Leroi Gourhan France

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France: A Continental Insularity Author(s): Francoise Audouze and Andre Leroi-Gourhan Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 13, No. 2, Regional Traditions of Archaeological Research I (Oct.

, 1981), pp. 170-189Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124436Accessed: 16-06-2015 18:41 UTC

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France: a continental insularity Fran9oise Audouze and Andre Leroi-Gourhan

It is not our intention to report here on French archaeological results of the past decade. We have rather tried to delineate the main tendencies, currents of thought and current hypotheses among French archaeologists. Therefore the bibliography has been restricted to those works that include information about theories, methods, techniques or debates. People interested in knowing what French archaeologists have achieved in France and abroad during the past ten years should refer to the annual report edited by the Centre de la Recherche Scientifique: La Recherche en Sciences Humaines (1976-7, 1977-8, 1979-80). They also may refer, for metropolitan excavations, to the Informations Archeologiques published every year in Gallia and Gallia Prehistoire (1970-80).

The historical dimension

Archaeology as a specialized field emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century. Since the beginning, the division between the different fields has been effective: prehistory, Orientalism, Egyptology and classical archaeology have each experienced a separate development.

This is particularly clear for prehistoric archaeology and classical archaeology, which may be considered as representative of other historical archaeologies as far as trends and aims are concerned.

Prehistoric archaeology

At the start, in the middle of the nineteenth century, French prehistoric archaeology was influenced both by the natural sciences, geology and palaeontology, and by the new-born cultural anthropology. From the former two, it borrowed a chronological frame and notions of stratigraphy (Boucher de Perthes 1847). From the latter, it acquired an ethnological vision of prehistoric man. From all three, it adopted the leading paradigm of the century: evolutionism. Cultural anthropology and prehistoric archaeology were at that time interacting, the first inclu- ding the origins of man in its topics, the latter using comparative ethnography in the interpretation of prehistoric finds. The word paloethnologique often appears in texts of the time (Chantre 1875-6). However, distrust of ethnographic analogies, to become so strong at a later date, and

World Archaeology Volume 13 No. 2 Regional traditions

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France: a continental insularity 171

preference for observation and morphological classification were already evident. One of the first to express this was J. Boucher de Perthes, who considered it impossible to describe the ethnological dimension of prehistoric man from available artefacts (Boucher de Perthes quoted by Laming-Emperaire 1964: 165).

In the perspective of evolutionism, the prehistoric cultures were considered as successive phases of a monophyletic evolution which were, in some way, genetically derived from one another. Their identification rested upon typology of artefacts (de Mortillet 1883).

During a second period (1900-50), all the French prehistorians were dedicated to a single task: to identify and classify artefacts, artistic artefacts from caves included, and define cultures. Every culture was characterized by a few fossiles directeurs, flint or bone tools with characteristic shapes and retouch always found together in a layer. Evolutionism still influenced prehistorians, for instance, when two cultures were found to be contemporary, they were supposed to originate from two different phyla rather than express functional differences. La bataille de l'Aurignacien, the great debate that opposed Henri Breuil(1905, 1937) to Adrien de Mortillet on the existence of two phyla, the Aurignacian tradition and the Perigordian tradition, instead of a single one, was strictly based on arguments about succession of layers and the unity of tradition in artefact assemblages. Denis Peyrony (1933) closed the debate with a demonstration based on empirical data collected in his admirable excavations at La Ferrassie and Laugerie-Haute in the Dordogne. He showed that the two traditions co-existed, the Aurignacian developing during the middle phase of the Perigordian. However, modern prehistorians incline to consider early and late Perigordian as two separate entities. Most researchers tended to dismiss ethnological comparisons as mere speculations, except in the study of the cave paintings. There, Henri Breuil made use of somewhat uncontrolled ethnographic comparisons (1952). As pointed out by J. R. Sackett (1981), the traditonal school of Prehistoric Archaeology was 'settled' during this period, pre- occupying itself with typology and stratigraphy, trying 'to define artifactual similarities and differences among assemblages and, taking advantages of whatever light can be shed by stratigraphy, to seriate them into regional sequences which at least potentially can be brought into alignment with one another by cross-correlation.' The implicit genetic model is still underlying research.

