Archaelogy and Cultural Nationalism In the American Southwest, 1895-1920

Traditional histories of archaeology have been described by a recent commentator as resembling travel journals, providing "an account of the slow journey out of the darkness of subjectivity and speculation towards objectivity, rationality, and science" (Murray 1989:56). In recent years new approaches to this subject have taken a more critical look at the tangled social and intellectual currents surrounding the development of archaeology. One of the least contestable points to arise from the current theoretical debates within the discipline is that of the fundamental relationship between the observer/scientist and the production of knowledge (for example, Leone 1986). This topic is central to modern sociocultural anthropology (Stocking 1983) and is particularly pertinent to the history the field.