Archaeology as Anthropology

In a famous phrase, Philip Phillips (1955:246-247) stated that "New World archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing." A few years later, Robert Braidwood made a similar characterization for the Old World (see epigraph). That these well-established archaeologists were motivated to make such pronouncements indicates a sense of uncertainty even then of the relationship between archaeology and anthropology. This uncertainty has not abated, and nearly 50 years later the relationship has become more strained. Archaeology in the United States, as in many other countries, is viable outside of anthropology. Academically it is housed in nonanthropology departments, institutes, and interdisciplinary programs at a number of universities. Most professional archaeologists are employed outside the academy where their identity as anthropologists (if it exists) is often muted (see Bender and Smith 2000; Zeder 1997:46). The notion that American departments of anthropology should necessarily include archaeology as a major subfield of the discipline and that all anthropology students should be required to take classes in archaeology (e.g., Strong 1952) is being questioned. Within anthropology departments, formal or informal divisions separating archaeology, biological anthropology, and sociocultural/ linguistic anthropology are becoming more common.