New Archaeology Research Articles

Understanding and Assessing the Theories Behind Archaeological Education

This article explores the definition of archaeological education with reference to its archaeological and educational context. Archaeological and educational theories relevant to archaeological education are set out, outlining a clearer theoretical understanding of the subject. This is developed through the description of a research project examining the theoretical basis for archaeological education. What results is an understanding of how different theories can be used to describe archaeological education and how they are applied in practical terms. This reflects the strong influence of processual archaeology on all areas of archaeological practice.

Ethnoarchaeological observation and archaeological patterning: A processual approach to studying sedentism and space use in pitstructures from central New Mexico

Ethnoarchaeology is one of the most significant and lasting contributions developed by Lewis Binford as a mainstay of processual archaeology. Observations about the organization and use of space by contemporary groups are used as one method to investigate material patterns found in archaeological record. Ethnoarchaeological research by Graham (1989) among the Rarámuri of northern Mexico generated models of residential site structure that operate at several spatial and organizational scales. Further ethnographic survey of groups who use subterranean dwellings was conducted by Schmader (1994). Resulting expectations about residential mobility and site structure are presented. Excavations of ancestral puebloan pitstructures in central New Mexico by Schmader (1994) applied Graham’s models to explain patterning of interior floor assemblages. Distributions of floor items are used to identify activity areas and maintained interior space. Discussions concerning structure function, architectural responses to mobility, and inferences about varying degrees of site sedentism are presented. The potential and applicability of connecting ethnoarchaeological observations with archaeological patterns is described.

Monastic and Church Archaeology

Major advances in church and monastic archaeology are discussed in terms of two distinct waves, ca. 1970–1995 and 1995 to the time of writing (2014). The first wave was influenced by landscape history and processual archaeology; scholarship focused principally on historical, economic, and technological questions and targeted individual sites and monuments for study. The second wave has been informed by postprocessual approaches and considers change and complexity in religious landscapes and perspectives on religious space, embodiment, and agency. In conclusion, this article calls for a more holistic approach to the archaeology of medieval Christian belief, one which moves beyond the focus on institutions and monuments that has characterized monastic and church archaeology and extends archaeological study to include the performative rituals of Christian life and death in the Middle Ages.

Indian Archaeology and Postmodernism: Fashion or Necessity?

This paper begins by considering the origins and trajectory of growth of Indian Archaeology, from an Antiquarian stage, through to its present state, which may best be described, positioned between cultural historical, Positivist and Post-positivist approaches. The school of archaeological thought informed by Positivist Philosophy has been called variously as the New Archaeology, Hypothetico-Deductive Archaeology, and more lately as Processual Archaeology (Paddayya, 1990). The school of Indian Archaeology influenced by the Philosophy of Post-positivism or Postmodernism are called variously as the New New Archaeology and Postprocessual Archaeology. This paper traces the growth of Indian Archaeology through its various stages such as Antiquarianism, Indology, Colonial Archaeology, Modern Archaeology, the New Archaeology and now the Postprocessual Archaeology. It seeks to estimate chiefly the impact of the Postprocessual applications in Indian Archaeology.

On thin ice: problems with Stanford and Bradley's proposed Solutrean colonisation of North America

Across Atlantic ice: the origin of America's Clovis culture(Stanford & Bradley 2012) is the latest iteration of a controversial proposal that North America was first colonised by people from Europe rather than from East Asia, as most researchers accept. The authors, Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley, argue that Solutrean groups from southern France and the Iberian Peninsula used watercraft to make their way across the North Atlantic and into North America during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). According to Stanford and Bradley, this 6000km journey was facilitated by a continuous ice shelf that provided fresh water and a food supply.AcrossAtlantic ice has received a number of positive reviews. Shea (2012: 294), for example, suggests that it is “an excellent example of hypothesis-building in the best tradition of processual archaeology. It challenges American archaeology in a way that will require serious research by its opponents”. Runnels (2012) is equally enthusiastic.

Abstracts - 2010 Meetings

Abstracts - 2010 Meetings

Women archaeologists in 20th-century Britain. Response to Rachel Pope

This is a response to Rachel Pope's paper on processual archaeology and gender politics. As a female archaeologist in England I have experienced much of what she describes: I was educated in England in the 1950s and 1960s, I have been a lecturer in Cambridge since 1977, and I was present at the 2006 Personal Histories event in Cambridge which sparked Rachel's thoughts. But my own experience has been different to Rachel's in many ways. I belong to a different generation and have had a different life: but I think it is important to recognize how context-determined all accounts of the past are, and how difficult it is to avoid oversimplification and bias. It is easy to use the evidence which supports an argument, and discard what does not, from which a very different picture might be created – as indeed Rachel is arguing, in parts of her paper. If we cannot achieve that for living memory then how can we approach the real complexity of life in the distant past? So this is my alternative take on some of these themes, as another, contrasting, version of events.

