Processual archaeology
Encyclopedia
Processual archaeology is a form of archaeological theory
that had its genesis in 1958 with Willey and Phillips' work Method and Theory in American Archeology, in which the pair stated that "American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing" (Willey and Phillips, 1958:2), a rephrasing of Frederic William Maitland
's comment that "[m]y own belief is that by and by, anthropology will have the choice between being history and being nothing." This idea implied that the goals of archaeology
were, in fact, the goals of anthropology
, which were to answer questions about humans and human society. This was a critique of the former period in archaeology, the Culture-Historical
phase in which archaeologists thought that any information which artifacts contained about past people and past ways of life was lost once the items became included in the archaeological record. All they felt could be done was to catalogue, describe, and create timelines based on the artifacts.
Proponents of this new phase in archaeology claimed that with the rigorous use of the scientific method
it was possible to get past the limits of the archaeological record and learn something about how the people who used the artifacts lived.
. Processual archaeologists are, in almost all cases, cultural evolutionists. It is from this perspective that they believe they can understand past cultural systems through the remains they left behind. This is because processual archaeologists adhere to White's
theory that culture can be defined as the exosomatic (outside the body) means of environmental adaptation for humans. In other words, they study cultural adaptation to environmental change rather than the bodily response over generations, which is dealt with by evolutionary biologists. This focus on environmental adaptation is based on the cultural ecology
and multilinear evolution ideas of anthropologists such as Julian Steward
. As exosomatic adaptation, culture is determined by environmental constraints. The result of this is that processual archaeologists propose that cultural change happens in a predictable framework and seek to understand it by the analysis of its components. Moreover, since that framework is predictable then science is the key to unlocking how those components interacted with the cultural whole. What this all means to processual archaeologists is that cultural changes are driven by evolutionary "processes" in cultural development, which will be adaptive relative to the environment and therefore not only understandable, but also scientifically predictable once the interaction of the variables is understood. Thus one should be able to virtually completely reconstruct these "cultural processes." Hence came the name "processual archaeology". Its practitioners were also called "new archaeologists".
Methodologically, the advocates of the New Archaeology had to come up with ways of analyzing the archaeological remains in a more scientific fashion. The problem was that no framework for this kind of analysis existed. There was such a dearth of work in this area that it led Willey and Phillips to state in 1958, "So little work has been done in American archaeology on the explanatory level that it is difficult to find a name for it". Different researchers had different approaches to this problem. Lewis Binford
felt that ethno-historical information was necessary to facilitate an understanding of archaeological context. Ethno-historical (history of peoples) research involves living and studying the life of those who would have used the artifacts - or at least a similar culture. Binford wanted to prove that the Mousterian
assemblage, a group of stone artifacts from France during an ice age
, was adapted to its environment, and so Binford spent time with the Nunamiut
of Alaska
, a people living in conditions very similar to those of France during the period in question. Binford had a good deal of success with this approach, and though his specific problem ultimately eluded complete understanding, the ethno-historical work he did is constantly referred to by researchers today and has since been emulated by many.
The new methodological approaches of the processual research paradigm include logical positivism
(the idea that all aspects of culture are accessible through the material record), the use of quantitative data, and the hypothetico-deductive model (scientific method of observation and hypothesis testing).
During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, archaeologist Kent Flannery began championing the idea that Systems theory
could be used in Archaeology to attack questions of culture, from an unbiased perspective. Systems Theory has proved to be a mixed bag for archaeology as a whole. It works well when trying to describe how elements of a culture interact, but appears to work poorly when describing why they interact the way that they do. Nevertheless, Systems Theory has become a very important part of processualism, and is perhaps the only way archaeologists can examine other cultures without interference from their own cultural biases.
and Brown University
, universities in America classify archaeology as a sub-discipline of anthropology, while in Europe it is thought to be a subject more like historical studies. It is important to analyze which disciplines are close kin because such analysis highlights the questions of what archaeology ought to study and in what ways. Like the other social scientists, the New Archaeologists or processualists wanted to utilize scientific methodology in their work. Archaeology, and in particular archaeology of the historical period, has sometimes been allied more with humanities disciplines such as Classics. The question of where to put archaeology as a discipline, and its concomitant issues of what archaeology ought to study and which methods it ought to use, likely played no small part in the emergence of post-processualism in Europe.
