Trigger (1989: 163) argues that the systematic definition of a whole sequence of interacting groups of ‘archaeological cultures’, such as the CYCLADIC or TRIPOLYE cultures, did not fully emerge until the nationalistically-motivated attempts of the German archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna (1911) to establish the origins of the INDO-EUROPEAN peoples. Tylor (1871) and Eduard Meyer (1884–1902) were writing about culture in its broader, more modern sense of ‘a particular form, stage or type of intellectual development or civilization’. By the late 19th century, scholars such as E.B. The origins of cultural-historical archaeology are to be found in the late 18th century, when the word culture (which had once been applied simply to the practice of agriculture) began to be used by German ethnologists to describe rural or tribal ways of life in contrast to the ‘civilized’ socioeconomic activities of city-dwellers (e.g. Barnard and Satö Tamotsu: Metallurgical remains of ancient China (Tokyo, 1975) ––––: ‘Bronze casting technology in the peripheral “barbarian” regions’, BMM 12 (1987), 3–37.Ĭulture history Term used to describe a broad range of archaeological approaches that use historical explanatory principles to examine changes in culture. ‘cultural lag’, the important point is that the process was not instantaneous.
