Archaeology, anthropology and subsistence

Wherever and whenever one may wish to place the roots of the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology, the subsistence‐based categories of savage hunters and civilized farmers still lie at the heart of the division of much contemporary intellectual labour. The sources of these categories can be traced back into the seventeenth century, although they were first systematically related to (pre)history and cultural difference in the mid‐eighteenth century. The subsequent relations between these categories and the changing disciplines of ethnology, ethnography, and archaeology have not remained constant over time or space. However, the underlying assumption that subsistence practices are meaningful and useful societal categories has persisted for the past 250 years. The relationship between such concepts, the closely associated idea of social evolution, and anthropology and archaeology, in particular from the mid‐nineteenth century to the present, is examined. It is suggested that finding ways of writing across such categories is a necessary step for the future of both disciplines.