Soviet inspiration in Chinese archaeology

On the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of China's Institute of Archaeology, the author looks back to its origins, and recalls a short period, now almost forgotten, of dynamic and fruitful collaboration with the archaeologists of Soviet Russia. Soviet intellectual aims in the 1950s had a profound and lasting influence on the development of Chinese archaeology, including the design of its institutions, its theoretical basis, its research agenda and its field methods. The new emphasis on ancient life beyond the elite and the study of social and economic process seems to pre-echo some of the themes of Anglo-American processual archaeology that was to follow a decade later.

Processual archaeology and gender politics. The loss of innocence

AbstractProviding a younger woman's perspective, and born out of the 2006 Cambridge Personal Histories event on 1960s archaeology, this paper struggles to reconcile the panel's characterization of a ‘democratization’ of the field with an apparent absence of women, despite their relative visibility in 1920s–1940s archaeology. Focusing on Cambridge, as the birthplace of processualism, the paper tackles the question ‘where were the women?’ in 1950s–1960s archaeology. A sociohistorical perspective considers the impact of traditional societal views regarding the social role of women; the active gendering of science education; the slow increase of university places for young women; and the ‘marriage bars’ of post-war Britain, crucially restricting women's access to the professions in the era of professionalization, leading to decades of positive discrimination in favour of men. Pointing to the science of male and female archaeologists in 1920s–1930s Cambridge, it challenges ideas of scientific archaeology as a peculiarly post-war (and male) endeavour. The paper concludes that processual archaeology did not seek to democratize the field for women archaeologists.

Landscape for a good feminist. An archaeological review

In 1998 this journal (Archaeological dialogues5(2)) published an editorial titled ‘What is wrong with gender archaeology?’. Responding to this rhetorical question, the editor affirmed that indeed nothing was wrong with it; to the contrary, gender archaeology was as healthy as could be, ‘one of the most thriving fields within the discipline’ (Archaeological dialogues1998, 88). Nonetheless, the writer then proceeded to describe a pervasive, ongoing issue with the article review process. Any submission that addressed gender would elicit warm praise from a reviewer chosen for familiarity with or expertise in gender studies. At the same time, the article would meet with harsh criticism from a second reviewer, selected for area, time period or topical specialization. The result was a continuing dilemma of how best to choose a third reviewer (a dilemma likely familiar to anyone who has submitted an article on any less-conventional topic to many disciplinary journals, not only in archaeology). This polarized reception of gender archaeology, and an unwillingness to engage in a dialogue around it, were persistent and deeply troubling. Comparing claims of novelty in gender archaeology with similar statements made decades earlier by New Archaeology, the editor suggested that processual archaeology gained support only after it had proven its worth in specific case studies, only ‘when substantial work demonstrated that this was indeed rather different and promising’ (Archaeological dialogues1998, 89). Such an expectation would appear most sensible for any empirically engaged discipline.

"UNTIL ALL THE DATA ARE IN" A Chapter in the History of American Archaeology

In the 1930s Paul Radin argued that Franz Boas refrained from generalizing, claimed that the time was not ripe because all the data were not yet available, and believed that once all the data were available they would speak for themselves. This characterization was applied in the 1940s by Clyde Kluckhohn and his student Walter Taylor to the work of culture historian A. V. Kidder. Processual archaeologists obtained the idea that culture historians in general used the unripe time argument based on philosopher of science Carl Hempel's description of the first step of inductive reasoning as gathering all the facts, and they used Kluckhohn's and Taylor's characterizations as substantiating evidence. Processualists likely reasoned that because culture historians operated inductively and thus sought to gather all the facts before they interpreted the archaeological record, culture historians also called upon the unripe time argument to warrant their hesitancy to draw conclusions. Evidence that culture historia...

Democratic Processualism

Democratic Processualism

Peopling the Past

The post-processual agenda of “peopling the past” is essentially a project that tries to humanize the past by reaching the persons absent in cultural-historical and processual archaeology. On the way towards a more human past, the past has in a very literal sense become a “foreign country” by extensive use of analogies. The use of analogies makes it possible to go beyond Western reasoning and explore the “difference” of, for example, European prehistory. This practice does, however, pose intricate questions concerning heritage and intellectual property. With the emergence of categories such as “cultural knowledge,” heritage has entered the field of intellectual property. In this article, I wish to explore the relationship between the use of analogies and intellectual property by asking if immaterial heritage can be viewed as property, can analogies be repatriated?

