ABSTRACT
Reader in Archaeology at the University of Reading, Härke is both a skilled excavator and a superb theoretician. His own work, as he explains, has provided evidence that almost certainly points to migration into the British Isles in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Yet some scholars contest his findings and, paradoxically, do so for completely opposite reasons. Why, the author asks? His answer will not surprise readers of this book, but it will open for them some new perspectives. Härke argues that contemporary concerns drive archaeological debate. We have already seen this to be the case where ethnicity is concerned—and Härke says a little on this topic at the end of this article. But his primary focus is on the venerable subject of migration. Once it was taken for granted. Then it was basically ignored as being of little interest or explanatory power. Finally, some scholars, mainly in Britain and to a degree in the USA, strictly deny that migration took place while German archaeologists talk of migration as if there were no controversy swirling around it. The reader will find Härke very clear on the basic issues. What the reader will want to keep in mind is how Härke’s discussion contributes to a better understanding of the ways in which scholars now talk about migration in Late Antiquity. A word of explanation may help readers with some of Härke’s terminology. “Processual” archaeology was dominant from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. Processualists sought to articulate large-scale theories, to use replicable, scientific methods, to maintain rigorous objectivity and ethical neutrality. They were generally uninterested in ethnicity and focused on culture as “extrasomatic” (literally, outside the body; that is, not in some sense innate). “Post-processualists” share much with postmodernists in other disciplines. They tend to reject large-scale generalizations, to be dubious about scientific methods, and to be scornful of ethical neutrality.
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