2 Cultural Processes

Abstract

Hypotheses on the nature and processes of culture can be framed from rough observation and general knowledge of cultural situations, or even from logic and imaginary situations, but to test these assumptions one must have more than theory. Thus, although the archaeologist's raw data are for the most part artifacts, from which his deductions about ancient culture are largely inferred and his discipline's role in contributing to culture theory is correspondingly limited, nevertheless this limitation has its advantage in that it forces this particular branch of anthropology to conclusions via data that, for the very reason that they are objects, can usually be dealt with quantitatively. Linguistics, physical anthropology, and certain aspects of ethnology share this characteristic with archaeology, but only linguistics, genetics, anthropometry, and a few of the ethnological studies (for example, kinship) have taken full advantage of it.