In the 1950s starts the present school of French prehistoric archaeology, with the setting out of the systematic typology of Fran9ois Bordes. Bordes's work brought improvements and clarifi- cation. He first replaced the fossiles directeurs by a standardized comprehensive typology in which total artefact assemblages are considered, and he separated artefact typology from the ordering of assemblages, which he analysed by distinct procedures. Instead of a qualitative diagnosis, he created a quantitative analysis based on percentages of artefact types, debitage types and indices present in a stratigraphic unit. Two standard type-lists have been designed so that every artefact can be identified and counted: one for the Middle Palaeolithic (Bordes 1950) and one for the Upper Palaeolithic (de Sonneville-Bordes 1960). The percentage frequency of types present in different stratigraphic units and indices regarding the flint flakes are drawn on a cumulative graph where they are ordered according to their rank in the type-list. The resultant graph visually summarizes resemblances or differences between the stratigraphic units under study. In spite of inherent defects such as subjectivity in distributing artefacts between types and lack of sampling strategy (Kerrich and Clarke 1967), this method has not been surpassed; only equalled by much more complicated computing procedures (Azoury and Hodson 1973; Newcomer and Hodson 1973). Being a very simple method, it is still in use (Gaussen 1980).


172 FranVoise Audouze and Andre Leroi-Gourhan

The argument about style and function in Palaeolithic assemblages that arose between L. R. Binford (1973) and F. Bordes compelled Bordes to make his hypothesis explicit, but he declined to consider the problem of the origins and changes of culture, asserting that locations in space and time were the only elements to be defined at this stage of research (i.e. he accepted only a classificatory paradigm). Bordes vigorously advocated the existence of stylistic differences between the four Mousterian traditions and thus of several parallel phyla (Bordes 1973).

Though working in the same field as Bordes, G. Laplace holds a very strange place in French archaeology: a few years after Bordes, he built up a new procedure for the comprehensive analysis of flint artefacts and for the comparison of assemblages among themselves (1964, 1966). This 'synthetotype' met with complete opposition from French prehistorians. His method included a type-list as well as an attribute-list. Though more systematic and analytical than Bordes's procedure, it was more difficult to use, with a very abstruse vocabulary and names replaced by figures. It was less adapted to Upper Palaeolithic industries from southwestern France than Bordes's procedure. After too short a debate (Bordes 1965), Laplace's work was discarded in France while it was adopted in Spain and Italy where Bordes and D. de Sonneville-Bordes's lists were less useful (Ammerman 1971).

Another attempt at understanding in depth the structure of lithic typology was Michel Brezillon's work La Denomination des objets de pierre taillee (1968). His detailed analysis of all the existing definitions of types led to a better evaluation of the origins of types and of their variability. His work included a very original semiologic approach to typology which was only very briefly summarized in the first chapter.

Since the beginning of the 1950s a second current emerged. It developed along three lines: the first was a re-examination of digging techniques and strategies allowing more scientific col- lection of data and the recovery of information relative to living floors. One of the very rare manuals of excavation was published in 1950 (Leroi-Gourhan 1950b). Archaeological sites were considered as archives destroyed by excavations, and data recording had to be systematic and total. Premises of the 'ethnographic digging' procedure (see below) were set up at this time during several excavations at La Caverne des Furtins (Leroi-Gourhan 1950a), the second hypogea of Les Mournouards (Leroi-Gourhan, Bailloud and Brezillon 1962) and in the caves of Arcy-sur- Cure (Leroi-Gourhan 1961). The influence of Soviet excavations played a part in this development as well as the marxist notion of archaeology as the history of material culture.

Along a second line, this current tended to set prehistoric archaeology on a firmer base through intense criticism and reassessment of archaeological sources and interpretations. Its main manifestation was Les Religions de la prehistoire (Leroi-Gourhan 1964a), which advocated a re-examination of all so-called religious and ritual facts and the re-orientation of excavations toward spatial analysis (ibid: 7-9). This book was partly misunderstood abroad (Klejn 1977). It was only taken as a denial of the value of ethnographic comparisons and as a willingness to deal only with the information provided by excavation. Besides the call for excavations allowing spatial analysis, this work introduced the important notion of a hierarchy in interpretation: natural and technological explanations had to be given greater importance than social or religious explanations because their probability was higher and because mechanical contingencies and technological determinism were easier to detect. Finally, there was to be the search for statistical regularities among associations of data (mainly in prehistoric art). At this stage, looking for clean data and significant distributions or associations seemed more urgent than interpretation.



