Ideas
Taylor saw archaeology as an integrated discipline, combining the study of diet, settlement patterns, tools and other elements to provide a holistic view of the past. This approach, along with his open and specific criticism of leading archaeologists of his day, caused dismay among many archaeologists at the time but is now a standard practice in the discipline. Taylor was one of the first to loudly decry the descriptive, historical approaches in the field. However, Patty Jo Watson said that Taylor's purpose "was not to generate ill will but rather to stimulate examination...of aims, goals and purposes by American archaeologists."
Taylor's work anticipated by many years the efforts of the "New Archaeologists" of the 1960s, and A Study of Archeology remains in print.
Read more about this topic: Walter Taylor (archaeologist)
Famous quotes containing the word ideas:
“People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)