ABSTRACT
Archaeology has three basic perspectives: traditional, processual and post-processual. Traditional archaeology is aligned with historiography, as an approach that tries to understand history through material remains. This chapter focuses on the Kalahari debate, its roots in ethnography and archaeology, and some of its wider implications. Kalahari traditionalists emphasize the uniqueness of Bushman culture and the relative isolation of Bushman society. Kalahari revisionists emphasize culture contact and the place of Bushmen within a wider political economy of trade, class relations and forced marginalization. Typically, the Kalahari debate is understood as a battle between the two polarized communities: traditionalists and revisionists. The core of the Kalahari debate consists of a series of articles and short comments published in the journal Anthropology. Traditionalist ethnographies portray San society as relatively unchanging. San society had forms of social organization which were both ancient and adaptive, and outside forces were of minimal influence.
