The Pros And Cons Of Post Processual Archaeology

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Processual archaeology was created in response to cultural history, it seems only right that another contending movement had to be created in order to counter the processual one. Post processual archaeology does just that. Social science based, post processual archaeology offers a different view when it comes to interpreting the archaeological record as well as the past that created it. The processual/post processual debate centers upon the forms of knowledge appropriate for a social science. Obviously the minds behind processual archaeology and post processual archaeology did not get along. Each side has something positive to offer to the archaeological community, and neither one will relent to admitting that they have flaws. By outlining …show more content…

Processual archaeologists presume that the world is comprehensible, this assumption leads to complications. Post processual archaeologists on the other hand, are simply happy to interpret things, content that not everything has to be explained. They insist that the archaeologist is meant to be an interpreter. “Interpretation” is the practice that requires the interpreter to take “responsibility for their actions” and “interpretations” (Shanks and Hodder 1995, p. 5). The interpretive practice is an ongoing process, and there is no final and definitive account of the past as it was. “Interpretation is thereby a creative but nonetheless critical attention and response to the interests, needs and desires of different constituencies” (Shanks and Hodder 1995, p. 5). Any interpretation is critical of other interpretations. One of the ways to transcend the weaknesses of processual archaeology is to look beyond the “black boxes” (Shanks and Hodder 1995, p. 8) that it relies on. It is forgotten that in order to produce those “black boxes” there would have had to be a certain type of interpretation of the archaeological process that allowed them to exist in the first place. As mentioned before processual archaeologists assumed absolute objectivity, but the interpretation of their “black boxes” is in fact biased. Post processual archaeologists realize that these …show more content…

It can be said that post processual archaeology constitutes for a more “radical critique” for processual archaeology (Kohl and Bradley 1997 p. 13). Though there were many negative things stated about post processual archaeology, Kohl also managed to outline some positive critiques for this methodology. The post processual critique of scientism was welcomed. It “debunk[ed]” (Kohl and Bradley 1997, p. 13) the naïve positivism that was associated with processual archaeology, as well as critiqued the cultural ecology of it. While the diversity supplied by post processual archaeology was welcomed, it resulted in an archaeology that refused to confront significant problems, and to address unresolved difficulties in our understandings of the past (p. 16). Ambassadors for post processual archaeology like Shanks and Tilley, promote “dogmatic skepticism” (Watson 1990, p. 678), attempting to demonstrate that because all concepts are theory laden and all meanings come from human beings, there is no real knowledge, but only “truths” that fluctuate relative to conflicting categorical schemes. While they do not have to agree with processual archaeology, post processual archeologists have an unhealthy mistrust of science, insisting that treating the text with openness and creativity one derives all of the

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