Gustaf Kossinna and the Concept of Culture in Archaeology

Abstract

The paper analyses the role of the German archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna in the formation of the idea of archaeological culture. Often this concept is taken as an unquestionable given and Kossinna’s life and work have been presented as an exception in the European archaeology, but it may be much more productive to consider it as "the tip of an iceberg". It is argued that the simplified concept of ethnicity and the search for its reflections in the archaeological record have long become commonplace of the discipline, and considered almost irreplaceable in the local archaeological community.