L'Abbe Henri Breuil: Archaeologist

Lawrence Guy Straus
1992 Bulletin of the History of Archaeology  
In his otherwise excellent book, A Hist01Y of Archaeological Thought, Trigger (1989: 156) makes only one passing reference in a half-sentence to the central figure in the development of Paleolithic prehistory in the first half of the 20th century --and manages to get his name wrong, confusing Henri Breuil with his long-time, close colleague, Hugo Obennaie r. Thirty years after his death, Breuil's role in the history of Old World prehistory required more serious consideration. He was a seminal
more » ... gure not only in rock art studies, but also in the archaeology of at least France, Spain, England, Portugal, South Mrica, and China. Before I had read Trigger's work or Sackett's (1991) critique of my supposed misinterpretation of Breuil's theoretical stance (e.g., Straus 1986Straus , 1987, I had presented a review of Breuil's contributions in the 1991 Annual Snead-Wertheim Lecture in Anthropology and History at the University of New Mexico (Straus n.d.). The following is a brief summary of some of my conclusions.
doi:10.5334/bha.02102 fatcat:yzylyvsp45bj7bsb7fq7pg5uyq