The origins of French archaeology.

Olivier, Laurent

In contemporary scientific research, the most marked result of the last 30 years has been the development of a specifically American science and its emancipation from the old European intellectual heritage of the 19th century and the interwar period. This movement, marked in archaeology by the birth of the New Archaeology in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by the anti-processual reaction of the 1980s and 1990s, has been accompanied by a process of globalization of the archaeological discipline, leading to the unification of methods and theory. The birth of a world market dominated by the United States, characterized by mass consumption and the hegemony of the economic over the political, has imposed new practices of archaeology, which post-processual scholars have been quick to exploit.

Europe seeks its role in this new international order. For many in continental Europe, the post-processualism of Britain (as at TAG) is seen as an intellectualized European version of American globalization imbued with political correctness. Many English-speaking researchers question the enigma of the lack of French archaeological theory in comparison with the flowering of post-modern sociology and philosophy. Several reasons explain the retreat of French archaeology. Above all, archaeology is little debated in France, since it does not have strong presence in university teaching outside Paris. French archaeology remains essentially a state enterprise, run by bureaucrats and not by researchers. Finally, archaeological practice has undergone an extraordinary upheaval in the last 20 years, with considerable expansion of rescue excavation, and this has not been fully assimilated.

Current French archaeology is a set of archaeologies. However, I would here like to examine and explain the origins of French archaeology, specifically from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, prolonging a movement which started a century earlier in England. Against all appearance, the roots of British and French archaeology are the same, drawing on an old common European heritage, part of a larger development following the discovery of the New World. Notions of collective identity, our modern points of reference, were fundamentally redefined. People aspired to a new type of society and social relations, founded on equality and respect for cultural differences. This new archaeology, born in the 18th century sought to understand the past and opened new questions which are current today: What society do we wish for ourselves? What is our relation to past societies?

In the history of the representation of European culture, two major events have played a fundamental defining role for collective relations and the individual: the discovery of 'Sauvages de l'Amerique' and pre-Roman antiquities, respectively a different contemporary humanity and a different ancient humanity. These two events, although not simultaneous, combined to change concepts of the identity and origins of man, in terms of both space and time. In the wake of the expansion of geographical understanding, new fields of knowledge - ethnography and anthropology - were developed to make sense of human cultural diversity. In the temporal dimension, the renewed history and the new archaeology were now exploited to explore the unknown past. In the light of these changes in the 18th and 19th centuries, I intend to present an 'archaeology of systems of thought', drawing on the work of Foucault dealing with the origins of contemporary concepts of power and social order (Foucault 1966; 1997).

The impact of space: from the 'Sauvages de l'Amerique' to 'primitive societies'

The effect of the discovery of the New World: savages and the Other

The 16th- and 17th-century discovery of the New World was not only the conquest of new territories, the exploitation of new riches and the assimilation of new populations. This event had much deeper repercussions on the problem of the identity of European societies, overturning definitions of European civilization. The most marked change was spatial: the birth of maps and new modes of spatial representation. The innovations were recast from the old Medieval geographical models. Sixteenth-century cartography continued to follow a broadly Ptolomean Europocentric scheme - the world was ordered in concentric circles, moving from civilization to the barbarian periphery, from the known to the unknown, from normality to abnormality. The discovery of New World humanity was on the limits of the world, on the frontier of humanity and savagery, the natural and spiritual world.

American savages and Gallic antiquities: an ethnographic approach to the traces of aboriginal societies

From the end of the 16th century, several authors have linked the existence of New World Savage societies to the interpretation of unusual stone objects, often found by farmers all over Europe. Michele Mercati (1541-1593), director of the botanical garden of Pope Plus V and organizer of the Vatican Museum, particularly compared Amerindian stone tools to ceraunies, strange geometric flints, preserved in most cabinets de curiosites. Mercati was one of the first (with Montaigne) to put together a collection of Amerindian objects. In his Metallotheca Vaticana (1719), Mercati established that Italian flint arrowheads were of pre-Iron Age human production.

However, these important advances were isolated. The theory of Mercati was only discussed in the 18th century: Antoine de Jussieu in his 1724 lecture to the Academie des Sciences drew the parallel between Caribbean and Canadian stone tools and those discovered in Europe (Jussieu 1875). Lafitau (1724) made similar observations about parallels between Amerindian and early European societies.

Jussieu, Lafitau, Caylus (1752-1757) and Mahudel (1875) shared a new premise: similar forms of tools made of the same materials must have entailed the same use. In each case, technology was linked to evolutionary stages of society towards civilization. Thus, in the first half of the 18th century, one sees the start of a proper system of analysis of past societies where technology and the mind are inextricably linked. Caylus, and to a smaller extent Jussieu or Lafitau, outline a history of human culture founded on technological development. After the French Revolution, this approach became the framework of 19th- and 20th-century French prehistory.

