Explanation in Archaeology

Question 1

Types of Explanations

Answer 1

• nature of the record
• events in the past
• patterns in the past
• classes of events
• long-term processes

Question 2

Nature of the Record

Answer 2

why do we find accumulations of stone and bone on very ancient sites in eastern Africa?

Question 3

Events in the Past

Answer 3

why did people living on the north shore of Lake Ontario move to the Lake Simcoe area in about AD 1300?

Question 4

Patterns in the Past

Answer 4

why do mobile peoples tend to have circular houses while sedentary people have quadrilateral ones?

Question 5

Classes of Events

Answer 5

why did people in a number of places in the world start to cultivate plants?

Question 6

Long-term Processes

Answer 6

why do we see greater evidence of social inequality over time in a region?

Question 7

Low Level Theory

Answer 7

• direct observation or experimentation
• concerned with variation in form, space, time

ex. pottery typology, ordering based on stratification

Question 8

Middle Level Theory

Answer 8

• explain patterns in two or more sets of variables
• link archaeological data with behaviour using ethnoarchaeology and experimental archeology

ex. carbon steel was produced by raising temperatures in the furnace to high heats using pre-heating

Question 9

High Level Theory

Answer 9

• about human behaviour
• shared through social science

ex. Marxism to explain the emergence of social ranking of some societies: who has power? how was power exercised? what were the modes, forces, and relations of production?

Question 10

Culture-historical Arch

Answer 10

• goal is the organization of archaeological record
• framework uses migration diffusion for discussing change

Question 11

Disadvantages of Culture-Historical Arch

Answer 11

• lack of explanation
• migration and diffusion agents of change not explanations of change

Question 12

Culture-Historical Arch: Application

Answer 12

• why did people start to grow corn in Ontario at around A.D. 700?
• explanations: migration of new corn growing group or diffusion of idea of growing corn

Question 13

Processual/New Archaeology

Answer 13

• objective science
• problem oriented
• seeks law-like generalizations
• hypothesis testing
• quantitative methods important
• explanations often functional
• Lewis Binford

Question 14

Processual Arch Attempts to…

Answer 14

isolate & study processes at work in a society between societies

Question 15

Processual Arch Emphasize…

Answer 15

subsistence, demography, relations with environment, social relations

Question 16

Processual Archaeology: Application

Answer 16

• observed that many places in the world independently domesticated plants and animals
• proposed a theory of origin of agriculture for sedentism, population growth, domestication

Question 17

Limitations of Processual Arch

Answer 17

• laws constraining
• some laws not very illuminating
• focus on economy to detriment of ideology

Question 18

Post-processual Arch

Answer 18

• archaeology is interpretive
• history written from a specific viewpoint
• can’t understand any part without the whole
• science only one source of knowledge
• Ian Hodder

Question 19

Post-processual Arch Continued

Answer 19

• artifacts are “meaningfully constituted”
• impossible to construct a single definitive, verifiable interpretation of the past
• urge, consideration of responsibilities, consideration of multiplicity of voices, how did past people construct their worlds?

Question 20

Post-processual Arch: Application

Answer 20

• megalithic tombs in Orkney (cellular structure, long low entries)
• houses (cellular structure, long low entrances)
• “tombs signify houses”

Question 21

Limitations of Post-processual Arch

Answer 21

difficult to evaluate explanations

ex. while a hypothesis can be refuted, how can we evaluate the meaning of a tomb?