Though looking for obvious or hidden structures among data (mapped artefacts or painted animals in caves), this position was quite distinct from Levi-Strauss's structuralism and more a part of the general Hegelian family of thought interested in structures.

The third line of this current was the development of techno-morphology (Leroi-Gourhan 1943, 1945, 1964b, 1965; Leroi-Gourhan and Brezillon 1966), which studied man through the materials he used and the way he transformed them. Several notions that would later re-appear in the literature came to light: the need for statistical validation of typologies, the influence of technological determinism and function and of wear and re-sharpening on the shape of tools. Though this last line was not developed by many people at this time, it led to very rich results when attempts were made to re-fit flint-knapping debris with cores (Cahen and Karlin 1980).

The 1960s also saw the beginning of computer archaeology with J. Gardin's works, but this was first directed towards classical and Near Eastern archaeology.

Classical archaeology

It seems more difficult to pinpoint decisive changes in classical archaeology (as well as in Near Eastern archaeology and Egyptology) since these are included in the general evolution of European archaeology.

From the beginning, classical archaeology was linked with history, and merged with history of art, oriented as it was towards monumental architecture (palaces and temples) and epigraphic data collecting. The main steps of its development are the creation of the Academie des Inscrip- tions in 1663, and then of the French School of Archaeology at Athens in 1846, followed by a few others (mainly Rome, Cairo, Beirut, Madrid, Pondicherry in South India). Classical archaeology was supposed to evolve in parallel with history and claimed to adopt the aims of Lucien Febvre's histoire totale but did not really change its strategy and digging techniques to adapt to it. Egyptologists were the first ones to become interested in digging domestic districts in a town, with the excavation of Deir-el-Medineh in 1923. During the fifties, J.-J. Hatt showed an interest in stricter stratigraphic control, but his influence remained limited. It is only at the end of the decade and the beginning of the next one that P. Courbin introduced Wheeler's method of excavation. His teaching at the Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes and the publication of his textbook on digging techniques (Courbin 1963), the first to be oriented towards classical archaeology, had a great influence on the slow improvement which took place during these years. Until the 1960s, French archaeology abroad was much more developed than at home. Great excavations abroad were subsidized by the Foreign Office while metropolitan excavations received meagre allowances from the Ministry of Culture. The former were dedicated to monumental remains and were long-lasting programmes (for example, the excavation at Ras Shamra in Syria, started in 1929 and still going on). These massive projects did not encourage methodological improvements, since they provided enormous quantities of new data which absorbed all the activities of archaeologists.

Later prehistory met particularly unfavourable conditions for its development: after J. Deche- lette's death, during the First World War, occurred a break in later prehistoric researches and a second start around 1960 was due to a few isolated men: G. Bailloud and J. Arnal for the Neo- lithic, J.-J. Hatt, J. Audibert and J.-P. Millotte for the metal age studies. Classifying and ordering the objects from old collections were such lengthy tasks that no attention was paid to methodological problems. All the studies were based upon the comparative method under the leading



influence of the German proto-historians, and diffusionism was the single explanation for change. P. Giot played an important part in the quarrel about the long and short chronologies for the Neolithic and metal ages when C14 dating was introduced in France. His work on megalithic monuments completely renewed the subject and led to a considerable development of later prehistory in Brittany (Giot et al. 1979).

Mediaeval archaeology started during the 1950s under the impulse of M. de Bouard and his laboratory at the University of Caen (1975). To encourage this development, the Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes set up a joint programme with the Polish Academy of Science under P. Courbin's direction to organize excavations of deserted mediaeval villages and benefit from the much longer experience of the Poles in this field (ArcIeologie du village deserte 1970).

Archaeology in France today: a science of observation

Archaeology in France today is the result of the currents that developed during the previous decades. It is characterized by the preponderant importance given to excavations. If automatic computing procedures had not been introduced by J.-C. Gardin during the 1960s, general changes in French archaeology would have proceeded only from improvements in excavations.

