Disciplinary History in Paleoanthropology and Archaeology Quiz

The Importance of Disciplinary History in Paleoanthropology and Archaeology

• The question of whether disciplinary history matters in paleoanthropology and archaeology has been debated.
• Some argue that studying the history of these fields is unnecessary and that they are not serious and respectable areas of research.
• However, there are good reasons to study the history of science, including the heuristic value of historical studies and the dangers of complacency and fragmentation.
• Ernst Mayr classified historical approaches into elaborated lexicographic histories, chronological histories, biographical histories, cultural and sociological histories, and problematic histories.
• The historicist approach may give rise to reflection and improve the discipline.
• Dennell sees two further lessons from science history: awareness of the dangers of fragmentation and complacency.
• The lack of dialogue and understanding between anthropological disciplines is a fatal risk.
• The present in biological anthropology is rooted in the past, and the study of human origins is a search for windows that give us access to the past.
• Paleoanthropologists, prehistorians, and archaeologists seek windows to the past but use different sets of keys.
• A fatal danger is that we may mistake a mirror for a window and simply extrapolate onto the past our own views and prejudices about the present.
• The challenge of paleoanthropological research and other evolutionary sciences is to create models, which involves contextual hypothesis testing and scientific speculation.
• Every scientist needs to arrive at innovative solutions within a channeled imagination.