Writing in 1987, the archaeologist Christopher Chippindale
of Cambridge University spoke on the view of processualism at that time, putting it in the context of the 1960s, when he stated that:
Archaeological theory
Archaeological theory refers to the various intellectual frameworks through which archaeologists interpret archaeological data. There is no one singular theory of archaeology, but many, with different archaeologists believing that information should be interpreted in different ways...
that had its genesis in 1958 with Willey and Phillips' work Method and Theory in American Archeology, in which the pair stated that "American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing" (Willey and Phillips, 1958:2), a rephrasing of Frederic William Maitland
Frederic William Maitland
Frederic William Maitland was an English jurist and historian, generally regarded as the modern father of English legal history.-Biography:...
's comment that "[m]y own belief is that by and by, anthropology will have the choice between being history and being nothing." This idea implied that the goals of archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
were, in fact, the goals of anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, which were to answer questions about humans and human society. This was a critique of the former period in archaeology, the Culture-Historical
Cultural-history archaeology
Culture-historical archaeology is an archaeological theory that emphasises defining historical societies into distinct ethnic and cultural groupings according to their material culture...
phase in which archaeologists thought that any information which artifacts contained about past people and past ways of life was lost once the items became included in the archaeological record. All they felt could be done was to catalogue, describe, and create timelines based on the artifacts.
Proponents of this new phase in archaeology claimed that with the rigorous use of the scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
it was possible to get past the limits of the archaeological record and learn something about how the people who used the artifacts lived.
Theory
The theoretical frame at the heart of processual archaeology is cultural evolutionismCultural evolutionism
Cultural evolutionism attempts to describe and explain long-term change in human ways of life, insofar as those ways are socially rather than biologically acquired...
. Processual archaeologists are, in almost all cases, cultural evolutionists. It is from this perspective that they believe they can understand past cultural systems through the remains they left behind. This is because processual archaeologists adhere to White's
Leslie White
Leslie Alvin White was an American anthropologist known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution, sociocultural evolution, and especially neoevolutionism, and for his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor...
theory that culture can be defined as the exosomatic (outside the body) means of environmental adaptation for humans. In other words, they study cultural adaptation to environmental change rather than the bodily response over generations, which is dealt with by evolutionary biologists. This focus on environmental adaptation is based on the cultural ecology
Cultural ecology
Cultural ecology studies the relationship between a given society and its natural environment as well as the life-forms and ecosystems that support its lifeways . This may be carried out diachronically , or synchronically...
and multilinear evolution ideas of anthropologists such as Julian Steward
Julian Steward
Julian Haynes Steward was an American anthropologist best known for his role in developing "the concept and method" of cultural ecology, as well as a scientific theory of culture change.-Early life and education:...
. As exosomatic adaptation, culture is determined by environmental constraints. The result of this is that processual archaeologists propose that cultural change happens in a predictable framework and seek to understand it by the analysis of its components. Moreover, since that framework is predictable then science is the key to unlocking how those components interacted with the cultural whole. What this all means to processual archaeologists is that cultural changes are driven by evolutionary "processes" in cultural development, which will be adaptive relative to the environment and therefore not only understandable, but also scientifically predictable once the interaction of the variables is understood. Thus one should be able to virtually completely reconstruct these "cultural processes." Hence came the name "processual archaeology". Its practitioners were also called "new archaeologists".
