Arch Theory

Arch Theory Arch Theory

Willey in the 1950's were jumping around the problems in archaeology
no one had come to one single conclusion or brought together all the problems until Binford 1962
everyone was looking at different parts and not at archaeology as a whole
the question of why wasn't being asked
Binford answers the question why in his article
he also argues that processual archaeology and post-processual archaeology should be used
New archaeology is processual archaeology
processual archaeology grew up and changed its name from new archaeology
the environment is now brought into archaeology, in that the environment influences human culture
bring culture into it: cultural evolution
incorporate the scienfitic method to help understand the past
systemic view of culture (systems theory)
- a way of modeling culture
- complexity is so complex that no one thing can cause it, but the relationships between the traits within a society can act on each other and cause complexity
- positive feedback
another thing new is the trying of the archaeologists to be explicit about their biases
variablity is also brought forward
tries to explain processes from the past (Talor was missing that:doesn't address culture change)
Prehistory and human ecology of the deh luran plain an early village sequence from Khuzistan, Iran(done in 63): Hole, Flannery, and Neely 1969
- did some of the wackiest things for their time
- they wanted to look at process
- they screened everything, used floatation, dug in 10cm levels or natural levels which is smaller, dug in 1m squares in checkerboard fashion,
- found 1,000's of seeds, were able to show when grains were adopted and how the grains changed
- plant material was driving force behind screening
- fit in with the 60's
culture is the extrasomatic life
Binford talks about the different categories of articles
cannot equate technology and material objects: not all materials are used for technology
socialogical and ideaology goods
copper culture de-evolved when they stopped
the copper culture was a ceremonial part of the culture
status was acheived before (good hunter/good basketmaker)
later status becomes ascribed
status markers change from those of skill to those of heredity
burials make the best use of processual ideas because of the intent associated with them
Flannery and the valley of oaxaca
- small villages were excated against the grain of archaeology
- found two olmec symbols in an area of outside olmec influence
- used in non-olmec way and only discovered them because of his work with small villages
- larger cities
- east/west had fire serpent
- north/south had jaguar
- small villages had either/or
- different villages were related to different parts of the larger city
- iron ore mirrors (magnetite) was trade point with olmec
- Rough Draft Nov. 14
- Outline Due 29
- Middle Range
- How the dynamic connects with the static
- tries to connect static archaeological record to the dynamic, active behavior that created it
- ethnoarchaeology or experimental archaeology
- patterns with trash
- problems: how do we know that's what happened in the past? & So What?
- Post-Pro: we have a better story because your's can't be proven
- Evol Arch: we cannot know about behavior
- Small-scale middle range theory: use-wear analysis (damage on side and seeing what damage was done)
- Large-scale: non-state level societies one can coordinate the construction of religious buildings (gods will smile on the individual), palaces are built until state level when the individual has power (ethnographic study)
- Burial Practices
  - increased prestige-increases energy expanded on burial
  - a scribed rank - some children and females have rich burials too
  - achieved rank - typically only adult males have rich burials (some adult females too)
  - burial of youngest of ten outside normal practices
- Johnson 1982: little graphic summarizes paper
  - only so many things are kept in short term memory (6 is a level for decision making)
  - complexity comes from the inability of individuals to make decisions
  - heirachies develop so that a central decision maker can deal out all the details
- Old Timer(Frizen), Born Again Philosopher(Shiffer), Child of the Seventies(Plog)
- Flannery: give me culture or give me death!