Archaeology in France is mainly a science of observation, which explains that most of the improvements during the last years focus on excavation methods. But these improvements have also led to new possibilities in the analysis of data. The notion that absolutely everything had to be collected on a site before destruction, though utopian, nevertheless encouraged the spatial analysis of settlement floors (see for example the use of ochre traces and flint chips at Pincevent (Leroi-Gourhan and Brezillon 1972: 89-99) or the improvements brought about in palaeozoology (Poplin 1976; Desse 1979). It is quite typical that improvements came from empirical progress in observation and data-collecting rather than from theoretical arguments. Moreover, though spatial analysis at site level started rather early (during the 1950s at Arcy-sur-Cure, Yonne), no comprehensive theory was ever published in this country.

In an intensive effort made during the 1 960s to bring French archaeology to a higher scientific level, each school of thought promoted its own approach, emphasizing differences rather than similarities. After ten years, the debate is over and each method is included with an appropriate strategy: ethnographic excavation is dedicated to the study of settlement floors in situ, open area excavation is used for large settlements from which floors disappeared. A third approach now attracting interest is urban archaeology, combining the uncovering of large areas of floors with accurate stratigraphy. A special mention should be made of ecological studies, and interests in technology which have recently beconme popular.

Though their respective supporters would have strongly opposed this assimilation a few years ago, it is clear that ethnographic excavations and open area excavations are but two aspects of the same systematic approach to archaeological sites. They are both concerned with spatial analysis and inter-relations among artefacts. They both rely on spatial models which determine the grid level chosen for recording structures and artefacts and they lead to a true integration of the different methods used in the study, from palynology and palaeozoology to typology, to explain the life of the settlement inhabitants (the word 'interpr&tation' is usually preferred by the French archaeologists to 'explanation' because it takes account of the part of subjectivity inherent in this process). Beyond these essential similarities, the two methods do differ.



Ethnographic excavations This is concerned with settlement floors and is usually restricted to small or middle-size excavations. It is mainly applied to Palaeolithic open-air settlements but also to caves and later sites where such floors exist (Audouze et al. 1981; Allain 1976). The refitting of blocks of raw material (flint and hearth stones), of ceramics and broken bones, together with graphic spatial analysis, are essential for demonstrating the relations between artefacts and their allocation to one structure or another (Cahen et al. 1980).

Though it started early the underlying model on which 'ethnographic excavation' rested was never made totally explicit. It includes two levels: one is a series of assumptions regarding general human behaviour in a domestic space in terms of activity area as opposed to rest area or refuse area; the other is a specific model for Magdalenian habitations which was exposed in the first large-scale excavation of this type, Pincevent in Seine-et-Marne (Leroi-Gourhan and Brezillon 1972: 239-56) (fig. 1). The general model slowly emerged through a long collective discussion

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176 Fran!oise Audouze and Andre Leroi-Gourhan

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on terminology at the 'Sd'minaire sur les structures d'habitat' de la Chaire de Predhistoire du Coll'ege de France (Laboratoire d'Ethnologie pr6historique 1973, 1975, 1978). This task was undertaken to give an objective base to the description of data collected during the excavations. The resulting vocabulary has ever since proved its efficiency for sites of various dates (for example, de Lumley and Boone 1976; Masset 1972; Rigaud 1976; Tixier, Marmier and Trecolle 1976).



A controversial debate took place during the last decade about the reality of such settlement floors. F. Bordes argued that it was not possible to isolate one human occupancy at a time on a settlement floor and thus to define structures of habitation except under extremely infrequent circumstances (Bordes, Rigaud and de Sonneville-Bordes 1972; Bordes 1975). The controversy rose again for a while when the first spatial analysis on a thick archaeological level came out (Van Noten 1978; F. Bordes 1980a, b; Cahen 1980). But the existence of spatially structured floors on thin archaeological levels is now broadly accepted.

