Anth 321W Intellectual Background of Archaeology

1. Anth 321WIntellectual Background of Archaeology MWF 9:00-9:55AM 008 Life Sciences Bldg

2. Field Work!!! Fri 9 Sep 2011 • Anthropological study of student use of university libraries. • “Libraries and Student Culture: What We Now Know”. • “The majority of students -- of all levels -- exhibited significant difficulties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process,” according to researchers there. They tended to overuse Google and misuse scholarly databases. They preferred simple database searches to other methods of discovery, but generally exhibited “a lack of understanding of search logic” that often foiled their attempts to find good sources. • However, the researchers did not place the onus solely on students. Librarians and professors are also partially to blame…

3. Idealized Essay Scheme • Introduction • State the problem or question • Foreshadow the paper • Theory • Outline explanatory frameworks • Define expectations • Background • More detail regarding case study • Context of case study • Method • Techniques to evaluate expectations • Results • Articulate what the methods produce • Results are not a discussion, they are RESULTS (common error) • Discussion • Implications of the results are evaluated • How do results bear on expectations • Conclusion • Relate back to the general theory • What new expectations may arise?

4. Abstract Checklist • Motivation: Why do we care? • Problem: What is being solved? • Approach: How is problem solved? • Results: What is the answer? • Conclusions: What are the implications? http://research.berkeley.edu/ucday/abstract.html

5. Do • Help the reader understand what the essay is about. • Up front, state the problem or purpose of the essay. • The first sentence of is ideally a question. • Use headings to separate sections. • Restrict prose under a heading to the theme of the heading.

6. Do not • Rely on gimmicks and attempts to be cute or clever. • Use multiple metaphors. If metaphors are used, employ them sparingly. • Employ complex sentence structure • Use passive voice extensively

9. No archaeologist believes there is one true past. • How can this be? • Gamble’s (2001) two alternate paradigms: • culture history • anthropological archaeology

10. Culture history • Establishment of facts about the past • Data are given primacy, “data speak for themselves” • Often self-perceived as anti-theoretical • Often largely inductive, expectations aren’t tested. Data are ordered rather than brought to bear on expectations. • Ordering is still theoretical • Theories just implicit—chronologies are theoretical statements • Data that force revision of chronologies or reinforce existing chronologies are, in some senses, tests of theory.

11. Explanations of Change • Early evolutionism • In-situ development/innovation • Unilineal Progression/Development • Culture History • Diffusion • Migration/Invasion

12. Three “new” archaeologies of North America • 1910s: the stratigraphic revolution • Kidder, Kroeber, Nelson, Spier • 1940s: cultural ecology • Steward • 1960s: processual archaeology • Binford, Schiffer, Flannery

13. Teaching archaeology:A possible reason for archaeological revolutions? • US: four (or three) field anthropology • Europe: history and humanities • Latin America: history or humanities

14. Processual Archaeology • Binford (1962) “Archaeology as Anthropology” • Explanations explicitly stated and tested • Culture as a means of adaptation • Technology, Economy, Ideology • Environmental Context • Where does change arise?

15. Processualism:Culture as extrasomatic adaptationChange not sui generis White Binford Ideology Economy Technology Environment

16. Pro • Clearly stated methods for linking behavior with archaeological data • Provided a starting point for a more reflexive approach • Con • Law-like approach to archaeology • Positivisim • Limits of middle range theory

17. Middle-Range Theory • A linking between large theoretical issues and data. • A focus on the archaeological record • Clear middle range theories help provide sound tests of theory with archaeological remains.

18. Feminist Archaeology • Explicit attempts to “see women” in the past were a relatively late development in archaeology • Processualists countered that clear methods were required. • Why aren’t such methods required to find males? • Gender is about socially constructed categories • “Gender doesn’t survive in the archaeological record” • Yet consider some “Laws” • Men hunt & women gather • Women make pots & men make plowshares • These laws tell us more about academic ideologies and cultural logic then they are inquiries of the past. • What one does not believe in one does not find. • Feminist and gender archaeology can help expose implicit assumptions that may shape interpretations.

19. Marxist Archaeology • Gordon Childe (1893-1957) • Marxist culture historian • Emphasized the relations of production • Reinterpretation of the three age system in terms of two socio-economic revolutions. • Neolithic revolution • Urban revolution

20. Anglo-American Marxist Archaeology • Marx is a starting point, not an end • Social relations are fundamental • Society is a whole, not parts • Contradiction and conflict are sources of change. The dialectic approach rejects the notion that society is a set of functional adaptations to external conditions. • Human action (praxis) is significant in creating history. Technological and environmental determinism are rejected. • People create knowledge, knowledge of the past depends on socio-political context. • Modern power relations are questioned.

21. Post-processual/Interpretive • Mosaic of theoretical positions and goals • No strict creed or intellectual messiah • What purposes are served by the creation of archaeological knowledge? Who is it for and how has it been used? • Material culture plays a role in how we make social relationships • Individuals must be a part of theories of material culture and social change • Archaeology has close explanatory ties with history