Pathways to World Prehistory Presidential Address 1994

Abstract

Several previous Presidents, most notably Professor Sir Grahame Clark, have stressed in their presidential addresses the worldwide scope of our subject; but so far only one, my distinguished predecessor, Thurstan Shaw, has chosen to speak mainly about the prehistory of a non-European part of the world, in his case Africa (Shaw 1990). My aim today is to develop this theme by exploring three pathways to world prehistory: first, the pathway followed by the Society itself; second, the pathway that led humanity to people the world's continents; and third, the pathway that links prehistoric archaeology to the concerns of the modern world. This agenda may appear unrealistically ambitious for a short address, but, by briefly considering these three inter-twined pathways, I hope to show that the study of prehistory is not only worthwhile for its own sake, but that it also has direct relevance to the social and political problems of our late 20th century world.On the occasion of our 50th Anniversary Conference, held in Norwich in March 1985, Grahame Clark described the eventful history of the Society, and that of its predecessor, the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia. He analyzed the trend in membership and publication that signalled the Society's transformation, from a local band of mainly amateur enthusiasts to a national society of professional and amateur prehistorians, with, increasingly, an international view of their subject (Clark 1985). The sub-title of Professor Clark's paper — From East Anglia to the World — neatly encapsulated this theme, which he illustrated by analyzing the geographical coverage of articles published in the Proceedings between 1911 and 1982: an analysis that brought up-to-date the earlier examination of publication trends that he had included in his own Presidential Address in 1959 (Clark 1959).

Neolithic and Bronze Age Norfolk

“…Prehistoric studies in East Anglia have a long and distinguished history (Clark 1985), where the Prehistoric Society's parent body was founded in 1908 (Harris 1994). During the first half of the present century Norfolk achieved national prominence in British prehistoric research, notably through the extensive collection and publication of flint objects on an unprecedented scale (Clark 1985) and from the much-debated excavation campaigns at Grime's Graves and the Arminghall henge.…”

The World Archaeological Congress in India: politicizing the past

“…The Christians at that time were about onethird of the population of Egypt, tool in fashioning the identity of 'nations'. Today, it is dragged into the political arena to legitimize territorial claims or fuel ethnic 'pride' in former Yugoslavia, the Balkans and some republics of the former Soviet Union (Harris 1994;Rowlands 1994;Chapman 1994). Appeal to cultural heritage from the ducal Palace at Urbino to Bronze Age metallurgy is also put forward at present to establish that there is a common European ideni-ity.…”