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The construction of migration theories
Conference
Published on
17 June 2015
Updated on
13 June 2017
Colloquia
The archaeology of Migrations
International colloquium organized by Inrap, in partnership with the National Museum of Immigration History.
November 12 and 13, 2015 at the National Museum of Immigration History.
Archaeology of Migrations
by Jean-Paul Demoule, Professor of European Protohistory at the Université Paris I
The explanation of history through migrations has long been a dominant archaeological paradigm in the form of trans-cultural diffusion, to the point that other theories were deliberately elaborated in opposition, greatly minimising human mobility and focusing instead on evolutions in situ. The truth is mostly to be found somewhere in the middle, as long as archaeology is able to develop methods which allow it to identify real migratory movements. Nevertheless, even today these issues are often tainted by ideological or nationalist considerations of the "native" and "foreign". It is the archaeologist's responsibility to be vigilant and to shed light not only on the different models, but also on the facts and interpretations.
Jean-Paul Demoule is Professor of European Protohistory at the Université Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He has led excavations in the context of a regional rescue program in the Aisne valley, as well as in Greece and Bulgaria. In particular, he has focused his interest on the problems of preventive archaeology and has participated in the elaboration of a French Law on preventive archaeology, as well as in the creation of the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research, which he presided over from 2002 to 2008. His work deals with the emergence of agriculture and livestock farming in Europe, as well as with Iron Age societies, the social role of the history of archaeology and its ideological constructs, and hence also the "Indo-European issue".
Bibliography:
Bibliography:
- Bocquet-Appel J.-P. 2008. La paléodémographie : 99,99% De l'histoire démographique des hommes. Arles : Éditions Errance.
- Cohen R. 1996. Theories of Migration, Elgar, Cheltenham.
- Rouse I. 1989. Migrations in Prehistory: Inferring Population Movement from Cultural Remains. Yale University Press.
- Wihtol de Wendel C. 2012. Atlas des migrations. Paris, Éditions Autrement.
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