Democratic Processualism

Democratic Processualism

Oldtidsforfattere under arkæologisk kontrol – Om skriftlige kilder og materiel kultur i Sydskandinavien

Oldtidsforfattere under arkæologisk kontrol – Om skriftlige kilder og materiel kultur i Sydskandinavien

Can There Be a Philosophy of Archaeology? Processual Archaeology and the Philosophy of Science. William Harvey Krieger.

Previous articleNext article No AccessREVIEWSCan There Be a Philosophy of Archaeology? Processual Archaeology and the Philosophy of Science. William Harvey Krieger.Michael Brian SchifferMichael Brian Schiffer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Near Eastern Archaeology Volume 72, Number 2June 2009 A journal of ASOR Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/NEA20697225 Views: 30Total views on this site Copyright © 2008 American Schools of Oriental ResearchPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Archaeological Theory and Snake-Oil Peddling: The Role of Ethnoarchaeology in Archaeology

By the 1970s ethnoarchaeology took on a more central role in archaeological method and theory. During that era some of the classic ethnoarchaeological projects took place across the globe, all with the general aim of making archaeology more anthropological. Since that time, there have been an increasing number of ethnoarchaeological projects serving not just the original Processual Archaeology goals but also the concerns of an expanding archaeological theory. Despite this increase in ethnoarchaeology, there is a general belief that it does little to serve the concerns of those doing "real archaeology," that is excavating and making inferences about past activity. Through an analysis of citations in <i>American Antiquity</i>, I assess how ethnoarchaeological work has been used by prehistorians and whether there truly is a disjunction between ethnoarchaeological research and prehistoric reconstructions. In doing so, I explore the role of ethnoarchaeology in theory building, whether archaeological theory really matters, and the most productive way to employ ethnoarchaeological research. It is argued that archaeological theories come and go like snake-oil cures but those that last focus on the relationships between people and material culture. One such theory, a performance-based approach, is offered and contrasted with agency and practice theories.

Mixed Metaphors: Dynamic Modernities in Southeastern North America

The concept of modernity has played an essential role in the development of anthropological archaeology. Providing the philosophical foundation upon which both culture historical and processual archaeologies were constructed, the application of theories based in modernism has led to the persistence of essentialist notions concerning the archaeological records of both Western and non-Western peoples. Examining archaeological materials from the Muskogee Creek peoples of interior Southeastern North America, I contend that previous conceptualizations of modernity lack sufficient nuance to adequately address the diversity of cultural practices among the post-contact Creeks (circa A.D. 1550–1830). Rather than the dichotomous perspective of Western moderns and indigenous primitives that predominates, recent archaeological research in Southeastern North America reveals a cultural milieu in which dynamic, contested modernities were created by both the colonizers and the colonized.

Walter Taylor and the history of American archaeology

Walter Taylor’s place in the history of archaeology is well secured. Not only is he noted for his uncredited anticipation of the theoretical and methodological innovations of the 1960s and 1970s in his infamous book A Study of Archeology, but he is also well-known for committing professional suicide by short-sightedly attacking numerous key figures in American archaeology for their methodological shortfalls, and yet never publishing a report utilizing his controversial method. Although these statements have inundated the historical literature on American archaeology, they are received wisdom rather than the reality of Taylor’s contributions to the field. Many aspects of Taylor’s conjunctive approach were at odds with the stated aims of processual archaeology. Although Taylor did not live up to his critics’ (or his own) demands for a grand display of his approach, he did on several occasions demonstrate its potential. The irony of Taylor in the history of archaeology is not that he was uncredited for his prescience or that his attacks on the archaeological establishment were a naïve failure; but rather that he receives too much credit for what he didn’t do, and not enough for what he did.

What is the `process' in cultural process and in processual archaeology?

The concept of `cultural process' has been of interest to anthropologists since the late 19th century. Franz Boas indicated that investigating cultural processes was central to anthropology, but his failure to define the concept set a disciplinary precedent. Process has seldom been discussed in theoretical detail because the basic notion is commonsensical. A.L. Kroeber provided a definition in 1948 and distinguished between short-term dynamics of how cultures operate and long-term dynamics resulting in cultural change. Leslie White conflated the two families of processes. Archaeologists working before 1960 focused on processes resulting in the diachronic evolution of cultures; many of these involved cultural transmission. Initially, processes involving the synchronic operation of a culture were conflated with diachronic evolutionary processes by processual archaeologists. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lewis Binford, David Clarke, and Frank Hole and Robert Heizer all discussed cultural processes within the framework of systems theory. Simultaneously, growing concern over the formational processes that created the archaeological record shifted attention from the original conception of cultural processes. Models of the temporal duration, scale, and magnitude of cultural processes illustrate their complexity and suggest avenues for further conceptualization.