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Archaeology theory essays
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Archaeology theory essays
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Archaeology is comparatively a young discipline amongst other fields of social sciences.
Through conceptuality and practicality, the discipline has been continuously enhancing,
especially within the last few decades. Since its development, practice and theory has become
the interlocked components of this discipline. Theory is particularly a vital component of
the discipline because it constructs the archaeological interpretations which vary between
methodologies. There is a great theoretical debate in the discipline of archaeology between
schools of thought regarding the concerning the fundamental causes of human behavior, dubbed
“biology versus culture” for example. The school of thought on the biology panel is called
the ‘processualism’
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Post-processual archaeology itself had originated as a
critical response to processual archaeology, rejecting the scientific approach of the processual
archaeologists; post-processual archaeologists gave importance to subjectivity (Hodder 1982;
Shanks and Tilley 1987; Miller and Tiley1984;). Post-processual reasoning claim that the
interpretation of the archaeological data is influenced by current political and social settings, and
therefore archaeologists cannot truly interpret the past.
The principal critiques are the processual interest in adaptive technologies, the acceptance
of a cross-cultural anthropology at the deprivation of historical content, and the processual
definition of archaeology being a science and defined as positivist (which is the idea that
arguments are constructed by testable theories against objective data). The emphasis of post- processual critique focused around meaning, history, agency, and on the individual. Processual
archaeology of the 1960s and 1970s proposed that material culture ought to be considered in
long term adaptive processes. But the post-processual critiqued processual archaeology
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In contrast, post-processual archaeology deems material culture active and
people had used and altered material culture to effect social change.
Another post-processual critique was the processual archaeology’s embrace of the
hypothetico-deductive positivism in the 1960s and 1970s which had derived from Carl Hempel,
a philosopher of science. The hypothetico-deductive approach comprised of inferring statements
from general theories and testing them against observable data. Post-processual archaeologists
thought this was obsolete due to epistemology previously receiving profound critique in the
natural science.
To alleviate theoretical dichotomies within the discipline as mentioned above, Cullen
(1995) had proposed the Cultural Virus Theory (CVT) to satisfy the dominant and the
challenging paradigms of archaeological theory. CVT is a theory in which concepts such as
virology, psycho-biology, ecology, and immunology are unified within the archaeological
theory. In this theory, neither realist nor relativist model of the spirit of cultural phenomenon is
FIRST EXAMINATION IN ARCHAEOLOGY
DAY II: RELATING THEORY TO RESEARCH PROBLEMS
characterized. CVT eliminates all distinctions of objectivism/subjectivism. Instead it
...ts were labelled with the upper case letters which represented the material types and a numeric letter. The artifacts were placed in different boxes. The artifact analysis was then conducted and the characteristics such as tool type and material type of each artifact were recorded on the artifact catalog forms. The material samples of lithic tools, faunal remains, and ceramics remains were compare with existing artifacts to identify their material type. The Vernier scale was used for the measurements of each lithic tools.
...ncyclopedia of Archaeology, Ed. Deborah M. Pearsall. Vol. 3. Oxford, United Kingdom: Academic Press, 2008. p1896-1905. New Britain: Elsevier, Inc.
Cultural relativism is defined as the belief that no one culture is superior to another morally, politically, etc., and that all “normal” human behavior is entirely relative, depending on the cultural
While digging in the far reaches of the African outback, now know as the western part of Kenya, archaeologist Bozo excavated a site that revolutionized the thoughts of the scientific world. At this site they found many interesting artifacts and paintings that included proof of an early civilization. At this time scientists are calling this civilization “Pontu” after one of the paintings suggested that a pontoon was used for transportation across Lake Victoria, one of the adjacent lakes.
Evolution can be seen throughout all aspects of life, but for each aspect evolution does not occur in the same process. In his article entitled “Natural Selection, Scale, and Cultural Evolution,” Dunnell emphasizes and explains why evolution has made such a small impact on archaeology. Cultural evolution and biological evolution are not the same. Biological evolution uses theoretical propositions that explain the mechanisms of biological adaptation and evolution. The laws of cultural evolution “are not theoretical propositions but rather empirical generalizations” (Dunnell, 1996: 25). Cultural evolution does not explain the differences among the occurrences cultural phenomena. Dunnell’s main goal is to effectively formulate ways to integrate evolutionary characteristics and anthropological theory (Dunnell, 1996).
