Hadrian’s Wall in northern England (Gill 2004: 237–9; Gill inOxford Dictionary:
vol. 6, 695–6). In addition to these professionals, there were many others
rightfully considered as experts but whose main occupation was elsewhere.
There were architects such as the Frenchman, Viollet-le-Duc (1814–79), the
Englishman, Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811–78), and the Spaniard, Eduardo
Saavedra (1829–1912); clerics such as Father Fidel Fita (1835–1918) in Spain;
travellers such as the Hungarian-born Austrian, Felix Kanitz (1828–1904) who
published extensively on Roman Serbia (Babic 2001: 173–6); and men—prac-
tically no women—from other professions such as the military and medicine. In
England the Mathematics fellow at Cambridge, Robert Willis (1800–75), who
published on monumental architectural history in England, and the Oxford
modern historian, Edward Freeman (1823–92), who published about Norman
archaeology and history, are examples of this (Cocke 1998). In addition to the
scholars in parallel disciplines, the increasing strength of learned societies meant
that amateurs continued to play an important role in the archaeology of all
periods (Levine 1986). Yet, it seems revealing that by the end of the century the
Wrst voices against the quality of the archaeology undertaken by the societies
were being voiced by professionals (Marchand 1996a: 178–9).
THE METHODOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONThe rationale behind evolutionism was explained by the Swedish archaeolo-
gist, Oscar Montelius, in the following way:
When studying a speciWc question we willWnd that evolution has passed many stages,
before it reached its present state... [we can] also see all the stages still represented,
since an old form does not always disappear when a new form rises... Often there will
be no diYculty to see the successive order of the diVerent forms
(in Arwill-Nordbladh 1989: 138).The growing acceptance of evolutionary theory in archaeology led scholars
to embrace methods among which stratigraphy, typology, and seriation are
especially important for prehistoric archaeology, and for the archaeology
of other periods. These methods were used to conWrm scientiWcally sequences
of events and change through time. These crucial improvements in the
scientiWc method paved the way for prehistory to be accepted as proper
science. The connection with the natural sciences enabled archaeologists to
borrow methods from palaeontology, such as the stratigraphic method,
which, although at this time it was not applied to the extent that it would be
Evolutionism and Positivism 391