Quo vadis archaeologia?

Abstract

The direction and velocity of scientific progress are difficult to predict. Nevertheless, reflecting on disciplinary changes and their consequences within and outside the discipline remains a constant task and responsibility of scientists. Archaeology, in the two hundred years of its history, has been seen in various different ways – as one of the humanities, a historical science, as part of anthropology or classics, as a social science and sometimes even as a natural science. Such views did not simply replace each other but frequently existed in parallel, competing with and complementing each other. In other words, archaeology was and still is somewhat elusive. It cannot be easily classified as a single type of science, as it transcended all these categories, even more so today. What are the reasons for this elusiveness? Can archaeology be explained with one general all-encompassing theory? These questions are addressed by the authors in the present issue of Ars & Humanitas, which also celebrates 100 years of teaching archaeology at the University of Ljubljana.

Keywords

• archaeology
• discipline
• theory
• epistemology