Nature, culture et progrès : histoire comparative du concept de transition entre paléolithiques moyen et supérieur en archéologie préhistorique
This thesis’ main object is to study on an historical level a long-lasting scientific controversy in Prehistoric archaeology, the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition, by attempting to explain the persistence of that debate in terms of construction and transformation of antagonistic models of explanation, and by showing how that controversy had play a role on the acquisition of knowledge, to elucidate how the debate itself had change since its origin. On a chronological scale, the evolution of some epistemological elements inside the confrontation of opposed hypothesis could be contrasted with conservative notions. To make that process clear, it is necessary to characterize what constitute that specific controversy for prehistorians with the tool given by the history of sciences, and what kind of analytical methodology can be call upon for doing so. Then, it will be possible to link those elements with the scientific problem itself to establish a structural model of this debate’s theoretical positions of the protagonists. This methodology could then be use to separate the history of that debate in three sections, each with its specific research axis, each phase in three structural level (data and methods, paradigms, meta-paradigm) to create a general model of the evolution of that controversy. The ambition of that thesis is to use history of science’s contribution as a way to clarify on a theoretical level the goals of that debate, and its implication on the study of cultural change for prehistorical archaeologists community, and to initiate for science’s historians a historical and structural model of scientific controversies, and their weight on conceptual change base on a specific case study.
archaeology prehistory neandertals anatomically modern humans middle to upper paleolithic transition scientific controversy continuity-discontinuity biological and behavioral modernity bipolarity of interpretative models history of sciences