Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

The coal industry still confronts severe problems, in paticular the gradual contraction of the industry and the loss of overseas markets, of which Horner shows a keen awareness in his closing pages. But the poverty and insecurity of the depression years have, it would seem, disappeared for ever. The miners of South Wales and of Britain generally have much cause to thank Arthur Horner and the radical tradition he inherited that, in the words of the Miners' Next Step, "they have leisure and inclination to really live as men, and not as the beasts that perish". KENNETH O. MORGAN ARCHAEOLOGY HISTORY AND SCIENCE, by R. J. C. ATKINSON. Cardiff, 1960; pp. 30. It is normally regarded as unsporting to submit an inaugural lecture to the test of critical review. This surely is an occasion when a new profess- or can trail his academic gown, let down his academic hair, and lighten his dour discipline, without fear of the faulty footnote on page seventy-nine or the doubtful reference in footnote ninety-seven. There are two reasons why an exception should be made in this journal for Professor Atkinson. His lecture is good, and so does not call for an exercise of reviewer's patronage or venom. His lecture is also per se a matter of importance to those interested in intellectual activities in the ancient kingdom of Morgannwg. For Professor Atkinson is the first holder of a chair of archaeology in the University of Wales, though it is true that he succeeds at Cardiff to a long tradition of formal instruction in the subject from scholars such as Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Sir Cyril Fox and Dr. Nash Williams. As head of a department in which students may proceed to an Honours degree in his subject alone Professor Atkinson speaks in his inaugural lecture not only as a practical archaeologist of outstanding merit, but also as a modest and subtle defender of the autonomy of his discipline. He examines with a pleasing lightness of touch the purpose of modern archaeological studies, and outlines the special perils facing the modern archaeologist. One of the main themes of his paper-another reason why it should be commended to readers of Morgannwg-treats of the complicated relationships between history and archaeology. Professor Atkinson's most important single line of thought concerns the distinction between history and prehistory. Within the historical period archaeology- study of man's past through his material culture- clearly provides "a valid means of securing the ends of history". In prehistory archaeology is on its own, and differs from history in its inability to cope with the two critical questions of who and when. The identity of individuals is submerged in the larger "molecular" units of societies and cultures, leaving the archaeologist helpless in face of the question who. The most advanced methods of stratigraphy and typology (discussed in very acute fashion, pp. 16-19) cannot enable the archaeologist to answer the