The ‘Toolbox’ Paradigm
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 04/08/2019

If archaeology is to maintain its academic worth and its status as a cardinal system to understand the human past, then archaeology must adequately come to terms with methodological advances in genetics. The ‘toolbox’ paradigm is the solution. This relativist, eclectic, multi-disciplinary, evidence-based theoretical approach holds optimum insight into the past as its goal and recognises that there are many ways of achieving that. It sees genetics as an archaeological tool, albeit one which has been sharpened. Rather than blindly accepting findings from not-strictly archaeological disciplines, it applies extra scrutiny to them. My paper discusses current understandings of the archaeo-linguistic origins of Celtic and Indo-European, embodying the ‘toolbox’ paradigm whilst doing so.

Johnnie Gallacher (Guard Archaeology)

TAG Deva 2018
Session: Integrating Theory and Science in Archaeology