- Hill/Longacre: Social Dynamics >> Social Organization >> Residence Patterns
- Problems: typing and styling of ceramics(Plog)
  - there were passing ons between mother and daughter, however it was not true that it could be seen at the level these two are looking at: either a bigger or smaller level is better for analyzing (regional on pots [whole design], microscale [thickness of brush, angle of brush])
  - formation processes: laziness principle, how did the trash get into the room, other inhabitants are using abandoned houses as trash dumps
  - use of modern pottery techniques to discuss past pottery techniques
  - statistics are flawed,
  - no control of time
  - style is dependant on function (bowls will often have different designs than other vessels)
- Watson: says alot of the same things
- Longacre 1991 Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology
  - found modern group in which households made and used their pottery NC Luzan Kalinga spent one year 1975 275ppl and 55 households
  - elders said that figuring out through design analysis what potter made each pot was impossible
  - men said no, women said yes
  - could actually tell, but whole pots help, nothing they used in his study was used
  - new styles come about through girls changing mothers designs and girls influencing each other
  - looked at types of pots, and not matter shape or size, there were three kinds, water, meat, rice
  - there were use-ware patterns on each pot that distinguished what type of pots they were
  - soot will be found on those use on fire
  - external use wear: damage will be found where pot was supported over fire
  - damage where it rested on the floor
  - rope handle damage
  - internal damage (rice=lip of pot would be damaged were lid was placed, veggie and meat pots had straches on the inside
  - water had internal straches
- Architecture
  - Turkey Creek Pueblo and Pueblo Bonito
  - moeity
- Ceramics
  - sourcing studies
- Bones
  - feasting, provisioning,
- burial practices
- Carrying Out Processual Archaeology
  - Experimental and Ethnoarchaeology
  - Binford started it all
  - middle range research
  - necessary fix to get at past
  - these two areas have seen growth since 70's
  - experimental archaeology
    - 1800's to determine where fonal remains came from
    - fed bones to dones see what damage would ensue
    - the plan is to conduct experiments in the present to discover past behavior
    - Barnes: quantitative analysis of edge angles to compare natural vs. man-made
    - Wintombeer: ethnographic research and then played around with the method himself
    - in the 70's this really started to bloom
    - stone tool use and faunal studies
    - there are a million assumptions that people make (cut marks, pot polish, heat treating)
    - this is the process of proving/disproving the assumptions
    - Do thse studies help us get at laws of cultural dynamics?
  - Lewin does a study on cave art in france
    - two aspects of cave art that are interesting
      - analysis of paint that went into cave art
      - style classification didn't work, carbon dating showed dates were all backwards
      - Austrailian rock are is done through blowing
    - spends weeks replicating the art seen in france caves
Evolutionary say we can look at technology
Processual say we can look at economy, social and political org.
Post-processual say we can look at hardest ideology
formation processes are important
shiffer told us this in great detail
these processes weren't as understand as they were today
formation processes are transformation processes that change what is in the record
the pompei premisis: critizes shiffer: we don't find pompei's in the ground
the cultural transforms are ludicrisis the distrubances exist, but we are here to figure them out and work around them
discusses a shiffer site, shiffer assumed that surface artifacts were from orginial occupation and no one else lived there
binford examined it and saw that a hunting camp had existed after the orginial occupation
Post-modernism
philosophical debate
archaeology is a late comer to this debate
creationist and post modernists come together
science is a fraud.
science isn't objective and everyone's story is okay
creationist say that science is a religion and should be taught in school
creation scienctist cannot test their theory
post modernists
- social construction of reality
- highlights/stresses the role of ideology and history in the creation of scientific facts
- linguistic determinism: all knowledge is reduced to language games
- deconstruction
- spector article
- the article lays out the reason for taking a post-processual appraoch to archaeology
- women have been left out of the intepretation
- same thing can be said for native americans
- their perspective has been ignored
- invited native americans
- men are lazy women work hard
- customs of women and read a peice about the dakota women recorded what was made
- Watson and kennedy
- ethnographic quotes
- men hunt animals women gather plants
- making the case for women and the rise of agriculture
- women of the ice age
- women were working just as hard as men
- kuznar chapter 9/10
- by bringing politics into archaeology we often don't help the politcs
- usually backfires
- get at the truth instead of taking sides
- anthropologists don't study the bad guys eventhough that is most needed
- peruvian communities need to protect the sites instead of stealing in order to make peru money through tourism
- Man-hunter: kuznar - sex, freudian view of archaeology, orginial idea was big game hunter, after conference men were hunting some, women were supplimenting with other food resources,
- hand axes were like peacock feathers, used to attract mates,
- behavioral archaeology: science of material culture(how things go into the ground)
- experimental and ethnoarchaeology (tools) fits all three schools of thought
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