Epistemological change and the Goals of
American Archaeology
Speculative Period continues, but
Classificatory – Descriptive Period (1840-1914)
develops after 1840, with the beginnings of
archaeological science
Moves hand-in-hand with anthropology, especially its
descriptive branch, ethnography
Both have the origins of Indians as their primary
concern.
The early years of the period have the beginnings of
systematic archaeology excavation methods
There is also recognition that the origins of Indians
was out of Asia across the Bering Straits
The influences of a European scientific
tradition were starting to come into play
1. Throughout the period there would be a steady
increase in the discovery and description of
antiquities as the US pushed westward.
2. Work began to be sponsored by the
government, universities, museums, scientific
societies.
3. Archaeology became both a recognized
avocation and a vocation which toward the end
of the period would be taught in universities.
4. Alliance between archaeology and anthropology
began as a long-lasting conceptual union.
Major Scientific Institutions Develop
Smithsonian Institution and the Bureau of
American Ethnology
Peabody Museum at Harvard
Field Museum in Chicago
American Museum of Natural History
Anthropology Departments at Columbia and UCBerkeley
Out of this grows the major data collecting period
regarding American Indians
Leads ultimately to the demise of Unilinear Evolution
Also leads to the rise of cultural ecology and multilinear
evolution with the work of Steward and others
From all this, the culture area approach is developed as the
major description-based classification scheme
The Goals of Archaeology
All are about reconstruction of the Past
About the term ‘reconstruction’
•Archaeologists assume that there was one past and that it is
knowable
•This is a flawed perspective: there are multiple pasts, or at
least, multiple threads
•Because we can’t witness these pasts, we are left with
inference about them
•Thus, archaeologists don’t really reconstruct the past. Rather,
they construct it.
The First Goal of
Archaeology?
Reconstruction of
Culture Histories
Requires consideration
of archaeology’s three
dimensions: form, space,
time
Not as easy as it might
seem
The Classificatory-Historical Period,
1914-1940
The central theme of this period is chronology - time
Always a problem for archaeologists
Simply understanding time is difficult
Changing perceptions of time, changing notions
of time
The search for some kind of temporal control was
crucial
The ‘Stratigraphic Revolution’ set the
stage for chronology
Developed as part of European geology (Hutton &
Lyell) and known in America as early as the 1860s
Acceptance of stratigraphy was delayed in North
America
May be related to a rejection of evolutionary
thinking
Excavations in the eastern US with deep dark soils
did not easily lend themselves to stratigraphic
excavations
Sometimes thin deposits, sometimes indiscernible
due to uniformly dark soils, especially in the East
Gamio & Nelson
Manuel Gamio was a Boas student who did stratigraphic
work in the Valley of Mexico
He clarified and objectively demonstrated the
sequence of Mexican Pre-Columbian cultures
Nels Nelson was Kroeber’s student
His work dates about three years after Gamio, but his
use and refinements went further
Saw it in use in Spain and French, had done some
stratigraphic excavation on California shell middens
His southwest work began between 1913-1915, but
some results published as early as 1914
Nelson’s Refinements
Worked for the American Museum of Natural History in the Galisteo
Basin of New Mexico on the Rio Grande Pueblos where there was
already substantial work done
Bandelier and Hewitt had suggested the Pueblos had undergone a
number of cultural transformations into contemporary times.
Used pottery styles linked to certain time frames―seriation
Used stratigraphy to prove the ceramic sequence
Worked out various problems of intrusions and disturbances Led to
regional chronology building
Seriation
Compare differential popularities in style trends for particular artifact
types from site to site, reflected in "battleship curves."
When an absolute date is obtained for one site, this can be used to
cross-date other sites in the relative chronological sequence.
Alfred Vincent Kidder
The first to make use of stratigraphy on a
large scale
Work at Pecos Pueblo confirmed Nelson's
Galisteo pottery sequence
Kidder worked out the major stratigraphic approach
that became a standard for American archaeology
1. reconnaissance (site survey)
2. selection of criteria for ranking remains chronologically
(pottery style, etc.)
3. seriation (putting sites in a series) for probable sequence
stratigraphic digging
4. more detailed regional survey and dating of sites
How does Kidder's approach work for areas
where easy stratigraphy not possible?
Use of Arbitrary levels
Use of Seriation, usually based on style
In its simplest definition, arrangement of some data or
phenomenon into an order or series, using some consistent
principle of ordering In archaeology, almost always
concerned with time
Absolute Dating: Dendrochronology
A.E. Douglass developed the technique and Douglass dated
Pueblo Bonito in the 1920s
Uses tree rings dated to their exact year of formation to
analyze temporal and spatial patterns of processes in the
physical and cultural sciences.
