Ethnoarchaeology: The need for a post‐mortem enquiry

Abstract

Abstract Through examples derived from a study carried out in the New Guinea Highlands, it is demonstrated that there is a rapid period following abandonment of a site where intensive site formation processes become ‘stabilized’. If this is also found elsewhere in other cultures, climates and economies, then ethnoarchaeological studies should move one methodological step further by including the excavation of ethnographic sites which have been the subject of these intensive processes. This extra body of data should put ethnoarchaeology even closer to archaeological situations.