With the recent explosive increase of archaeological data, the interests in the emergence and the characteristics of various polities in the Bronze, Iron and Proto Three Kingdom periods of Korea become also continuously increased between Korean archaeologists. These interests have been influenced by neo-evolutionism and New archaeology, which have been introduced since the 1980’s, as well as traditional Marxism and Nationalism.
This research examines theoretical and methodological problems inherent to the existing researches, in particular, focusing on ‘classification’(or hierarchisation) and ‘territory’, based upon nationalism and neo-evolutionism. As a consequence, it has been argued that the research paradigm(or the premises), which have been implicitly accepted, are actually of doubt and of question and thus, ought to be critically reviewed and eventually overcome. That is to say, any attempts to unveil the origin of a nation or the early or the ancient state, and to mark the territory of a polity through the researches on typology and distribution of specific archaeological artefacts and sites and the emergence of classification as well as the researches based upon nationalism, seems necessary as a basic starting platform for any further researches in a sense. However, in the case that the overemphasis is laid on these types of research, the various aspects of material culture change could be ignored and it is not easy to justify those approaches in methodological terms.
These limits inherent to Korean archaeology become more evident by a comparative review with that of the Celtic society in Europe. In particular, the Celtic society tends to show that the formation of the early state would be possible by complex and outer factors such as expression of symbolic power with the prestige burial goods and incorporation of the society by it, trade and competition, and mutual inter dependance as well as inner factors including social classification caused by inequality and difference in the size of tomb and settlement. Therefore, the origin and formation of the early and the ancient state ought to be approached by contextual and thoughtful interpretations on inner and outer factors with a full consideration of the potentials of archaeological data, rather than teleological research perspectives or methodologies, influenced by non-academic demand.