Permitted, or excluded: ‘Scientific’ archaeology and the maintenance of legitimating myths

Abstract

‘Scientific’ archaeology advocated by mainstream American archaeologists since the 1960s has tended to narrow ‘science’ to what Kuhn termed normal science, that is, research constrained by a ruling paradigm. This paradigm is based on the Myth of Columbus legitimating European invasions, conquests, and dispossessions of American nations by asserting that until October 1492, the Americas were a wilderness inhabited by savages. European international law held that Christians had the right to invade non-Christian nations and convert them by force if necessary. American schools teach that American Indians lacked the arts of civilization, and this early socialization persists in archaeologists’ models of pre-contact American nations. The paper looks at the “Core system” of the discipline, a recent interest in ‘historicizing’ the pre-contact American past, and the issue of transoceanic contacts before Columbus.