artisans. Yet, it is hard to imagine a singular person or small group having any impact on a large, existing culture as science proclaims—Marco Polo had little, if any, impact on Chinese culture. His return had little impact on European culture, other than expanding their knowledge and worldview [foods of course, are separate from this—Marco Polo brought back a knowledge of spices and chocolate not previously known, which were quickly adopted, though it took a hundred years for the potato, brought back from Peru in the 16th century, to be adopted into European cuisine]).
(See the next post, “Archaeological Ideas, Diffusion, and Cultural Change – Part III,” for more on this subject)

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