It is quite characteristic of the absence of theoretical and methodological debate in France that the propagation of this method did not take place thanks to any excavation manual, but through students trained at the Pincevent site and through the Pincevent publication. Among others, it influenced the French-speaking Swiss archaeologists who, in turn, influenced archaeologists in eastern France. In this lakes area, the ethnographic excavation method allied to new digging techniques gave very interesting results on Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements (Bois- aubert et al. 1974; Bocquet 1979). The ethnographic method is now broadly accepted in France for prehistoric sites and has a deep influence on excavations of all periods especially metropolitan excavations (Ferdiere 1980).

Open-area excavations

The second strategy, open-area excavations, was first introduced to France by the Czech archaeologist, B. Soudsky, as a coherent global approach. He had set up his method on the exemplary site of Bylany in Czechoslovakia, and was one of the first archaeologists to use computing procedures to record and analyse his data. At the same time as he started teaching on late prehistory at the University of Paris I, he organized large-scale rescue excavations of linear pottery and La Tene settlements in the Aisne river valley. The lack of settlement floors in such sites allowed him to focus on traces of structure foundations after the topsoil had been removed by machine- stripping. The recording system was based on structures, or on a square metre grid inside large structures. B. Soudsky's method relied upon three models operating at distinct levels which were very clearly defined, probably because of his use of computers. The first model gives a systematic account of possible relations among settlement structures (Cleuziou and Demoule 1980a: 101-2), then comes a model for linear pottery houses and their surroundings (Soudsky 1969) and, at a higher level, a model for defining cultures and culturalfaci6s (Soudsky 1973). Though re-shaped through the concepts of diffusionism, movements of populations and local change, it seems that the old genetic model is still in use here, implying the derivation of cultures from one another in an arborescent system. In ethnographic excavations this question is not raised at all, the diachronic dimension being considered only to question the possible contemporaneity of different structures.

These models have been used mainly in the Aisne valley project (Vallee de l'Aisne 1973-8). Because of the higher cost of such excavations, and because of the small revolution they introduced by choosing a preselected level for recording data, they first met with strong hostility. The scientific value of this method is now acknowledged, but very few similar projects have since been undertaken because of their expense and because of the individualism of most French archaeologists. However, mention should be made of the on-going project of Villeneuve-Tolosane in southern France and a few Gallo-Roman or mediaeval projects (Demolon 1972; Ferdiere 1975). In one case. at Noyen (Seine-et-Marne), C. and D. Mordant (1977) made an interesting



compromise between the two methods, uncovering a large open-area by machine-stripping and then digging by hand and mapping all finds according to the ethnographic excavation method. Large-scale open-area excavations are now always preceded by aerial surveys. The use of aerial photography has greatly expanded, mainly in northern and central France during the last fifteen years (Agache 1978). But it is not yet considered to be a complete professional occupation and there is only one full-time archaeologist specializing in aerial survey in the Aisne region.

Urban excavations

In the past few years, the young generation of classical and mediaeval archaeologists have reacted against the overwhelming preponderance of the ethnographic excavation method in their field, and especially against the so-called 'Courbin-Wheeler' method because it was not exactly adapted to the problems they had to face. Consequently, under the influence of mediaeval and urban English and Dutch archaeology (Barker 1977), they have designed an appropriate strategy resulting from a combination of ail the others. This is characterized by excavations on large areas, by a very careful analysis of stratigraphy performed on many thin layers (which are destroyed as soon as they are no longer needed for controlling the succession of layers and structures), by horizontal stripping by hand, following natural floors and by a three-dimensional recording of finds. As in the Aisne valley project, a computer is often used in these excavations to record the data collected during the excavation. Four projects are currently proceeding at Douai, Lyon, Saint-Denis and Tours (Galinie 1980). But this renewal seems limited to metropolitan excavations. Traditional digging techniques which are well suited for recovering architecture are used without much change on monumental sites abroad. But the introduction of photogrammetry, where archaeologists can afford it, has certainly improved graphic data collecting.

