Bruce Trigger

I just received word that Bruce Trigger, professor of anthropology at McGill, has passed away. I’m personally very saddened by this because his writings (and the very nature of his research) had such an impact on me as both an undergrad and a grad student. In an academic world where anthropologists and archaeologists are hyper specialists, sticking to one geographical area, one theoretical tenet, or one chronological period, Trigger worked in a variety of different areas including Predynastic and early Dynastic Egypt, the Sudan, great lakes archaeology (specifically the ethonohistory and archaeology of the Huron), and the intellectual history of archaeology. With every book he published, every article he wrote, every class he taught, and every lecture he gave, he embodied the fact that different areas of archaeology didn’t have to be closed silos of thought, and that archaeologists and anthropologists could move between different areas and not be categorized as as non-specialists.

In an age of post-modernist anthropology and post-processualist archaeology, Trigger refused to abandon his deep commitment to theoretical empiricism. By the same token he always found a way to walk an intellectual line between the intractable archaeological post-processualists/post-modernists and the older school archaeological processualists/empiricists. His seminal book History of Archaeological Through very consciously traced the roots of archaeology as a discipline to the politics of power.

His book The Children of Aataentsic (1976) was a revolutionary study of the Huron because it not only situated the Huron at the center of a reconstruction of the past, but also depicted them as a “living, breathing population who were not merely the sum of their pot shards, but active participants during a process of colonization.” (http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/39/04/trigger/) Trigger’s ability to contextualize early cultures within European interpretations both predicted and contributed to the current thinking about including minorities who are outside the power centers of Western thought.

For me, he work in Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptian archaeology was the very model of what I wanted to do: solid field archaeology presented in the context of exciting and forward thinking archaeological and anthropological theory. In a field where many of the current theoretical works in anthropology and archaeology somehow seem intellectually inaccessible (or, at the very least, inapplicable ), Trigger’s work somehow always managed to balance excitement, wonder, and theoretical complexity.

Trigger leaves the archaeological community with a wealth of books and papers (both published and presented). His publication record, which continued up until the day he died – is unparalleled. I have no doubt that he work will be used, cherished, and revered by the archaeological community – both by students and by professionals – for many many years to come. There is little doubt in my mind that Trigger will take a place among those who shaped the discipline of archaeology.
To learn more about Trigger’s legacy, check out McGill’s announcement ((http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/39/04/trigger/) of his death as well as his entry on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_G._Trigger)