Geographies of Archaeological knowledge: the role of place in the making of science

The history of archaeology is a field of study which has been reluctant to engage with theory. In my work so far, I have tried to overcome this limitation and link developments in nineteenth and twentieth-century archaeology with contemporary debates on the relationship between archaeology and its political context (Diaz-Andreu 1993, Diaz-Andreu and Champion1996, Diaz-Andreu forthcoming a). In the last decade, scholars in the field of the sociology of science have highlighted the key role of contingent historical factors in the making of factual knowledge. It is argued that science is a cultural formation not only inserted in wider networks of social relations and political power, but, importantly, moulded by local environments -the geographical location- in which science is produced. So far this perspective has not been explored in archaeology. The issues with which I will deal are: whether it matters where archaeological knowledge is produced, whether archaeologists' location can influence the content of science and the national and international networks formed. Looking at the historical geography of science will reveal aspects affecting the development of archaeological knowledge not acknowledged in histories of our own discipline: mainly the connection between authority, places and institutions in which hypotheses are formulated. This research will be of interest to archaeologists, historians of science and, because of the popularity of the history of archaeology, to the general public.