Reframing the Neolithic, Trévor Watkins, professeur émérite à l’Université d’Édimbourg
2025-11-05 12:30 - 14:00 (Europe/Paris) | MSH Mondes (bât. Ginouvès), salle 1 (rez-de-jardin) - 21 allée de l'université, Nanterre, , 92000,
Avec Trévor Watkins, professeur émérite à l’Université d’Édimbourg.

If we are to advance our understanding of prehistory we need to fit our archaeological knowledge into an understandingof the (cultural) evolutionary process. That was what I was attempting with my recent book, Becoming Neolithic, whose synthesis was framed in the context of cultural niche construction theory. Writing prehistory is very different from the writing of history. As 2025 is the centenary of Gordon Childe’s first major publication, and of the Abercromby Chair of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, to which he was appointed, it is appropriate to start by discussing how he reframed the writing of prehistory, and how popular and influential were his books and ideas (in particular, the Neolithic and urban revolutions. In the 1960s American archaeologist-anthropologists Lewis Binford and Kent Flannery and their colleagues (under the banner of “processualist” archaeology) attempted to update the writing of prehistory within the contemporary framework of evolution and eco-systems theory. Since then, evolutionary theory has been further transformed (the extended evolutionary synthesis) including the development of new fields, like (cultural) niche construction theory. At the same time systems theory has grown with new theoretical work on complexity and complex adaptive systems theory. These theoretical advances are challenging archaeologists, both researchers, and teachers, and students.
