E ́douard Lartet (1801–71) and Gabriel de Mortillet, the Britons General Pitt
Rivers and John Lubbock and the German Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902)
(Daniel 1963: table 1, passim). Nomenclature was also developed to deWne
the implements of each period. This process was not undertaken without a
great amount of debate and argument, for contenders were competing not
only in the scientiWc sphere, but also for academic leadership and power. The
authority of French archaeologists was manifested in their ability to direct the
tone of Palaeolithic studies. Mainly under the control of archaeologists based
in Paris, Southern France became the focus of Palaeolithic studies because of
the typologies devised fromXint implements found in the area (Groenen
1994). Excavations also unearthed decorated bones and stones dating from
that period and served as proof of the artistic qualities of ancient ‘man’
(Groenen 1994).
The Bronze Age was also subdivided by rival schema, but, in contrast to the
previous periods, an overall application to the whole territory of Europe proved
diYcult. For many areas of Europe it seemed that an early Copper Age could be
distinguished. Schliemann’s excavations in Mycenae between 1874 and 1879
provided a link to Egyptian archaeology (see Chapter 5). This allowed the
building of Bronze Age chronologies,Wrst between Egypt and Greece, and
then between Greece and the rest of Europe. Of key importance would be
Montelius’ 1885 subdivision of the Scandinavian Bronze Age into several phases.
Even more than when dealing with the Bronze Age, archaeologists examining
the Iron Age connected their discussions to issues of language and race, as
ancient sources provided archaeologists with descriptions of the people that
inhabited Europe at this time. The Iron Age was split into two periods on the
basis of the excavations of Hallstatt and La Te`ne in Austria and Switzerland
respectively. Greatly inspired by the nationalist ethos, some excavations with
important Iron Age strata were undertaken starting, in the 1860s, with the digs
at Mont Auxois (Ale ́sia) in France and at Numantia in Spain.
Evolutionism was not opposed to diVusionism, at least not in the case of
non-Darwinist evolutionists. The movement of objects and peoples from
region to region was widely accepted at the time by most. Yet, archaeological
remains from prehistory to later times were sometimes identiWed with known
historical peoples. The latter were also deWned as races, as discussed earlier in
this chapter, such as the Slavs or the Celts. The way in which archaeologists
attempted to demonstrate the expansion of the Indo-Europeans or Aryans
clearly illustrates the link between evolutionism and diVusionism. This ex-
ample allows us to join together several threads running through this book. As
seen in Chapter 8, in 1813, the Aryans had been described as Indo-Europeans
and both concepts—Aryan and Indo-European—had gained racial overtones
in the 1820s. It was unclear when the Aryans, a people for whom experts
394 National Archaeology in Europe