Methodologically, the advocates of the New Archaeology had to come up with ways of analyzing the archaeological remains in a more scientific fashion. The problem was that no framework for this kind of analysis existed. There was such a dearth of work in this area that it led Willey and Phillips to state in 1958, "So little work has been done in American archaeology on the explanatory level that it is difficult to find a name for it". Different researchers had different approaches to this problem. Lewis Binford
Lewis Binford
Lewis Roberts Binford was an American archaeologist known for his influential work in archaeological theory, ethnoarchaeology and the Paleolithic period...
felt that ethno-historical information was necessary to facilitate an understanding of archaeological context. Ethno-historical (history of peoples) research involves living and studying the life of those who would have used the artifacts - or at least a similar culture. Binford wanted to prove that the Mousterian
Mousterian
Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age.-Naming:...
assemblage, a group of stone artifacts from France during an ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
, was adapted to its environment, and so Binford spent time with the Nunamiut
Nunamiut
The Nunamiut people are a semi-nomadic inland Inupiaq Eskimos located in northern and northwestern Alaska, mostly around the Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, whose ancestors date back hundreds of years.-History:...
of Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, a people living in conditions very similar to those of France during the period in question. Binford had a good deal of success with this approach, and though his specific problem ultimately eluded complete understanding, the ethno-historical work he did is constantly referred to by researchers today and has since been emulated by many.
The new methodological approaches of the processual research paradigm include logical positivism
Logical positivism
Logical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...
(the idea that all aspects of culture are accessible through the material record), the use of quantitative data, and the hypothetico-deductive model (scientific method of observation and hypothesis testing).
During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, archaeologist Kent Flannery began championing the idea that Systems theory
Systems theory in archaeology
Systems theory in archaeology is the application of systems theory and systems thinking in archaeology. It originated with the work of Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the 1950s, and is introduced in archaeology in the 1960s with the work of Sally R. Binford & Lewis Binford's "New Perspectives in...
could be used in Archaeology to attack questions of culture, from an unbiased perspective. Systems Theory has proved to be a mixed bag for archaeology as a whole. It works well when trying to describe how elements of a culture interact, but appears to work poorly when describing why they interact the way that they do. Nevertheless, Systems Theory has become a very important part of processualism, and is perhaps the only way archaeologists can examine other cultures without interference from their own cultural biases.
Further Theoretical Development
Processualism's development transformed archaeology, and is sometimes called the "New Archaeology." With few notable exceptions such as Boston UniversityBoston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
and Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, universities in America classify archaeology as a sub-discipline of anthropology, while in Europe it is thought to be a subject more like historical studies. It is important to analyze which disciplines are close kin because such analysis highlights the questions of what archaeology ought to study and in what ways. Like the other social scientists, the New Archaeologists or processualists wanted to utilize scientific methodology in their work. Archaeology, and in particular archaeology of the historical period, has sometimes been allied more with humanities disciplines such as Classics. The question of where to put archaeology as a discipline, and its concomitant issues of what archaeology ought to study and which methods it ought to use, likely played no small part in the emergence of post-processualism in Europe.
Criticism
Processualism began to be critiqued soon after it emerged, initiating a theoretical movement that would come to be called post-processualism. Post-processualist critics consider the main weaknesses of processual archaeology to be:- environmental determinismEnvironmental determinismEnvironmental determinism, also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism, is the view that the physical environment, rather than social conditions, determines culture...
- lack of human agency
- view of cultures as homeostatic, with cultural change only resulting from outside stimuli
- failure to take into account factors such as gender, ethnicity, identity, social relations, etc.
- supposed objectivity of interpretation
Writing in 1987, the archaeologist Christopher Chippindale
Christopher Chippindale
Christopher Chippindale is a British archaeologist. He works at the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He is the author of the book Stonehenge Complete, published in 2004.-References:...
of Cambridge University spoke on the view of processualism at that time, putting it in the context of the 1960s, when he stated that:
- The sharper students of the current generation reasonably regard the "New Archaeology" in its pristine form as a period piece, as strange an artefact of that remote era as the Paris évènements or Woodstock. They have some cause: the then-radical insistence that nothing valuable had been written in archaeology before 1960 matched the hippieHippieThe hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
belief that anyone over 30 was too ancient to be intelligent, and the optimism that anything could be recovered from the archaeological record if only you searched hard enough was the archaeological version of the hope that the PentagonThe PentagonThe Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
could be levitated if only enough people had sufficient faith.
Further reading
- Balter, Michael. The Goddess and the Bull: Catalhoyuk, An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization (2005) for a detailed account of the debate between the processual and post-processual schools of archaeology.