nThe reconstruction of prehistory is
presently pursued via two major
disciplines, archaeology and comparative linguistics.
nAlthough there have been numerous
attempts to generate interdisciplinary
results from their merger, the impact on the great majority of professionals has been slight.
nHuman genetics has a way to go before
it is really integrated into
prehistory
nThere is, moreover, another tool,
comparative ethnography,
largely unexplored since the 1930s, that has considerable power to shed light on aspects of the past that are quite inaccessible to these other disciplines.
nThis presentation looks at the
structure of thinking about prehistory
today, the tools that comparative ethnography could provide
and gives an example of its potential contribution.