Bruce Trigger [1937-2006]

Anthropologist, archaeologist, historian

Canadian archaeologist Bruce Trigger died late last week, and although I didn't know him personally, I feel a keen personal and professional loss. Over the past forty years or so, Trigger wrote grand sweeping critical essays on several of the theoretical changes in the archaeological profession, essays that I for one eagerly read and absorbed. Settlement patterns, post-processualism, post-modernism, middle-range theory and multiple viewpoints; each of these issues was set into historical context, their weaknesses illustrated and their value and promises outlined. Trigger pulled together these contextual pieces by synthesizing theoretical constructs of history, anthropology and archaeology, in a manner that has been unmatched and is unlikely to be so in the future. Here's a quote from his 1998 essay on multiple viewpoints:

Archaeologists can never be sure that a particular interpretation is correct, still less that it can never be improved. Yet today they are asking more questions than ever before, have more techniques to analyze data than ever before, and are increasingly aware of their biases and try to compensate for them. A growing awareness of the role that such biases play in the interpretation of archaeological data, and in the practice of archaeology, is a development that all archaeologists should welcome.

But multiple standpoints do not simply create multiple, incompatible archaeologies. They challenge all archaeologists, wherever possible, to use this multiplicity to create more holistic and objective syntheses.

Their goal should be an archaeology that is more complete and less biased because it is informed by an ever-increasing number of viewpoints and constrained by more data. Bruce Trigger 1998

Trigger is probably best known for his books A History of Archaeological Thought and Understanding Early Civilizations; a festschrift collection was just published called The Archaeology of Bruce Trigger: Theoretical Empiricism, edited by Ronald F. Williamson and Michael Bisson.

These are some of my favorite essays by Trigger:

• 1998 Archaeology and epistemology: Dialoguing across the Darwinian chasm. American Journal of Archaeology 102:1-34.
• 1995 Expanding middle-range theory. Antiquity 69:449-458.
• 1991 Early native North American responses to European contact: Romantic versus realistic interpretations. Journal of American History 77(4):1195-1215.
• 1991 Constraint and freedom - A new synthesis for archeological explanation. American Anthropologist 93(3):551-569.
• 1967. Settlement archaeology: Its goals and promise. American Antiquity 32:149-160

More reports about Trigger's life:

• Honouring Bruce Trigger, McGill Reporter on the Archaeology of Bruce Trigger
• A Black Day for Archaeology, by manmakeshimself on Anthropology.net
• Bruce Trigger, from Kerim on SavageMinds
• Bruce Trigger: Understanding Civilizations, interview from September 2003

Throughout his life, Bruce Trigger challenged us to rise to our better spirits, to recognize our failings and to fully appreciate and empower alternative viewpoints. Maybe it's a cliche to say so, but he will be missed.