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Theory and practice in Russian and Soviet archaeology: retrospect and prospect

Review products

StephenLeach. A Russian perspective on theoretical archaeology: the life and work of Leo S. Klejn. 2015. 220 pages, 11 b&w illustrations. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast; 978-1-629-58-138-5 hardback $79.
L.S.Klejn. Istoriya rossiiskoi arkheologii: ucheniya, shkoly i lichnosti [The history of Russian archaeology: doctrines, schools and personalities]. 2014. Volume 1: general overview and pre-revolutionary times. 704 pages, 139 b&w illustrations. Volume 2: archaeologists of the Soviet epoch. 640 pages, 150 b&w illustrations. St Petersburg: Eurasia; 978-5-91852-075-8 hardback (in Russian).

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2017

Yaroslav V. Kuzmin
Yaroslav V. Kuzmin*
Affiliation:
Sobolev Institute of Geology & Mineralogy, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia; and Tomsk State University, Tomsk 634050, Russia (Email: [email protected]; [email protected])
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Extract

Despite the fact that several books and a plethora of articles have been published in recent decades on the archaeology of the USSR and Russia, Soviet-Russian archaeology is still largely ignored in the West (e.g. Fagan 2003, but see Trigger 2006: 230–32, 326–44). For non-Russian scholars, the first acquaintance with it can be nightmarish; for example, Anthony (2007: 164) describes the periodisation of the Aeneolithic Cucuteni-Tripolye culture of Ukraine and Moldova (parts of the USSR before 1991), and Romania:

There is a Borges-like dreaminess to the Cucuteni pottery sequence: one phase (Cucuteni C) is not a phase at all but rather a type of pottery probably made outside the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture; another phase (Cucuteni A1) was defined before it was found, and never was found.

Type
Book reviews
Information
Antiquity , Volume 91 , Issue 360 , December 2017 , pp. 1652 - 1655
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2017 

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References

Anthony, D.W. 2007. The horse, the wheel, and language. Princeton (NJ) & Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
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