The ecological approach

As a matter of fact, it is now difficult to delineate different approaches in French archaeology, for all successful tendencies have influenced other ones. Every project includes a multi-disciplinary study of the environment and any deficiencies in this area are usually due to lack of researchers or of money. However, it is possible to distinguish in prehistory a group of both prehistorians and proto-historians who emphasize ecological studies. They usually do this within a diachronic perspective and consider changes in the environment. Among them, should be mentioned the Laboratoire de Paleontologie humaine et de Pr6histoire de Marseille (de Lumley 1975), The Institut du Quaternaire de Bordeaux (Laville and Renault-Miskovsky 1977), the Centre d'An- thropologie des Societes rurales de Toulouse which runs the 'Anthropologie et Ecologie pyrdn- 6ennes' project (Guilaine et al. 1979). The precursors of this current were P. Ducos and J. and M.-C. Cauvin, whose project was the first to be explicitly oriented towards ecology: 'Ecologie humaine des communautes villageoises primitives'. While one may regret that most ecological research projects lack consistency and are often a patchwork of parallel studies, this last project is certainly the most integrated one and has led to important results on the origin of the domes- tication of plants and animals (Ducos 1968; Cauvin 1978).

The technological approach

The last years have seen a strong development of dissatisfaction among lithic typologists. The


Plate 2 Ras Shamra, Syria. Domestic room with storage jars and basalt mortars. Thirteenth century BC. (Photograph: A. Caubet.)

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180 Fran_9oise Audouze and Andre Leroi-Gourhan

feeling that the Bordes method had achieved a particular task but did not allow further progress, that automatic procedures had failed as well to produce new results, has led researchers working in this field to try new directions. New alternatives have been proposed in two colloquia held at Senanque (Camps-Fabrer 1976, 1977) and one held at Valbonne (Prehistoire et technologie lithique 1980). The first one allies attribute analysis and technological studies on bone tools. The other is a technological study of flint-knapping where the flint tool is considered as a part of a technical process. This is achieved by re-fitting the tool into the original block of raw material, and by experimental knapping (Cahen and Karlin 1980; Tixier et al. 1980). The latter approach is also directed towards the economy of raw materials (Demars 1980; Perles 1980). Attribute analysis, though successful for later periods, is still not as efficient as expected for prehistoric data (Delporte and Maziere 1977; Boutin et al. 1977).

This shift from typology to technology can also be found in late prehistory and historical periods, where petrography and metallography have renewed the study of objects (Leroux 1976; Giot et al. 1964-5: Mohen 1980; Fontes et al. 1980). Even such a field traditionally dedicated to the history of art as Roman mural paintings is now being studied from a technical point of view (Barbet and Allag 1972).

Changes in classical archaeology

Classical and Middle Eastern archaeology still proceed through monumental excavations and urban studies (Margueron 1980). But some changes of focus can be perceived: archaic and late periods are preferred to classical (Bounni et al. 1979; Courbin 1977-8); there is a shift from the central areas to the periphery, with large excavations of Greek and Roman periods in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Afghanistan (Martin 1976-7).

Besides large monumental remains, attention is paid to smaller or earlier buildings, and to raw mud-brick constructions as well as to fired brick palaces and temples (Jarrige and Lechevallier 1979; Arnaud et al. 1979; Dollfuss and Hesse 1977). Special studies are dedicated to civil districts, to domestic architecture and spatial organization (Yon et al. n.d.: figs 3 and 4). Accumulations of data during half a century now allow rich synthesis even without change in the conceptual frame (Margueron 1977; Aupert and Callot 1980). Repercussions of the changes in the French school of history have led to more attention being paid to environment, the human influence on landscape and to socio-economics (Jourdan 1976; Vallet and Villard 1963; Vallet et al. 1976).

Computing science and theory in archaeology

The introduction of computing science in archaeology gave an opportunity to archaeologists from all fields to meet and discuss subjects of common interest. It obliged many of them to pay more attention to the conceptual bases of archaeology. Before the end of the 1960s, they had been very little interested in building theories. This could be explained by the conservatism of classicists and by the exaggerated descriptivism of prehistorians (Cleuziou and Demoule 1980b: 11) but also by the extreme partitioning of the different archaeologies which did not allow a general view of the field. The drastic change was the work of Jean-Claude Gardin, whose researches have been centred on documentation techniques and archaeological reasoning since the end of the fifties. He worked on problems related to systematic description of archaeological artefacts (1963); he tried to devise rules of description to avoid the usual inconvenience of verbalism in



documentation work and proposed the first operational chain of information storage and retrieval (1971). The laboratory that he created, the Centre d'Analyse Documentaire pour l'Archeologie, had a preponderant influence on all archaeologists interested in computing procedures either for data analysis (Borillo, Gardin and Jaulin 1968; Gardin 1970) or for documentation and data banks (Borillo and Gardin 1974; Borillo and Bourrelly 1976), and it was associated with most of the projects initiated in the early 1970s.

