ABSTRACT
The relationship between linguistics and archaeology has been affected by both the internal dynamic of the disciplines in question and external political and social trends. Many archaeologists still feel that archaeology and linguistics do not share much common ground; some of the reasons for that are internal to archaeology, whilst others can be traced to the sometimes startling misuse of these linkages by earlier scholars. The idea of a relationship between a linguistic prehistory and an archaeological prehistory is a seductive one, but in the past it has often led to dangerous liaisons. Linguistic nationalism still engenders a rich emotional harvest at present, often for good reason, since the suppression of minority languages is commonly a prominent feature of totalitarian governments. The positivist tradition is tempting to dismiss both marginal historical linguistics and nationalist ideology as forgotten errors of a past epoch.
