CONTEMPORARY ARCHAELOGY

A Guide to Theory and Contributions

Edited by Mark P. Leone
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Carbondale and Edwardsville
Feffer & Simons, Inc. London and Amsterdam
-iiiCopyright 1972 by Southern Illinois University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America Designed by Gary Gore
International Standard Book Number 0-8093-0513-5
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 79-156779
-ivContents
Prefaceix
Notes on Contributorsxv
PART 1 The Scope of the Changes in Contemporary Archaeology
Introduction1
1/ The Revolution in Archaeology5 PAUL S. MARTIN
2/ Issues in Anthropological Archaeology14 MARK P. LEONE
3/ Old Wine and New Skins: A Contemporary Parable28 WALTER W. TAYLOR
4/ Interpretive Trends and Linear Models in American Archaeology34RAYMOND H. THOMPSON
PART 2 The Origins of Contemporary Change
Introduction39
5/ The Urban Revolution43 V. GORDON CHILDE
6/ Conjectures Concerning the Social Organization of the MogollonIndians52 PAUL S. MARTIN
7/ The Economic Approach to Prehistory62 GRAHAME CLARK
8/ The Conceptual Structure in Middle American Studies78 CLYDEKLUCKHOHN
9/ Review of James A. Ford's Measurements of Some Prehistoric DesignDevelopments in the Southeastern States85
ALBERT C. SPAULDING
PART 3 The Theoretical Base of Contemporary Archaeology
Introduction89
10/ Archaeology as Anthropology93 LEWIS R. BINFORD
11/ Culture History v. Cultural Process: A Debate in AmericanArchaeology102 KENT V. FLANNERY
-v12/ Archaeology as a Social Science108 JAMES F. DEETZ
13/ Historical and Historic Sites Archaeology as Anthropology: BasicDefinitions and Relationships118 ROBERT L. SC
HUYLER
14/ Archaeological Systematics and the Study of Culture Process125 LEWIS R.BINFORD
PART 4 The Methodological Base of Contemporary Archaeology
Introduction133
15/ Archaeological Systems for Indirect Observation of the Past135 JOHN M.FRITZ
16/ A Consideration of Archaeological Research Design158 LEWIS R. BINFORD
17/ A Review of Techniques for Archaeological Sampling178 SONIA RAGIR
PART 5 Archaeological Strategy for the Study of Hunter-Gatherers
Introduction193
18/ Lithic Analysis in Paleoanthropology195 EDWIN N. WILMSEN
19/ The Clovis Hunters: An Alternate View of Their Environment andEcology206 FREDERICK GORMAN
20/ Archaeological Systems Theory and Early Mesoamerica222 KENT V.FLANNERY
PART 6 Archaeological Strategy for the Study of Horticulturists
Introduction235
21/ Post-Pleistocene Adaptations237 LEWIS R. BINFORD
22/ The Ecology of Early Food Production in Mesopotamia255 KENT V.FLANNERY
23/ Carrying Capacity and Dynamic Equilibrium in the PrehistoricSouthwest268 EZRA B. W. ZUBROW
24/ Explaining Variability in Prehistoric Southwestern Water ControlSystems280 FRED T. PLUG and CHERYL K. GARRET
T
25/ Changes in the Adaptations of Southwestern Basketmakers: A SystemsPerspective289 MICHAEL A. GLASSOW
26/ The Hopewell Interaction Sphere in Riverine-Western Great LakesCulture History303 STUART STRUEVER
-vi27/ Archaeology as Anthropology: A Case Study316 WILLIAM A. LONGACRE
28/ A Prehistoric Community in Eastern Abrizona320 JAMES N. HILL
29/ The Olmec Were-Jaguar Motif in the Light of Ethnographic Reality333PETER T. FURST
PART 7 Archaeological Strategy for the Study of Complex Agriculturalists
Introduction355
30/ Some Hypothetheses of the Development of Early Civilizations359ROBERT M. ADAMS
31/ Praise the Gods and Pass the Metates: A Hypothesis of the Development ofLowland Rainforest Civilizations in Mesoa

merica365 WILLIAM L. RATHJE

32/ State Settlements in Tawantinsuyu: A Strategy of CompulsoryUrbanism393 CRAIG MORRIS
33/ Death's Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow402 JAMES F. DEETZ and EDWIN S.DETHLEFSEN
Bibliography413
Index451
-vii-

