Abstraction in Archaeological Stratigraphy: a Pyrenean Lineage of Innovation (late 19th-early 21th century)

In Sophie de Beaune, Alessandro Guidi, Oscar Moro Abadía & Massimo Tarantini (eds.), New Advances in the History of Archaeology. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 78-92 (2021)
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Abstract

Methodological innovations have a special status in disciplinary histories, because they can be widely adopted and anonymised. In the 1950s, this occurred to Georges Laplace’s innovative use of 3-dimensional metric Cartesian coordinate system to record the positions of archaeological objects. This paper proposes a conceptual and social history of this process, with a focus on its spatial context, the Pyrenean region (Spain, Basque Country, and France). Main results of this research based on archives, publications, and bibliometric data, include: 1) a critical discussion of the notions concerning authorship of such methodological innovations; 2) a presentation of the lesser-known aspects of Laplace’s method, showing its contribution to the abstraction and formalisation of archaeological observations and data recording; and 3) the identification of an international Pyrenean intellectual lineage of innovation regarding stratigraphy and excavation methods, from the late 19th century to the early 21th century.

Author's Profile

Sébastien Plutniak
École Française De Rome

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