Environmental Archaeology is not Human Palaeoecology

Abstract

Many commentaries on environmental archaeology suggest that this subdiscipline is concerned with the analysis of the ecology of past human societies. An alternative view is that environmental archaeology should be considered as the analysis of “natural” materials from archaeological sites, and that the subdiscipline is characterised by the importance of taphonomy and middle range theory, and not by any particular high level theoretical stance. This appreciation of environmental archaeology recognises common problems in the analysis of data, but does not restrict environmental archaeologists to a particular theoretical orientation.