ABSTRACT
It is a commonplace to say that archeology ought not to be a mere accumulation of inert facts, an oft-reiterated typological enumeration in which the force of the scientist is devitalized in an endless series of minute classifications with many contradictions. We are all trying to avoid the denomination of “reliquarians,” which Russian authors sometimes employ disparagingly, or the not-lessdisparaging term of pucherólogos, which some Spanish colleagues have directed toward us on occasion. But it is not easy to avoid the epithets that the study of the cultural material may impose upon an archeologist. On the one hand, prehistory is a science that is still young and has not yet been able to assemble a sufficient amount of material to give us a satisfactory scheme of the cultural evolution in the earliest times in the life of mankind. On the other hand, a socioeconomic interpretation of archeological data is much more difficult than would appear at first sight.
