While Adams criticized the migration of identifiable "peoples" or "tribes" was deconstructed as a "creationist" legacy based in biblical literalism, Smith (1966) had made a similar argument deconstructing the idea of "nations" or "tribes" as a "primordalistic" misconception based in modern nationalism.Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, 1966) pp. 6ff, coined the term "primordalistic" to separate these thinkers from those who view ethnicity as a situational construct. The support of " diffusionist", i.e. non-migrationist, views has thus been associated with anti-nationalism and progressivism since the 1970s. While mainstream western archaeology maintained moderate scenarios of migrationism in spite of such criticism, it did move away from "invasionism". The mainstream view came to depict prehistoric cultural change as the result of gradual, limited migration of a small population that would consequently become influential in spreading new ideas but would contribute little to the succeeding culture's biological ancestry. Thus, the mainstream position on the Neolithic Revolution in Europe as developed (notably by German archaeologist Jens Lüning) since the 1980s, posits that "a small group of immigrants inducted the established inhabitants of Central Europe into sowing and milking" in a process spreading "in swift pace, in a spirit of 'peaceful cooperation'" Migration was generally seen as being a slow process, involving family groups moving into new areas and settling amongst the native population, described as "demic diffusion" or "wave of advance", in which population would be essentially sedentary but expand by the colonisation of new territory by succeeding generations.
While Adams criticized the migration of identifiable "peoples" or "tribes" was deconstructed as a "creationist" legacy based in biblical literalism, Smith (1966) had made a similar argument deconstructing the idea of "nations" or "tribes" as a "primordalistic" misconception based in modern nationalism.Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, 1966) pp. 6ff, coined the term "primordalistic" to separate these thinkers from those who view ethnicity as a situational construct. Historian Alex Woolf notes that " in the minds of some scholars, immobilism was charged with a left-wing cache; those who showed too much interest in the ethnic or racial origin of the people they studied were, it was hinted, guilty of racist tendencies."Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 709-1070 (2007: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 291 While mainstream western archaeology maintained moderate scenarios of migrationism in spite of such criticism, it did move away from "invasionism". The mainstream view came to depict prehistoric cultural change as the result of gradual, limited migration of a small population that would consequently become influential in spreading new ideas but would contribute little to the succeeding culture's biological ancestry. Thus, the mainstream position on the Neolithic Revolution in Europe as developed (notably by German archaeologist Jens Lüning) since the 1980s, posits that "a small group of immigrants inducted the established inhabitants of Central Europe into sowing and milking" in a process spreading "in swift pace, in a spirit of 'peaceful cooperation'" Migration was generally seen as being a slow process, involving family groups moving into new areas and settling amongst the native population, described as "demic diffusion" or "wave of advance", in which population would be essentially sedentary but expand by the colonisation of new territory by succeeding generations.
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diffusionist", i.e. non-migrationist, views has thus been associated with anti-nationalism and progressivism since the 1970s.
in the minds of some scholars, immobilism was charged with a left-wing cache; those who showed too much interest in the ethnic or racial origin of the people they studied were, it was hinted, guilty of racist tendencies."Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 709-1070 (2007: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 291