The upheaval of Time: from medieval origin myths to the modern concept of the nation

A similar upheaval took place in the concept of Time which inverted ideas of society and community. The movement began in 18th-century England, a time of criticism of royal power, then was taken up in the study of social function in 18th-century France, part of the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment.

From Trojan origin myths to the criticism of royal power

Traditionally, the medieval history of origins was one of dynastic history, founded on classical mythology. Until the Renaissance, versions of the Trojan myth dominated. According to this tradition, the Trojans succeeded in fleeing from the burning palace of Priam. Francus, and his family, passed by the Danube, and then through Germany, before arriving in what was later France, where he established the first Frankish royal family. Another version (with a British focus) was related by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

These concepts of history changed profoundly during the 18th century, both in England and France, where the Graeco-Roman origin myth was replaced by a social or national model. The history of nations was now sustained by a dialectical dynamic. The dominant conquerors (Franks in France, Normans in Great Britain) were opposed by the indigenous vanquished (Gauls and Saxons). In origin, this new interpretation of history was introduced into 17th-century England as a critique of royal power. It sought to recall that the nobility, heirs to the original conquerors, had won a right over society, but that this power had been confiscated by the monarchy, destroying aristocratic freedom.

The French Revolution and the invention of the Nation

The critique of royal power begun in England in the 17th century, developed in France towards a global social critique in the 18th century which implied a new idea of Nation. For the monarchy, there were only subjects, arranged in classes or corporations. To criticize the relations of king to subjects was to debate the whole functioning of society, to assert that society was a global partner in power.

The revolution as the final elimination of national tensions: the invention of Gauls as ancestors of the French

The French revolution tried to find a response to these problems, by imposing the idea that the Nation equated with society. In this sense the eradication of the Monarchy was an attempt to reconcile internal social tensions. The Revolution must halt social conflict, which, according to 18th-century thought, had dominated all previous history, but which had led to the revolutionary take-over. In a paradox common to all revolutions, the French Revolution needed to eliminate the very causes of its own appearance. It had to change the vision of society and history which initially justified it. In this movement, the Third Estate, or the Bourgeoisie, found themselves entirely equated with the Nation, removing the Frankish component of traditional national history.

This transformation of the notion of Nation requires several comments. Firstly, this new Republican concept of Nation rests on a conjuring away of the Franks, that is of the nobles. An ethnic notion of the Nation was imposed; the Gauls were equated with the Third Estate, and became the direct ancestors of the French. The elimination of the Franks by Nationhood moved tensions from the racial (the opposition of peoples) to the social (the opposition of classes). The State became the expression of this new Nation, the instrument of the historical development of the Nation and the lineal descendant, in some way, of the aboriginal Gaul. The Republican myth of 'nos ancetres les Gaulois' legitimated the State. The fusion of State and Nation induced the birth of State racism which developed in the second half of the 19th century: the Revolution and the Republic introduced a fundamental ambiguity at the heart of the notion of the Nation, both political (all are citizens who defend the values of the Republic) and ethnic (all are French who live within national frontiers).

The French Revolution led to a changed discourse on the Origins of the Nation, principally by substituting Gauls for Franks. This had a profound effect on the developing discipline of archaeology, making it an instrument for research into the origins of the Nation, and no longer an activity of aristocratic antiquaries. Archaeology became a revolutionary programme as well as a tool for the legitimation of the State. Citizen Pierre Legrand d'Aussy presented at the National Institute a report entitled 'Memoire sur les anciennes sepultures nationales' (Legrand d'Aussy 1799). This text proposed a universal archaeological chronology, based on early burial practices, and developed by a programme of the study and protection of these remains at a national scale and under state control.

The anthropological and archaeological implications of the idea of Nation

The Nation as realization of the progress of humanity

The Nation, in the sense given by the French Revolution, had both a common origin and a social model which basically constituted its identity. Sieyes defined this most successfully at the end of the 18th century: a nation is founded on the sharing of laws in common. The Nation can only exist in as much that the community of individuals who live together in the same area are capable of setting up mutually acceptable rules. From the political point of view, this clause is central, for it implies that society has no need of Nobles or of the King. From the cultural point of view, it is equally important, for the Nation is at a stage of Civilization in which Reason and consciousness of the collective interest prevail over the beliefs and dominant relations of inegalitarian societies which are in future rejected from primitiveness and dark ages. Sieyes states that for a Nation to perpetuate itself in history, it needs to produce works, that is, agriculture, artisanship, industry, commerce and liberal arts. According to Sieyes, it is vital for a Nation to be endowed with functions, that is, regulatory institutions such as the army, justice, the Church or administration. A Nation can only exist only in so far as it can produce and organize itself. This new approach of human organizations implies that technology, as mode of production, and self-determination, as mode of social and political function, are formative for the Nation.

