Thorstein Veblen
As to a Proposed Inquiry into Baltic and Cretan Antiquities.
(Memorandum, 1910).
Published as: "An Unpublished Project of Thorstein Veblen for an Ethnological 
Inquiry."
The American Journal of Sociology, (Sept. 1933), pp. 237-241.
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The problem on which my interest in prehistoric matters finally converges is 
that of the derivation and early growth of those free or popular institutions 
which have marked off European civilization at its best from the great 
civilizations of Asia and Africa. These characteristic free institutions of the 
Western culture comprise the decisive traits of the domestic and religious life 
as well as those of the civil and political organization. It is conceived that 
the underlying forces to which this scheme of free institutions owes its rise 
and its sustained and peculiar growth are to be looked for (a) in the peculiar 
native endowment of the races (or race) involved in the case, and (b) in the 
material (economic) circumstances under which the Western peoples have lived, 
particularly in early times. The centers of this cultural growth, as first known 
to history, have been the Aegean or East Mediterranean region on the one hand 
and the North Sea-Baltic region on the other hand. Within these regions, again, 
exploration has latterly thrown Crete, with its cultural neighbors and 
ramifications, into the foreground as the early center of growth and diffusion 
of the Aegean-Mediterranean culture, while it has similarly centered attention 
on the shores of the narrow Scandinavian waters as the most characteristic 
center of early culture in the North Sea-Baltic region. And (c) quite recently 
the Pumpelly explorations in Turkestan have brought to light a culture (at Anau) 
of a very striking character and showing features that argue for a degree of 
relationship - racial, economic, and institutional - to these European centers, 
such as should merit close inquiry.
There is apparently reason to look for (a) a racial connection in prehistoric 
(Neolithic) times between the peoples of the Aegean (Crete, etc.) and the 
peoples centering about the south shores of the Baltic, and (b) a sustained 
cultural connection, resting on trade relations, between the same regions and 
running through the Neolithic and Bronze Ages of northern Europe. It is believed 
that a sufficiently attentive canvass of the evidence will bring out a 
consequent similarity of character in the institutions under which the peoples 
of these two regions lived; which would argue that these two sources of what is 
most characteristic in later Western civilization are in great measure to be 
traced back to a common origin, racial and economic. And it is conceived that 
the late-known culture of Anau will come in as a complementary factor to round 
out this scheme of cultural growth by supplying elements which have hitherto 
seemed lacking in any attempted system of European prehistory. The "Aryan" 
explanation of this community of institutions, it may be added, is no longer 
tenable.
A study of other primitive cultures, remote and not visibly related to this 
early European civilization, shows a close correlation between the material 
(industrial and pecuniary) life of any given people and their civic, domestic, 
and religious scheme of life; and it shows, further, that the myths and the 
religious cult reflect the character of these other -especially the economic and 
domestic - institutions in a peculiarly naive and truthful manner.
An inquiry looking to the end here proposed, therefore, must have recourse to 
such industrial and pecuniary facts as are reflected by the available 
archaeological sites and exhibits, on the one hand, and to such indications of 
myth and religious cult as are afforded by the same explorations. These will 
have to be the main lines of approach, and it is along these lines that it is 
here proposed to review the evidence pertinent to the case - with the stress 
falling on the economic forces involved. A very considerable body of material is 
now available for such a study in this field of European prehistory, but little 
has been done toward exploiting it for the purpose here indicated. Nor has the 
material hitherto been canvassed in any comprehensive manner with such a 
question in mind.
While much of the material to be drawn on has been published in excellent shape, 
its publication has been under the hand of students and scholars animated with 
other interests than those here spoken for - more particularly has the economic 
(industrial and pecuniary) bearing of the materials exhibited received 
relatively scant attention. The men who have canvassed and edited the published 
materials have necessarily seen those materials in the light of their own 
interest, and so have brought out chiefly those features of the material upon 
which the light of their own interest would fall most strongly. Any student who 
approaches the material from a new quarter, therefore, and requires it to answer 
questions that were not present or not urgent in the minds of those earlier 
students, must see and review the sites and exhibits for himself and make such 
use as he can of these materials, with the help of other men already engaged in 
the general field which he enters. It is no less requisite to come into close 
personal contact with the men engaged than it is to make first-hand acquaintance 
with the available materials; for it is a most common trait of scientists, 
particularly when occupied with matter that is in any degree novel and growing, 
that they know and are willing to impart many things that are not primarily 
involved in the direct line of their own inquiry and many things, too, to which 
they may not be ready to commit themselves in print.
The evidences of the peculiar technological bent characteristic of Western 
civilization run very far back in the North Sea-Baltic culture, and the later 
explorations in Crete and its cultural dependencies suggest a similar aptitude 
for technological efficiency in the prehistoric Aegean culture. It is believed 
that a patient scrutiny of the available material for the two regions will go 
far to show (a) in what degree the two civilizations are to be correlated or 
contrasted on this technological side of their growth, (b) how far this 
technological peculiarity is to be traced back to racial or to environmental 
factors, and (c) what is the nature and force of the correlation, if any, 
between this peculiar development of technological efficiency and the early 
growth and character of that scheme of free institutions which today is as 
characteristic a trait of Western civilization as is its preeminence in point of 
technological efficiency.
It will be seen, therefore, that such an inquiry as is here had in view would 
require time and would involve a somewhat extended itinerary. At the outset, it 
is believed, a visit should be made to two or three of the less sophisticated 
Indian Pueblos of the Southwest, as the best available outside term of 
comparison by which to check certain features of the European evidence and 
particularly certain of the facts shown in the explorations at Anau.
The next move should, presumably, be to the sites and museums of Denmark and 
Sweden, with a side excursion of a somewhat detailed character to the British 
Museum and to certain archaeologists and ethnologists in England whose 
information and speculations must necessarily be drawn on.
The Scandinavian scholars have the archaeology of their own region excellently 
well in hand, and their exhaustive acquaintance with the culture of later 
Germanic-Scandinavian paganism is likewise indispensable to a comprehensive 
survey of the question. Certain men and exhibits in Germany and Austria must 
also be seen and made use of, though this will presumably require less time and 
attention than the earlier and later stages in the proposed itinerary. The sites 
and exhibits of the Hallstatt and La Tène culture should also be visited, with 
more or less painstaking attention; and certain localities of northern Italy, 
marking one of the cultural areas that once in prehistoric times maintained 
trade relations with the Baltic, should likewise be seen and appreciated. There 
are also Italian students in this field whose aid is expected to be of first-
rate value, both in the ethnology and the archaeology of the case.
More detailed study as well as a greater allowance of time would necessarily be 
given to the several sites in the Aegean, with Crete as the central and most 
important point; where a somewhat protracted residence would be desirable if not 
indispensable, and from which excursions might profitably be made to Sicily, 
southeastern Asia Minor, Cyprus, and perhaps Transcaspia, as well as to several 
localities in the Aegean territory proper. These excursions outside of the 
Aegean lands seem, at this distance at least, less requisite than a residence of 
some months in Crete and the visits to Aegean sites supplementary to the study 
of Crete. The residence in the Aegean here spoken of, with the allowance of time 
which it would involve, is desirable in part on account of the very appreciable 
mass of printed material bearing on the case, and which could most expeditiously 
and effectively be acquired, assimilated, and checked by a person living within 
striking distance of the sites with which the descriptive material deals.
It is believed that, in point of time, the inquiry so had in view should 
advantageously consume not less than three years.
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