L'Abbe Henri Breuil: Archaeologist

In his otherwise excellent book, A History of ArchaeologicalThought, Trigger (1989: 156) makes only one passing reference in a half-sentence to thecentral figure in the development of Paleolithic prehistory in the first half of the20th century -- and manages to get his name wrong, confusing Henri Breuil with hislong-time, close colleague, Hugo Obenrnaie . Thirty years after his death, Breuil's rolein the history of Old World prehistory required more serious consideration. He was aseminal figure not only in rock art studies, but also in the archaeology of at leastFrance, Spain, England, Portugal, South Africa, and China. Before I had read Trigger'swork or Sackett's (1991) critique of my supposed misinterpretation of Breuil'stheoretical stance (e.g., Straus 1986, 1987), I had presented a review of Breuil'scontributions in the 1991 Annual Snead-Wertheim Lecture in Anthropology and History atthe University of New Mexico (Straus n.d.). The following is a brief summary of some ofmy conclusions