Stone Age. Some scholars argued an eastern origin for them, in this way
making them foreign to the modern states in which they lived: Norway,
Sweden, Finland, and Russia (Olsen 1986).
Archaeologists’ and other scientists’ views on the primitives had consequ-
ences for colonial and national practice. In a context in which progress was seen
as the motor of history, and progress was deWned as the adoption of Western
technology and state politics, living populations that were believed not to have
evolved were deWned as relics and in some extreme cases were considered
unworthy of any rights. So strongly held were such views that some colonizers
even came to believe that it was impossible to fulWl their civilizing mission for it
was futile to try and civilize the primitives. The inferiority of the natives in
America, Asia and the PaciWc, Africa, and northern Scandinavia justiWed
the dispossession of their lands by whites through colonialism and internal
colonialism. Thus, despite its weak institutional support, archaeology became
part of the package of the intellectual background that legitimized imperialism
and re-conWrmed the perception of the West’s huge superiority over non-state
societies.
Archaeology of the Primitive 313