Preface
THE PURPOSE of this volume is to present in one place the coherent theory and concrete resultsof recent developments in anthropological
archaeology. This volume is meant as much forprofessional archaeological use as it is for general anthropological judgment. Although the
volume is not a complete representation of contemporary advances in archaeology, I have triedto include enough material in it to allow it t
o stand as a compendium of current issues,discussions, and solutions. These may be used as handbook and source book by the profession
alarchaeologist interested in assessing what is new in archaeology.
I have tried to include in this book those statements of theory that are most important in creatingwhat is now commonly called the new ar
chaeology. Taken as a whole, they represent most of theideas that make current archaeology somewhat different from the archaeology mo
stanthropologists grew up with. Also when taken in toto, these statements are meant to outline theshared assumptions which differentiate
what is usual from what is recent in archaeology. Theidea of theoretical coherence is significant because it is necessary to identify to the o
utside worldwhat it is that is behind the concrete solutions one can find scattered widely throughout thearchaeological literature. Recent ar
chaeological innovations have not occurred by chance northrough ideosyncratic strokes of imagination. They form a unified corpus that ca
n be identified.
For the archaeological world, on the other hand, I feel two goals are accomplished by presentingin one place the coherence of recent arch
aeological theory. Many claim there are no realtheoretical differences between new archaeologists and their intellectual fathers. This concl
usioncomes about because the theoretical statements are often obscure and hidden. It also comesabout because it is often impossible to t
ell when reading a piece of contemporary archaeologythat identifies itself as new, what there is about it that distinguishes it from what is
not new.Since the data of the discipline have not changed nor has the range of problems been expandedin many instances, a reader has d
ifficulty in picking out elements, theoretical or concrete, thatwere not present in substantial research prior to the arrival of the new, proces
sual, orevolutionary archaeology. As a result, I hope one of the functions of this volume will be theunmistakable delineation of the theoretic
al base of much of contemporary archaeology.
Within the house built by new archaeologists there is variability in theory and, as a result, inaims. The house has not always been at peace
with itself, and I think one of the reasons for thatproceeds from our failure to recognize our theoretical differences. The differences are no
doubtreal in some cases. But I think, in other cases, they result from our possessing a new and verypowerful body of theory which, depend
ing on the archaeologist, is in different stages ofassimilation. I think the assumptions are shared but are differentially internalized and use
d. Thatwould reduce many differences between us to functions of time and problems addressed. Thisbook is then aimed at three different
constituencies, my colleagues in anthropology, inarchaeology, and those who differentiate themselves into the new or processual archaeol
ogy.
There are used above a whole series of terms to label the contributions in this book.
-ixIt is commonly agreed that the new archaeology is least happy among these. But it is the most common term and I suspect no amount of
posturing is going to make it go away. And it also needs to be said that the phrase is not used without some justification. I have tried to
underuse the phrase in this book borrowing, instead, processual archaeology, evolutionary archaeology, and contemporary archaeology.
The last phrase is used with a qualifier to signal that not all contemporary archaeology shares the same theoretical base. And indeed
much contemporary archaeology is, to use a truly unhappy phrase, traditional as opposed to new archaeology. This is a lexical problem
that is not easily solved and it is a function of the fact that some things really are new. The proper label to identify the different, while not
irritating unnecessarily, is not in hand, however.
The aims of this book are served in several organizational ways. I have tried to avoid producing a reader that forced the whole job of
synthesis on the user. As a result the book has been about evenly divided between theory and its ramifications on the one hand, and
substantive accomplishments tied to the theory on the other. The first half of this book provides the key theoretical statements in recent
archaeology. These are accompanied by an attempt to discover the historical origins within archaeology for the outburst of the last decade
and more. At the beginning of the book there are four essays, mostly of an interpretive sort, that attempt to assess the theory and
contributions of the last ten years. They are both critical and complementary and serve to provide background for the core of the book. A
section on method completes consideration of the ideas and sources that produced those papers found in the second half.
Inevitably a movement within a discipline that raises a storm such as was done in the 1960s provokes a whole exegetical literature. The
four original articles that open this book are such, and they take very varying approaches to the problem of understanding what is really
going on. There is no doubt that all are amici curiae, and two consider themselves practitioners of the new paradigm. This section can not
pretend any more than the section on origins can pretend to represent a comprehensive attempt to address all issues within the specific
domain. Other archaeologists would undoubtedly approach these two topics differently, and I must own my own biases as well as the
shortcomings resulting from them. As a result of these biases, I may have claimed a man, and possibly an idea, for the new archaeology
that others will feel is improper and even unjustified. The factor that makes differing identifications possible is the differing degree to
which people are willing to publicly own or practice this approach to archaeology. Since the field has had its share of recriminations as a
result of pretty massive theoretical revisions, many have felt labels are better foregone while men simply do research and let that be
interpreted as people care to. The wisdom of that approach can not be denied. Therefore, should anyone find himself an unwilling member
of a group he is uncomfortable with in these circumstances, I assume the blame for putting him here and extend an early apology.
It also needs to be said that all movements have their predecessors, and this one is not excepted. New archaeologists are berated for
ignoring the processes and contributions that created them. I can not say that I have adequately represented the men and ideas that
preceded the new archaeology either in the section on origins or in the substantive contributions. Only comprehensive research will
outline the processes that created what we now have.
The substantive half of the essays in this book is organized according to a scheme that uses as its chief criterion the complexity of the
economic base of a culture. Such schemes are not infrequently used both by ethnologists and archaeologists. Service's Primitive Social
Organization and Cohen's Man in Adaptation employ ordering criteria ranked in