These two theories have been a contoversial topic, because it is not a common theme or a
Anthropology is a study of mankind that goes beyond the fragment of ones skeletal remains. Anthropology Studies involved within this science include the culture and surroundings a person once lived in.Anthropology, (2014) A example scientist often conduct archaeological digs. Their findings reveal many different aspects of that person or person’s life. The weather a person could have been exposed to. The environment or activities that person might have participated in. The scope of life that can be recovered from human remains is astonishing. Forensic Science as a whole is an impressive and interesting science that can be used within many different realms.
For instance, an entire new field of study known as "Evolutionary Psychology" is based on the premise that we can understand who we are today based on how we have evolved, and what we have evolved from. Evolution, is more or less a proven fact, analogous to gravity, it is a theory that we have used to understand countless other phenomena in the world around us. But there is no theory about how early man behaved, how he evolved, or even, what he looked like, that comes even close to being as widely accepted. In other words, this new field of study is based on science that does not yet exist, and might not ever exist, and the thinking behind it is similar to thinking behind the study of early man. Evolutionary psychologists use things we don't know about who we were then to try and understand who we are now, and anthropologists use things we don't know about who we are now to try and understand who we were then.
Archaeology has traditionally dealt with first civilizations, antiquity and older periods of human history, but with time its focus was getting closer and closer to recent time. In the last decades it came to the present where it deals with the interaction between the material culture and human behaviour, without limitations of space and time (look at Rathje 1979, 1981; Buchli, Lucas 2001; Saunders 2010b, 42). The rise of archaeological investigations of recent past can be traced from the 70s onwards. The Rathje’s Garbage Project / Le Projet du Garbàg played the important role. It started in the 1973 at University of Arizona (Buchli, Lucas 2001, 3). In this archaeological approach to the recent past the so called archaeologies of contemporary past emerged. The name was introduced by Buchli and Lucas (2001). In the context of it they highlighted some of the characteristic themes which had great impact on the development of archaeologies of contemporary past. These were production/consumption, remembering/forgetting, disappearance/disclosure, presen...
Whilst there have been major criticisms of the Systems Theory, it is still occasionally applied to modern day archaeology to describe the components of culture-systems.
10.) Archaeology - is the study of the remains of human behaviour in the past. It usually involves excavating sites where such remains including artifacts and ecofacts, can be found.
According to The Society for American Archaeology, the definition of Archaeology is, “to obtain a chronology of the past, a sequence of events and dates that, in a sense, is a backward extension of history.” The study of ancient civilizations and archaeology is rather ambiguous due to the primitive nature of the time period. With little imagery and even less textual evidence, professionals in the field must work diligently when studying their subjects. Naturally, archaeologists cannot see or communicate with those whom they are studying, so they must be extraordinarily meticulous when analyzing past cultures. This relates to all aspects of the ancient world including; foods, raw materials, artifacts, agriculture, art work and pottery. All of these elements can collectively provide new and innovative information to curious archaeologists who may wish to gain a better understanding of those who came before us. This information is equally beneficial for both historians and archaeologists who plan to compare the histories of societies from all around the world. In the world of archaeology, archaeologists strive to better explain human behavior by analyzing our past. Therefore, the study of archaeology is a key element in understanding a time before our own.
Brooks, Mick. "What Is Historical Materialism." Maxism. 14 Nov. 2002. Web. 25 May 2012. .
This study focuses on the connection of Archeology with different forms of science and even statistics. Archeology has been the major component for many years when it comes to studying human activity and remains of the past and has been used in different areas around the world. There are also many different forms or types of archeology. An important form of archeology is archaeological science or also known as archaeometry. Archaeometry helps narrow down what time period something was created, died or how long it has been around. You are able to study and look back at human activity such as trade routes and diets. With these major proponents Archeologists are able to draw or paint a mental picture about how a certain area looked like. Obsidian sources, diets, deoxyribonucleic acid, dating techniques, residues, neutron activation analysis (NAA), and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) are all major areas that make up archeological science. Also, there are many different types of dating techniques that help in this process. With the dating techniques you can narrow down a time frame if not the actual date when a material was around. NAA and XRF help characterize different materials and residues assist with goods found such as wine and chocolate; obsidian sources give assistance to finding trade routes.
First we should look at science and some of its topics. Science can be defined as knowledge about or study of the natural world based on