After ten years, a certain disillusion has replaced the original enthusiasm. Most data banks have failed. Out of the fourteen projects that had been presented at the Marseilles colloquium in 1974, just six have been achieved but two have no users and the others are only partially or experimentally used because of conceptual reasons or from institutional opposition (Cleuziou and Demoule 1980b: 9; Ginouves and Guimier-Sorbets 1979).

Classifications, seriations and discriminant analysis applied to unsuitable data have given few results (Audouze 1976). A debate is now open on the necessity to take into account, or not, the probabilistic perspective in archaeological analysis. The Benz6cris' statistical school opposed this and proposed a set of complementary methods (factor analysis, classification, seriation, discriminant analysis, etc.) that used euclidian distances, and did not imply a probabilistic hypothesis Benzecri et al. 1973; Jambu 1978; Benz6cri and Benz6cri 1980). This very efficient set of programmes has recently been favoured by archaeologists (Mohen 1980).

Both data banks and data analysis have made a new start on more modest, but theoretically firmer, bases. Several data banks of excavations are operational, for example for the sites of Salamis of Cyprus, Levroux and the Aisne valley. The diffusion of micro-computers is now changing the dimensions of the problem and no clear evaluation of the near future can be made.

The theoretical field studied by J.-C. Gardin is linked to computing science, since he has been concerned with problems of logic in archaeological reasoning. In a recent synthesis (1979), he analyses the intellectual operations in archaeology and proposes a chain of logical operations necessary to produce a scientific work in the human sciences: definition of goals - data-collecting - interpretation - validation. This formalism is an interesting rationalization of the archaeological process, but does not solve the theoretical problem of the formation of hypotheses.

However, the influence of J.-C. Gardin has been considerable on the generation who graduated around 1970 and will certainly influence archaeological writings over the next years.

Influences from abroad

Until now, French archaeology has remained out of international trends except for excavations abroad. Several reasons can be put forward: the linguistic barrier, institutional restraints (lack of libraries, predominance of rescue excavations) and a general preference by archaeologists for empirical and pragmatic procedures.

However, archaeologists working on excavations abroad are usually concerned with the same themes as their colleagues, but are very seldom engaged in general debates. Researches on the origins of man and Australopithecines in eastern Africa are practised according to international standards. But they give a special importance to ethnographic excavations whenever they can take place on Acheulean settlement floors (Chavaillon et al. 1979). The origins of the domesti- cation of plants and animals, which is a world-wide subject of interest, have been first studied outside, and then within France, as was the origin of sedentarization and urbanization (Perrot 1962). While regional spatial analysis is seldom practised in France, it is one of the main discussion


182 Frangoise Audouze and Andre Leroi-Gourhan

topics of the French abroad (for example Lavalle et al. 1976; Gardin and Lyonnet 1979). They often are engaged in international projects such as 'The human occupation of Susiana during the fifth millennium' conducted by a French archaeological delegation in Iran, and Michigan, Rice and Chicago universities. But the influence of metropolitan prehistorians appears in the methods and in the special interest given to specific settlement structures such as hearths (Dollfuss and Hesse 1977).

The way French archaeologists reacted to the American New Archaeology is typical of the superficial penetration of foreign ideas. Though many of them had read the writings of L. and S. R. Binford there were no written reactions before 1973. No one expressed the commonly shared feeling of defiance in front of the gap which existed between the theoretical models and available data. Two papers came out in 1973: the first one expressed F. Bordes's denial (see below), the other was an enthusiastic account of the New Archaeology (Cleuziou et al. 1973). The hypothetico-deductive model was never adopted. However, the New Archaeology contributed to widen the scope of French archaeology and to introduce socio-economic explanations for culture changes. Several fields adjacent to archaeology were developed in France under the influence of British and American archaeology, such as archaeometry, environmental studies and more recently ethnoarchaeology.