These concepts nurtured the first observations of prehistory, notably by Boucher de Perthes and Gabriel de Mortillet from the 1850s. Jacques Boucher de Perthes discovered the first flint tools in the quaternary deposits of Abbeville in 1850-1860. In line with 18th-century thought, Boucher de Perthes approached these traces of the past, which he attributed to celtic populations before the biblical flood, indirectly from technology.

Technology and social progress

Thirty years later, Gabriel de Mortillet, who claimed intellectual inheritance from the Revolution, extended this approach inherited from 18th-century thought. De Mortillet notably showed that that the development of techniques and artistic expressions followed a continuous evolution from the first stone tools to the invention of iron metallurgy. This tenet is the central theme of the prehistoric collections of the Musee des Antiquites Nationales where he worked. De Mortillet's approach rested on three principal points linked to general laws of human behaviour, comparable to the physical laws of the natural world (Mortillet 1869; 1883; 1897):

1 According to de Mortillet, technological and artistic production reveals the existence of continuous progress, which is unique to the human species. Man is perfectible. There is a Loi du progres de l'humanite.

2 De Mortillet states that if all societies develop historically through analogous technological stages, it is because, faced by the same needs, they find similar solutions. For de Mortillet, this demonstrated the existence of a 'Loi du developpement similaire', common to all human societies.

3 According to de Mortillet, archaeological evidence showed from the beginning the existence of industry, art and social organization. These were in embryonic form in ancient societies, but could be seen to develop in later historical societies. The study of archaeological evidence consisted then, according to de Mortillet, in the study of the evolution of a civilization whose development was founded on a 'Loi d'unite psychologique de l'humanite'.

These ideas that de Mortillet theorized in prehistory are the same that the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had crystallized a century earlier in the arena of society and politics. As Trigger (1990: 57-8), states, these notions rest on a conviction in the fundamental unity of humanity and on faith in human progress. The intellectual tradition of the 18th century postulates, in effect, the psychic unity of humanity. According to this tradition, the cultural differences were brought about by environmental factors (such as the theory of climates). There is a desire of human groups to better their condition and control nature better. A real law of progress underwrites the evolution of all aspects of society, and notably social and political organization. Progress improves the human species, gradually eliminating thanks to education and knowledge, superstition and ignorance, sources of violence and social inequality. Thus scientific research and accessible education plays a crucial role in the amelioration of society. Humanity advances on a road of technological and social progress thanks to reason. Two centuries after 1789, we still want to believe in the validity of this programme.

The socialization of technology: from Marcel Mauss to Andre Leroi-Gourhan

We may see here more clearly how, in the intellectual tradition of the Englightenment and of the French Revolution, technology and the social and cultural development of human communities are intextricably linked. Since the publication of L'encyclopedie of Diderot & d'Alembert (1751-1765), the study of technology writ large occupied a fundamental place in the intellectual tradition of France within the Human Sciences (Olivier & Coudart 1995). The analysis of production and the technological working of societies is none other than the study of the human understanding and representation needed for existence and action. This gave coherence and specificity to the French sociological school inspired by Emile Durkheim between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Social customs - including the less material elements such as religious, ritual, magical or exchange practices - were considered fundamentally social, in place to maintain cohesion and permanence of human communities.

In his article on 'Les techniques du corps', which appeared in 1934 in the Journal de Psychologie (Mauss 1997: 363-86), Marcel Mauss gave the most complete definition of socializing perception, applied to technology. In this work on the different ways 'in which men, society by society, know, traditionally, how to make use of their bodies' (Mauss 1997: 365), Mauss stated that the existence of technology is not necessarily linked to the use of tools, but that the use of technology can express itself principally through the body. For Mauss, technology was none other than what he calls an 'acre traditionnel efficace'; that is to say, a constructed procedure directed towards an objective and a tradition. Mauss insisted, in particular, on the fact that technology cannot exist without tradition or without technological culture and without the transmission and reproduction of this knowledge. In parallel, Mauss stated that the sequences of technological actions 'are shown by and for social authority' (Mauss 1997: 384), or in other words that the working of this total technology is intrinsically tied to the reproduction of social order. For Mauss, the study of technology is confused with the analysis of the projection of the social onto the individual. The social fact dominates the entirety of human actions and production.

