Archaeological Theories

Archaeological Theories

Archaeological theory refers to the various intellectual frameworks through which archaeologists interpret archaeological data. A theory is a set of principles in which the practice of an activity is based. In archaeology, it is a set of principles under which the practice of archaeology is based.

There is no single approach to archaeological theory that has been adhered to by all archaeologists. Different archaeologists believe that information should be interpreted in different ways.  When archaeology developed in the late 19th century;

v  The first approach to archaeological theory to be practiced was that of cultural-history archaeology which is also regarded as traditional archaeology. By this time, archaeology was considered unscientific.

v  In the 1960´s another archaeological approach developed i.e. processualism. This sought to revolutionize the pursuit of archaeology under the banner of NEW ARCHAEOLOGY.

v  From 1980´s other several theoretical orientations have become important in archaeology under the label of post-processualism.

Traditional archaeology which is also known as cultural-historical archaeology was basically descriptive with little attempt to explain cultural change or processes. The main questions asked by traditional archaeologists were like WHAT, WHEN and WHERE.

Processual archaeology

Processual archaeology which is also called NEW ARCHAEOLOGY is a new approach developed in the 1960’s which argued for explicitly scientific framework of archaeological methodologies and theory. This school of thought holds that archaeologists are able to develop accurate and objective information about past societies by applying the scientific method to their investigations. The new archaeological approach was advocated by Lewis Binford and David Clarke in America and England respectively.

The major transformation in archaeology occurred in 1950’s when archaeologists revisited the goals of archaeology and means of doing archaeology. The archaeological movement involved a group of younger archaeologists, led by Lewis Binford followed their dissatisfactions of the way traditional archaeology was being conducted. Traditional archaeology never seemed to explain anything, other than in terms of migration of people or diffusion.

They advocated that, archaeology should be more scientific in its approach. Conclusions should be based not simply in the personal authority of scholar making the interpretation, but on an explicit framework of logical argument. That is to say, for conclusions to be considered valid must be open to testing.

On the other hand, they advocated that main goals of archaeology should be to explain rather than just describing what happened in the past. To achieve this, there is need to look and study culture as a system which could be broken into-subsystems such as subsistence, technological, social and ideological sub-systems. Therefore, past human cultures are to be treated as systems which interacted with environment and with each other.

KEY CONCEPTS/TENETS OF NEW ARCHAEOLOGY

1.      Explanation

The New Archaeology, drawing on the philosophy of science was meant to explain culture processes, of how changes in economic and social systems take place, not simply to reconstruct the past and how people had lived. This involved the use of explicit theory.

2.      Deductive reasoning

For the New archaeologists, the appropriate procedure is to formulating hypotheses, constructing models and deducing their consequences.

3.      Validation

New archaeologists argued that hypotheses should be tested and conclusions should not be accepted on the basis of authority or standing of the research worker.

4.      Project design

Research should be designed to answer specific questions economically, not simply to generate more information which might not be relevant.

5.      Quantitative

NB: Read Renfrew & Bahn (2004:40-42)

Post-processual archaeology

Post-processual archaeology, which is sometimes considered as interpretative archaeologies, is a movement in archaeological theory that emphasizes subjectivity of archaeological interpretations. Post-processual archaeology claim that all archaeological data is contaminated by human interpretation and social factors, and that any interpretation that they make about past societies is therefore subjective.

The post-processual movement originated in the United Kingdom during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The movement was pioneered by archaeologists such as Ian Hodder and Christopher Tilley. Initially post-processualism was primarily a reaction to and critique of processual archaeology, a paradigm developed in the 1960s by 'New Archaeologists' such as Lewis Binford.

It questioned processualism's appeals to science and neutrality by claiming that every archaeologist is in fact biased by his or her personal experience and background, and thus truly scientific archaeological work is difficult or impossible. This is especially true in archaeology where experiments or excavations cannot possibly be repeatable by others as the scientific method dictates. Post-processual archaeologists analyses not only the material remains they excavated, but also themselves, their attitudes and opinions. The different approaches to archaeological evidence which every person brings to his or her interpretation result in different constructs of the past for each individual.