Archaeology and Oral Tradition: The Scientific Importance of Dialogue

• DOI: 10.2307/1593819
• Publication Date: 2006-04-19T07:39:16Z
• Authors: Peter M. Whiteley
• Keywords: Hopi

Scientific archaeology and indigenous oral traditions have long been estranged. While there appears to be something of a thaw in recent years, the terms epistemological engagement are unclear. Are these different modes constituting past heuristically compatible at all? Or should they, as postmodernists would avow, simply treated alternative narratives intractable culture wars, where privileged truth-claims science dismissed spurious arrogance? Focusing on an example from Hopi tradition, this paper argues that objective archaeological explanation can gain great deal, without any loss analytical rigor, by treating not scientifically unassimilable myths but primary source evidence interpretation social formations. The need for dialogue, then, is important just matter multicultural diplomacy, enhancement scientific itself.