The 'fait technique' is also crucial for the work of Andre Leroi-Gourhan. Amongst French prehistorians, Leroi-Gourhan is the person who perpetuated most directly, in the 1960s and 1970s, the ideas of the Englightenment and the French Revolution, in terms of the genesis of technology. In common with his 19th-century predecessors, Leroi-Gourhan set the transformations of human tools in a unilinear evolution which began no longer with the first humans, but even earlier with the appearance of human faculties, among the ancestral fossils of the modern human species. In particular, Leroi-Gourhan saw technological evolution as running in parallel with anatomical change; he created a precipitous trajectory which linked the appearance of the first tools to the industrial production of modern knives ([ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED]; Leroi-Gourhan 1955). Such an approach postulated the unity of technological thought, considered as the human achievement par excellence. In tying the evolution of technology to a unilinear progress, it was not far from the concepts of the 19th-century prehistorians, marked once again by the inheritance of 18th-century and French Revolutionary social thought. As with de Mortillet before him, Leroi-Gourhan stated that human technological production followed a logical evolution which was metaphorically comparable to the dynamic evolution of animal species.

According to Leroi-Gourhan, tools, or more broadly technology, evolved in a spontaneous manner, or more exactly according to an internal dynamic which characterized the tendencies of the living projected back in time. In this perspective, the 'fait technique' would then be recoupled from specific cultural manifestions of societies taken individually at a given moment of time. The 'fait technique' could be studied in itself as a reflection of the mental representations of humanity. Thus, the flint-knappers of the Lower Palaeolithic would not only be Homo faber, the simple manual labourer, but also conceptualizers. They know from the first cutting tools how to anticipate form in the block of raw material and how to develop a mental map. They were already Homo saplens, people who know technology like ourselves. This premise of the continuity of technological thought which 'places modern man in full solidarity with the predecessors of Pithecanthropus himself' (Leroi-Gourhan 1962: 12), was, in essence, already the same as Boucher de Perthes who searched in the blocks of flint and wood from the gravels of Abbeville for the signs of the creative activity of human origins.

Conclusions

Contemporary French archaeology, like ethnology and the other human sciences, developed as a result of a changed paradigm. In the first half of the 18th century, this overturned the concepts that gave European societies their place in history in relation to other cultures. The new approach, based on the coupling of the dimensions of time and space, found an explanation for the diversity of cultures in a global history of all humanity.

Until then, ethnography had not transcended a discourse which comprised the 'sauvages' from overseas and their differences from Europeans. This situation changed when Europe began to theorize about the past and to consider the 'savages from the ends of the earth' and the 'ancestors from the mists of time'. From the end of the 17th century, this introduced the discovery of much non-classical archaeological evidence. The link between Time and Space, as well as the connection between distant 'primitive societies' and local 'original humans', were then placed in symmetrical opposition or tension. This was a concurrent formalization of primitive contemporary societies and original past societies, as part of the apportioning of knowledge within the modern human sciences. Ethnology was the spatial study of the diversity of humanity and archaeology the temporal study of its continuity.

More particularly in France, the birth of archaeology was bedded in a new conception of society which found its origins in the social and political thought of the Enlightment and the French Revolution, with the invention of the historical Nation. French archaeology developed as a result of this paradigm shift, in origin political, with a particularly strong effect on prehistory, where it focused on the evolution of technology, notably with de Mortillet in the 19th century and Leroi-Gourhan after the war. From a French perspective, archaeology naturally played a greater ideological and political role where it dealt globally with the evolution of humanity and locally with the evidence of national origins. This explains why in France the State traditionally occupies such an important place in the conduct of archaeology. It is wrong to consider French archaeology atheoretical. On the contrary, if French archaeology appears so poor in its theoretical interpretations, it is because the past was already theorized and the framework of its interpretation was already fixed even before the birth of the discipline. Conversely, in countries where no strong theory of Society exists - in particular, in Americanized countries the past needs to be imperiously theorized, and the question of its interpretation occupies a crucial place in the working of the discipline. One sees a succession of debates in English-speaking archaeology, from the American New Archaeology of the 1960s and 1970s to the post-processual archaeology of post-modernism.

The development of archaeology in France is part of a universal project, which is not reducible to one part. It draws on the new social project of the 18th century which reacted against the injustice of the social misery produced by the inegalitarian societies inherited from the Middle Ages. This social model, for long fostered by the Nation State, is today in crisis, as commercial globalization leads to the fragmentation of community and constrains a reduction in the action and responsibility of the State. In the context of French archaeology, this evolution has had profound repercussions which will lead to debate on the traditional interpretation of the past. French archaeology needs to be renewed, and its tenets reassessed. But are we condemned to be dissolved into a new global archaeology? Is society destined to depend on the economy, the citizen replaced by the consumer? In this context, the French approach could return to its original vocation, becoming once again a mechanism of resistance and liberation.

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