Chapter 3

1. Chapter 3 The Structure of Archaeological Inquiry

2. Outline • Levels of Theory • Paradigms • Paradigms in Archaeology • Is Postmodernism All That New? • Archaeology Today • The Structure of Archaeological Inquiry • Conclusion: Processualist or Postprocessualist?

3. Theory • An explanation for observed, empirical phenomena. • It is empirical and seeks to explain the relationships between variables; it is an answer to a “why” question.

4. Paradigm • The overarching framework, often unstated, for understanding a research problem. • It is a researcher’s “culture.”

5. Rockshelter • A common type of archaeological site, consisting of a rock overhang that is deep enough to provide shelter but not deep enough to be called a cave. • ecofactPlant or animal remains found in an archaeological site.

6. Feature • The nonportable evidence of technology. • Examples: fire hearths, architectural elements, artifact clusters, garbage pits, soil stains.

7. Gatecliff Shelter • A prehistoric rockshelter in Nevada where people camped over a 7000 year period. • Buried in Gatecliff Shelter were: • Artifacts: bone awls, baskets, grinding stones, woven sagebrush bark mats, shells and turquoise used as ornaments. • Ecofacts: bighorn sheep bones, charcoal, piñon nut hulls, and pollen. • Features: pits, hearths, rodent burrows

8. Data at Gatecliff Shelter • No data was found at Gatecliff shelter. • Archaeologists do not excavate data, they excavate objects. • Data are observations made on those objects.

9. Theories • low-level theories - observations and interpretations from hands-on field and lab work. • middle-level theory - hypothesis that links archaeological observations with human behavior or natural processes that produced them. • high-level theory - theory that seeks to answer large “why” questions.

10. Experimental Archaeology • Experiments to determine the archaeological correlates of ancient behavior. • ethnoarchaeology - The study of contemporary peoples to determine how human behavior is translated into the archaeological record. • taphonomy - The study of how organisms become part of the fossil record.

11. Paradigms in Archaeology • Processual paradigm • Explains social, economic, and cultural change as the result of adaptation to material conditions. • Postprocessual paradigm • Focuses on humanistic approaches and rejects scientific objectivity; more concerned with interpreting the past than testing hypotheses.

12. Cultural Materialism • Views environmental, technological, and economic factors as the most powerful and pervasive determinants of human behavior. • By exclusively embracing a scientific framework to examine the effects of material factors on human societies, cultural materialists reject humanist, ideational approaches and advocate the adaptive view of culture.

13. Cultural Materialists • Use three fundamental concepts in their approach: • Infrastructure • Structure • Superstructure

14. Infrastructure • Food, shelter, reproduction, and health • Mediates a culture’s interactions with the natural and social environment through: • Mode of production - technology, practices, and social relations used in basic subsistence production • Mode of reproduction - technology, practices, and social relations used to expand, limit, and maintain population.

15. Structure • Made up of interpersonal relationships that emerge as behavior. • Domestic economy - organization of reproduction and production, exchange, and consumption within domestic settings. • Political economy - organization of reproduction, production, exchange, and consumption within and between bands, villages, chiefdoms, states, and empires.

16. Superstructure • Refers to a society’s values, aesthetics, rules, beliefs, religions, and symbols, which can be behaviorally manifested as art,music, dance, literature, advertising, religious rituals, sports, games, hobbies, and even science.

17. Principle of Infrastructural Determinism • Human society strives to meet the needs most important to the survival and well-being of human individuals (sex, sleep, nutrition, and shelter). • The infrastructure determines the rest of the sociocultural system.

18. How the Cultural Materialist Views Causality

19. Contrasts: Processual and Postprocessual Archaeology

20. Contrasts: Processual and Postprocessual Archaeology

21. Enlightenment • A shift in Western philosophy that advocated absolute truth, science, rational planning of ideal social orders, and standardization of knowledge. • Science and technology would free people from the oppression myth, religion, and superstition. • Control of nature through technology would permit the development of moral and spiritual virtues.

22. Postmodernism • Argues that there really is no truth and no coherence except that all understanding and meaning is “historically situated.” • Our understanding of the world is not really truth, but rather only a product of the time in which we live.

23. A Model of Archaeological Inquiry

24. Quick Quiz

25. 1. A _____ is the overarching framework for understanding a research problem.

26. Answer: paradigm • A paradigm is the overarching framework for understanding a research problem.

27. 2. Low-level theories seek to answer large “why” questions. • True • False

28. Answer: B. False • Low-level theories areobservations and interpretations from hands-on field and lab work, high-level theories seek to answer large “why” questions.

29. 3. This paradigm explains social, economic, and cultural change as the result of adaptation to material conditions. • Processual paradigm • Postprocessual paradigm • Cultural materialism • Postmodernism • None of the above.

30. Answer: A • The processual paradigm explains social, economic, and cultural change as the result of adaptation to material conditions.

31. 4. Cultural materialism • Argues that there is no truth and that all meaning is “historically situated.” • Views environmental, technological, and economic factors as the most powerful determinants of human behavior. • Believes science and technology will free people from oppression. • None of the above.

32. Answer: B • Cultural materialism views environmental, technological, and economic factors as the most powerful determinants of human behavior.