Limitations: use of wood, good preservation, good sequences
for cross-dating
Cross -Dating
The idea of ‘types’
•A crucial concept in taxonomy/classification
•Similar to ‘index’ fossils in paleontology
•Assumes a clustering of certain traits
•A key to taxonomy: science of classification according
to a pre-determined system
Archaeological Taxonomy in America
•Complex and the subject of argument
•Several types
•Culture Area approach
W. C. McKern
•Root-tree structure used in SW
•Genetic-taxonomic sought to classify groups by form
•Midwestern Taxonimic (MTS) or McKern system
•Focus, aspect, pattern
•Time and space were hard to avoid
The Direct-Historical Approach
Works back in time from documented historical periods into
the prehistoric
Involves working on sites where known Indian groups lived,
examining their artifact complexes and tracing them back into
prehistoric sites and complexes, documenting the changes
along the way
Actually came out of ethnology with Cyrus Thomas in the
mound studies, an several southwestern ethnographers
William Duncan
Strong
Also from amateur archaeology on the Plains - W. H. Over on
Arikara and Pawnee
But, brought to the profession by W. D. Strong in 1935 in his
Introduction to Nebraska Archaeology, followed soon after by
Waldo Wedel's Direct Historical Approach in Pawnee
Archaeology in 1936
Waldo Wedel
Society for American Archaeology
The Society for American Archaeology was
founded in 1934 in order to professionalize
the discipline.
A key principle was to promote protection
of archaeological resources.
The organization has changed dramatically
over the years, but is the largest
archaeology professional organization in
the world with 7,000 members.
Advances in the study of early habitation of
America complicate the picture
Many suspected that there was considerable antiquity
for Indians in the Americas
No way to prove it
Hrdlicka and the demand for extraordinary proof
Folsom discovery (1926-7) provided such proof
Ales Hrdlicka
Original Folsom
type point
The Second Goal of Archaeology?
Reconstruction of
Lifeways
Ethnohistory
American archaeology and ethnography had
developed side-by-side, with common sharing of
data
The ethnohistorical method, as it has come to be
known, involves developing histories informed by
ethnography, linguistics, archaeology, and
ecology.
The American Society for Ethnohistory was
founded in 1954 to promote the
interdisciplinary investigation of the histories
of the Native Peoples of the Americas.
The rise of ethnoarchaeology
The archaeological study of contemporary peoples.
Ethnoarchaeology often focuses particularly on the behavior
patterns responsible for creating physical objects and their
spatial distribution.
The use and abuse of ethnographic analogy
Explaining the archaeological evidence in terms of behavior
recorded in the historic and ethnographic record
What makes a good analogy?
The closer in time, the better.
The more similar the cultural
level, the better
The closer the ecological and
geographical proximity, the better
Context & Function
Context: the full associational setting
of any archaeological object, in or on
the ground and its relationships to
other objects and features
Contexts, when grouped into
complexes or assemblages, may have
cultural significance and may relate to
natural environment
Function: the use of an object
including the way in which it was made
and its meanings
Both can be viewed synchronically (at a
single point in time) or diachronically
(through time or at different points in time).
Albert Spaulding/James Ford Debates
Spaulding championed measurements of artifacts, and that
through these and statistics, artifact types (with context and
function) could be discovered.
Ford said that it didn't matter and championed the idea that the
artifact types were imposed, a designed construct of the
archaeologist.
Was there a mental template behind the artifact used to create
the artifact? A bit like the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
James A. Ford
Albert Spaulding
Cultural Resources Management
The Antiquities Act of 1906
Based on the idea that Indians and their sites would
disappear
Archaeological materials, including human remains,
became “resources” or “objects of antiquity.”
Eventually, CRM would become the dominant kind
of archaeology in America.
Settlement Pattern Analysis
The way in which humans disposed
themselves over the landscape in
which they lived
Key Concepts
•community organization: people of a
culture who have day-to-day
interaction
•activity areas: a locus for a single
activity, such as a hearth, butchering
area
•site types: activity areas are
combined into functional major units
•position in the environment, use of
environment
Terminal Archaic and Woodland
Settlement pattern for Troutbrook, CT
14C
and the Radiocarbon Revolution
Willard Libby invented the process in 1949
Such absolute dating utterly changed views of the
North American past
Continued refinements of the process
Limitations:
Need for organic
materials
50-60k years
maximum
Fluctuations that
demand calibration
The Willey & Phillips System of Cultural
Historical Integration (1958)
After 14C dating, taxonomy could include
time, space, and form.
As with most taxonomies, it has been
altered, argued about, and abused.
But does provide a basic framework for
understanding culture history.
