Archaeology and Oral Tradition: The Scientific Importance of Dialogue

Author:
  • PWPeter M. Whiteley
    Peter M. Whiteley
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Abstract
Scientific archaeology and indigenous oral traditions have long been estranged. While there appears to be something of a thaw in recent years, the terms of epistemological engagement are unclear. Are these different modes of constituting the past heuristically compatible at all? Or should they, as the postmodernists would avow, simply be treated as alternative narratives in the intractable culture wars, where the privileged truth-claims of science are dismissed as a spurious arrogance? Focusing on an example from Hopi oral tradition, this paper argues that objective archaeological explanation can gain a great deal, without any loss of analytical rigor, by treating oral traditions not as scientifically unassimilable myths but as a primary source of evidence and interpretation of past social formations. The need for dialogue, then, is important not just as a matter of multicultural diplomacy, but for the enhancement of scientific explanation itself.