REMEMBER
UNIT 4 QUIZ THIS WEEK
Available Tuesday 3:00 pm through
Friday midnight.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Gravestone Seriation Reports
Due is Sections this Week.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Check Book Review
Assignment Lists
in Section Room
You MUST read the book that you
have been assigned
Also pick up set of reading and
writing prompts in Section Room
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Excavation
“Archaeologists murder their informants
when they question them”~K. Flannery
 Control location of artifacts and features in
three dimensions (x,y,z coordinates)
Grid System--controls x, y coordinates
Datum--fixed elevation
 Old Technology: tape measure, plum bob,
pencil and graph paper
 New Technology: GPS, TMS, etc.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Excavation Strategies (1)
Early Coalition Period
 Vertical Pits or Trenches
 Diachronic: examines
changes through time
Late Coalition Period
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Example: Pajarito Project, NM
(1982)
Three single component sites
from different temporal periods
Vertical test pits (“telephone
booths”) in middens
Flotation samples taken from
each arbitrary 10 cm level
Excavation Strategies (2)
 Open Area/Horizontal Excavations
 Synchronic: snapshot of
activities and associations at
one point in time
Example: Duncan Site, OK
(1984)
Single component, short
term, seasonal occupation
Remove plow zone to
reveal features (pits, posts,
hearths)
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Unit 4
RECOVERING & INTERPRETING
EVIDENCE
Lecture 2:
Site Formation Processes and
Middle Range Research
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Lewis Binford (1983)
“The archaeological record is
contemporary; it exists with me
today and any observation I
make about it is a contemporary
observation.”
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
How can we make inferences about
the past based on observations in
the present?
 Archaeological Context:
 Static material record in the present
 Systemic Context:
 Dynamic human actions in the past
Need to establish bridging arguments (if-then
statements) that link the dynamic actions of the
past to their material correlates in the present.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Site Formation Processes
(Michael Schiffer)
 Study of how the archaeological record
is formed
 how things move, and are transformed
as they move, from systemic contexts
into archaeological contexts.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Cultural Processes
 Deposition
 Reclamation
 Example: Stone Lion Shrine, New Mexico
 Reuse
 Disturbance
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Non-Cultural Processes
 Differential Preservation
 Catastrophic Events
 Examples: Pompeii, Cerén
 Natural Disturbance
Patterns we recover archaeologically are
not always a direct reflection of past
human behavior.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Middle Range Research
 Body of theory and practice that
attempts to bridge the gap between the
dynamics of past human behavior and
its material consequences in the
present.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Middle Range Research is…
 Actualistic
 from Latin root actuo = present
 based on Observation, Experiment,
Analogy
 informed by Uniformitarian assumptions
Same methods used by other sciences,
like astronomy, geology, forensics
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Analogy & Uniformitarianism in
Middle Range Research
experiment, ethnoarchaeology, etc.
The present
The past
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Controlled
comparison
Middle Range Research and Truth
 Archaeological stories are not “true” or
“false”; not “right” or “wrong”.
 But only “more or less convincing”
(robust) based on the strength of the
observations, experiments, and
analogies used to construct them.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Building Analogy through
Middle Range Research (1)
 Ethnographic and Historic Analogy
 Direct Ethnographic Analogy (“living
fossils”)
 Direct Historical Approach
Example: A.V. Kidder at Pecos
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Building Analogy through
Middle Range Research (2)
 Ethnoarchaeology/Living Archaeology
 Ethnography done by archaeologists,
directed toward answering very specific
middle range questions.
Example: Lewis Binford among the Nunamiut
caribou hunters of Alaska
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Building Analogy through
Middle Range Research (3)
 Experimental Archaeology
 Example: Lawrence Keeley (1977)--stone
tool replication and edge-wear analysis
Confirmed and contradicted some common
assumptions about prehistoric stone tool use
based on formal attributes.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005
Studies of Site Formation Processes
and Middle Range Research
 One of the most important and lasting
contributions of “Processual
Archaeology” (1960s-1980s).
 Made archaeologists more aware of the
sources of potential bias in our analogic
arguments.
 Made archaeological interpretations
stronger and more convincing.
Judith Habicht-Mauche, UCSC, Spring 2005