earliest migration to a group of Vandals in theWfth centuryceonXimsily
based racial and linguistic grounds (ibid. 75–87).
Back in North Africa, research in prehistoric archaeology hints at one of the
practices that would become the norm several decades later. At the start of
the twentieth century the increasing diYculties in synchronizing the North
African and French sequences led to aWnal rupture by which a completely
new periodic terminology was created. If until then it has been assumed that
the migrations had had a direction from north (France) to south (North
Africa), now the opposite was argued. Thus, the Aurignatians had come from
the Caspian and the Ibero-Mauritanian people had moved from North Africa
to Spain (Coye 1993). Coye interprets this rupture as the result of the sense
that the predominance of France in the colonies was assured. It was no longer
necessary to show that everything had come from France and Western
Europe. Suggesting a certain independence and even a reversal in cultural
inXuences was not deemed to be dangerous in a consolidated colonial state. In
addition, a new process was starting to emerge that would become crucial in
the development of archaeological thought in the twentieth century. Once
archaeologists were unencumbered by the need to see their position acknow-
ledged as a valid contribution to science, they could turn their attention to
other matters. Novel hypotheses could now be used to bolster academic
careers. Academics who were successful in suggesting novel ideas created a
name for themselves in the professional world. This was theWrst step towards
a phenomenon that would become generalized in the middle of the twentieth
century. At that time nationalism was relegated to the background of archae-
ologists’ discourse. Yet, despite the warnings, the situation at the end of
the nineteenth century was certainly far from that just described for several
decades later. In fact, at the end of the nineteenth century Punic archaeology—
the archaeology of the North African Phoenicians, a people whom scholars
had connected to the Jews—would decline sharply due to anti-Semitism
(Chapter 6) (see also note 13 above).
Tangent pasts: Byzantine and Islamic archaeology in North AfricaLittle eVort was made to investigate post-Roman archaeology before 1860. In
fact, destruction of mosques—seventeen of the 122 in existence in Algiers at
the start of French occupation—and the reorganization of streets with new
wide avenues cutting through the ancient street network were considered
acceptable. Some of the architectural pieces derived from the destruction were
reused and some may even have ended up in the small museum opened in
1838 at the Algiers Library and permanently exhibited from 1854. TheWrst
Russian Empire and French North Africa 273