Paper long abstract:

How do images of objects reflect, construct or consolidate disciplinary development? How might objects and their visual images fashion scientific identity? In this paper, I attempt to answer these questions by interrogating a specific case study. Did the iconic, legendary, mythologized British palour game, quiz show ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?’ affect the development and transformation of British archaeology in the 1950s? My analysis is based on an extensive study of correspondence, reports, written audience reviews, personal notes, diaries and newspaper clippings saved in the BBC Written Archives in Reading and in Professor Glyn Daniel’s St John’s College archives. It is also based on oral-historical interviews. There is evidence that museums made special displays and benefited in attendance and that the AVM? spectacularly raised the general awareness of archaeology as a British profession. However, there is no clear evidence that the development or trajectory of academic archaeology was affected at all.