Pages: 584-589

The book Humans and artifacts (1991) by the Swedish archaeologist Stig Welinder seems to me very interesting. Welinder sees the essence of archaeolgical theory in overcoming of two barriers on the path of archaeological cognition: a) between past reality and archaeological record, and 2) between archaeological record and modern knowledge. This conception is very near to mine (1978), but the difference is in the treatment of difficulties. For the first barrier, the difficulty is to Welinder in deciphering the symbols, while to me the task is not only in this but also in defining the past functions. For the second barrier, the difficulty is to Welinder in the difference of statics and dynamics, while to me it is in the contrast between the world of things and the world of ideas. Welinder estimates the meaning of polithetic structure of the materials for archaeology, yet it seems to me that it would be more consecutive to separate polithetic grouping in a special kind, typology distinct from classification. Welinder's graphic schemes helped me to grasp mistakes, both mine and Welinder's, in dividing polithetic schemes. Welinder connects polithetic grouping with modernism in the contents and chronology, yet in essence it is near to post-modernist notions while chronologically it is much earlier than modernism. Both the interrelationships of modernism with post-modernism and the polithetic idea with monothetic is much more complex.