The latter is just starting in France and only small studies on technological topics have so far been attempted (Bernus and Gouletquer 1976; Stordeur 1980; Jarrige and Audouze 1980) or on settlements (Digard 1975). A few large-scale projects of investigation and experimentation are now starting (Coudart n.d.; Audouze and Perles 1980).

A virtual state of crisis

French archaeology today has inherited a prestigious tradition, but the lack of personnel and funds led to impoverishment between the two world wars. Like other European countries, it has gone through deep changes through the last twenty years. Excavation methods have been modernized and inserted in scientific strategies. Archaeological projects have really become multi-disciplinary with the adjunction of archaeometry, environmental and computer sciences. The long-term funding of large excavations abroad has produced unique information on urbanism, as at Angkor in Cambodia, Susa in Iran or Ras Shamra in Syria.

However, French archaeology is in a virtual state of crisis. The transformation has concerned only a few laboratories with space, money and numerous researchers at their disposal. Labora- tories for archaeometry, computing applications and restoration are, by far, too few, and the gap between supply and demand for archaeometric and environmental analysis constantly grows.

Two reports (Soustelle 1974; Chapelot et al. 1979) have clearly analysed the elements of the crisis and show that, in spite of all the changes performed during the twenty last years, its main causes remain unchanged. They mainly consist of an imbalance between the cursus studiorum and recruitment to professional positions, in the existence of two parallel cursus leading to different recruitments, and the lack of co-ordination between the universities, the Service des Fouilles and the Centre National de la Recherche scientifique. Compared with other Euro- pean countries, there is an important lack of professional archaeologists, which explains the ex- ceptionally important part still played by the amateurs, and the prevalence of rescue excavations



over planned excavations; however, there has been a slight reverse of trend during the last two years.

Important departments of archaeology with research laboratories of an international level and with specialized libraries are too few, and this may explain why French archaeology is so impervious to European currents of thought, especially theoretical ones.

Only a drastic change in the national policy of archaeology and education and much more co-operation with the archaeological institutions of the European countries could reverse the situation. Though it is possible to exhibit many interesting results and new trends of research initiated by individuals or by a few laboratories, there now needs to be a general development to raise the whole field to an international level.

Note: We are grateful to A. Caubet, A. Schnapp, C. Girard and C. Perles for their advice and their help in assembling the bibliography.

1 7.iv.1981 CNRS, Paris

Laboratoire d 'Ethnologie prMhistorique College de France, Paris

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Abstract

Audouze, F. and Leroi-Gourhan, A.

France: a continental insularity

French archaeology has experienced a separate development from the rest of Europe partly because of the preponderant importance of Palaeolithic researches. After a century dedicated to classification of artefacts, the interest has shifted towards excavations. The largest improvements and changes during the past two decades have been concerned with methods and strategies of excavation as well as data collecting. Open-air and urban excavations have been adopted under the influence of B. Soudsky and British and Dutch archaeologists. Ethnographic excavations are a more specific creation of French palaeolithic archaeologists. Several approaches are currently developing which focus on ecology, technology and socio-economics. But discoveries and improvements are due to individuals, and if a dynamic policy of development of the field is not engaged in the next years, French archaeology will suffer a serious crisis.


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Issue Table of ContentsWorld Archaeology, Vol. 13, No. 2, Regional Traditions of Archaeological Research I (Oct., 1981), pp. 133-270Volume InformationFront MatterEditorial [pp. 133-137]Anglo-American Archaeology [pp. 138-155]Archaeology and Chinese Historiography [pp. 156-169]France: A Continental Insularity [pp. 170-189]Archaeology South of the Rio Grande [pp. 190-208]From Artefacts to Timetables to Maps (to Mankind?): Regional Traditions in Archaeological Research in Scandinavia [pp. 209-221]Traditions of Archeological Research in the near East [pp. 222-239]Archaeology in the Netherlands: Delta Archaeology [pp. 240-254]Cambridge in the Bush? Archaeology in Australia and New Guinea [pp. 255-263]Books Received from Publishers as at 21 May 1981 [pp. 269-270]Back Matter [pp. 265-268]

Leroi Gourhan France

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