12-21-2008, 02:19 AM
Quote:In the following I would like to lay down why I think that the H.R.Robinson classification is outdated and should no longer be used by scholars, as well as by the reenactment community.
Some scholars refuse to use it precisely because a typology can only be constructed once in order to study a given body of data and that all attempts to extend it ('I think that looks like an Imperial-Gallic D' - 'no, it's more an E shading into an F') weaken and ultimately invalidate it.
A typology is like scaffolding. It is useful for the construction and demolition of hypotheses, but it is only ever a temporary structure and must not be allowed to detract from the thing around which it has been erected, sometimes shoddily - the body of data.
If you want to understand typologies, read David Clarke's Analytical Archaeology and have a look at his monumental work on beaker pottery. There is more wisdom on one page of Clarke than in a hundred textbooks on Roman archaeology.
Robinson's typology was absolutely right for his work and a refreshing break from the First-Find system of naming (which just gets clumsier the more it develops). Once you try to view a body of data through a particular typology system, you limit your possible interpretations. The excitement, vivacity, and potential of typologies lies in always developing new ones because there IS no ultimate one that we can now retrieve.
A typology is always a tool, never a sacred cow.
Mike Bishop