Phase: a member of a series that is
generally part of a "local" or "regional
sequence" temporal series
The Third Goal of Archaeology?
Reconstruction of Cultural Processes
Modern or ancient, people have to dispose
of their garbage
The Modern Period, 1960s-1990s
A strong reemergence of evolutionary theory in the
mid-1950s with the work of Julian Steward and Leslie
White
The push was again to move archaeology toward being
ahistorical, that is, toward seeking general principles
or laws of human behavior that would cross-cut time
and (pre)history
Leslie A. White
The general theoretical structure came from multilinear
evolution, adaptation and cultural ecology.
The specific approach was to become explicitly
scientific.
The emphasis was on looking at archaeology as part of
anthropology
Walter W. Taylor and the Conjunctive Approach
A Study of Archeology, 1948
An integrated discipline, combining the
study of diet, settlement patterns, tools
and other elements
Should provide a holistic view of the
past.
Openly criticized the major
archaeologists of his day, including
Kidder
The New Archaeology,
a.k.a. Processual Archaeology
Lewis Binford became the outspoken American
proponent of the approach with several articles
and the 1968 publication of an edited volume (with
Sally Binford) New Perspectives in Archaeology.
Lewis Binford
At the same, time in England David Clarke was
publishing Analytical Archaeology.
The discipline considered itself in the midst of a
paradigm shift, following Thomas Kuhn's ideas as
expressed in The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions.
Embracing Anything New
New technologies helped push it, for example the
use of computers
Made application of statistics almost too easy,
modeling of systems using simulations
Great borrowing of techniques from other fields,
notably geography
Environmental studies and their importance grew
Sometimes uses were incautious and misapplied
A paradigm shift? The Increasing Dominance of the
Philosophy of Science
The discipline considered itself in the midst of a paradigm
shift, following Thomas Kuhn's ideas as expressed in The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Thomas Kuhn
Logical Positivism, über ales
A nearly rigid belief that:
•there was one past.
•that it was knowable by following explicitly scientific
principles.
•that general laws of human behavior would be made
apparent.
•A key element was a focus on process, looking at how
and why cultures changed through time
The New Creationists? (Kehoe)
Positivism proved to be alienating for some
archaeologists and for many Indian people.
Many older archaeologists and their works were
discounted.
For Indians, if the archaeologists’ pasts were the truth,
that meant that their tribal oral traditions had to be false.
"[B]y its very nature [science] must challenge, not
respect, or acknowledge as valid, such folk renditions
of the past because traditional knowledge has produced
flat earths, geocentrism, women arising out of men's
ribs, talking ravens and the historically late first people
of the Black Hills upwelling from holes in the ground.“
Ronald Mason
Consider these statements from Indians about archaeology:
Prairie Potawatomi Chick Hale:
My people did not cross the Bering Strait. We know much about our past
through oral traditions. Why do archaeologists study the past? Are they
trying to disprove our religion? We do not have to study our origins. I don't
question my teachings. I don't need proof in order to have faith.
Esther Stutzman, a Coos:
The past is obvious to the Indian people, but it does not appear to be
obvious to the white man.
Cecil Antone of the Gila River Indian Tribes:
My ancestors, relatives, grandmother so on down the line, they tell
you about the history of our people and it's passed on and basically,
what I'm trying to say, I guess, is that archaeology don't mean
nothing. We just accept it, not accept archaeology, but accept the way
our past has been established and just keep on trying to live the same
old style, however old it is.
Bill Means, Lakota
“We do not need your past!”
The Rapid Growth of Cultural Resources Management
Major legislation
Antiquities Act of 1906 (16 USC 431-433; 34 Stat 225)
Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 (43 USC 2101-2106)
Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (16 USC 470aa-470mm)
American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, as amended (42 USC
1996-1996a)
Archeological and Historic Preservation Act of 1974 (16 USC 469-469c)
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 USC 4321-4370c)
National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended (16 USC 470470w)
Historic Sites, Buildings and Antiquities Act of 1935 (16 USC 461-467)
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (25 USC
3001-3013)
Burgeoning Cultural Resources Management
CRM is approximately a $125,000,000
industry in the US annually.
CRM is largest employer of archaeologists at
all levels of education.
CRM is the largest employer of BA level
anthropology graduates.
Though some tried to pull CRM into
the realm of the New Archaeology,
they largely didn’t succeed.
CRM, a free
journal from NPS
The Fourth Goal of Archaeology?
Reconstruction of Meaning
The Post-processual Period, 1985 - Now
Alison Wylie
Ian Hodder
Trying to make sense of a wide range of
approaches as more and more questions
arose from Processual Archaeology
Increased range of voices and perspectives
Meg Conkey
Joan Gero
What will the future hold for
American Archaeology?