Some Archaeo-Mythic Rambles

Michael Dames

Abstract

Attempts to trek backwards into an understanding of the prehistoric world have been rendered difficult for educated Westerners, partly due to the long-term influence of the Greek philosopher Socrates, as disseminated by his pupil Plato. Plato’s Athens Academy, founded 387 BC, downgraded myth-centred experience and replaced it with Socratic logos that emphasized linear, rational, objective reasoning. This preference was turned into dogma by the seventeenth century cult of Reason and was further entrenched by modern scientific instrumentalism and abstract theories. This approach has been adopted by modern academia worldwide (including in departments of archaeology), to become the dominant methodology, within and beyond academic confines.

As a consequence, most recent archaeo-logical studies of pre-Socratic myth-based societies have been hampered from the outset by an anti-mythic outlook. Yet in the last three decades some archaeologists have come to see the mismatch between the avowed aim and the chosen method of prehistoric research as an absurd incongruity that blocks, rather than illuminates, an understanding of the ancient world.