-xterms of complexity and degree of differentiation. Such classificatory schemes are explicitlyevolutionary, but beyond that they appropriate
ly complement and accurately represent theassumptions, problems, and areas of substantive work which much recent archaeologicalresea
rch has been directed toward.
There are a number of original articles that appear first with this volume. The most importantbook in which one finds representatives of re
cent breakthroughs in archaeology is NewPerspectives in Archaeology, which Sally and Lewis Binford brought out several years ago. Sincet
hen the field has undergone expansion as was inevitable. I have attempted to select some of themore recent contributions made by their
colleagues and print them here. Because of my owntraining and because of the high activity there, many of the original articles and some
of thosereprinted draw on data from the prehistoric southwestern United States. I think there isminimum risk in narrowing focus by using t
hese since every author who uses that region uses itexplicitly as a laboratory where a specific case of a more general problem is investiga
ted. Theseessays are not historical treatments. These original substantive articles, regardless of where theydraw data from, are attempts t
o present research that builds explicitly on the initial contributionsmade by some of the earliest of the recent innovators. The original essa
ys are 2, 3, 4, 15, 24, 25,31, and 32 written respectively by myself, Walter W. Taylor, Raymond H. Thompson, John M.Fritz, Fred T. Plog and
Cheryl K. Garrett, Michael A. Glassow, William L. Rathje, and CraigMorris. Essay 19 by Frederick Gorman, though previously published, has
been substantiallyrevised for this volume.
To aid in unifying the theory and accomplishments of the work represented here, a singlebibliography has been created for the volume. Th
e bibliography is the work of Louis A. Hieb. Andwith that, references have been unified throughout the book. Although there is naturally a g
reatamount of periphera in the citations, these can stand as a working bibliography for the field.There is in addition a short introduction to
each of the major sections within the book. Theseserve as much to introduce the articles as to identify the issues discussed in the section
orunderlying that particular domain in archaeology.
Importantly, there are a number of themes running through this book that are not always visibleat the surface. Two that are closely allied a
re the relationship between archaeology and thecontributions made by archaeology to its constituencies. Throughout the nineteenth centu
ry,archaeology was not tied to anthropology or was tied only in a nacent way. And simultaneouswith its autonomy, archaeology made two
contributions to general knowledge that had effectsmore profound than any it has been responsible for since. Archaeology demonstrated t
heantiquity of man and, in so doing, provided the empirical basis for the radical revision of Westernman's concept of time. Certainly we te
nd not to dwell on these contributions because they havebeen so completely assimilated into Western culture. But their effects, once calle
d to mind, arereadily recorded. However, these contributions and their ramifications occurred at a time whenarchaeology was autonomous
from anthropology and was allied with, although not a subdivisionof, the natural, historical sciences. As an era within archaeology, it is not
dealt with in this book.
Within the twentieth century, however, these two themes play out differently. In the twentieth,not only had archaeology been differentiate
d within itself into classical and prehistoric, but thelatter became firmly attached to anthropology. In the United States and Western Europe
,prehistoric archaeology became one of the historical divisions in a social science whereasclassical archaeology, in the course of maintaini
ng its autonomy, became a firmly historicaldiscipline. Classical archaeology is fundamentally at variance in its aims from anthropologicalar
chaeology, and most of the data of the two have been mutually exclusive. Prehistory as a part ofanthropol
-xiogy lost its autonomy as a purely historical discipline and received in return a set of goals whichlinked it firmly to anthropology in rationale
. It therefore had some obligation to be scientific orcomparative as well as to concern itself with society or culture. Yet as this link was forg
ed and asthe constituencies of archaeologists changed, there developed a gap between the expectations forand accomplishments of arch
aeology. In the nineteenth century, archaeology had established thefact of man's domain in the past. But in the twentieth century, archae
ology's majoraccomplishment has been the description and delimitation of that domain. The scope of man'sexistence in the past, in time a
nd in space -- the original goal of archaeology -- continued to bethe goal after archaeology left the company of the natural historical discipl
ines and became alliedwith social science. And it has generally been felt that the description and delimitation of man'spast is a foundation
for social scientific work but is, in itself, an insufficient end. Hence whileautonomy was given up in theory, it was not in practice. As a resul
t of changing constituencies,archaeology continued to satisfy its former but not always its new one. Hence one has to assessquite carefull
y the contributions made by what is now a subdiscipline in the twentieth century.Some of the underlying themes in the essays in this book
provide the basis for such anassessment.
From the point of view of history, there is no doubt that archaeology in the twentieth century hascontributed in the most massive and succ
essful ways. Certainly what we know about theprehistory of our own species biologically as well as culturally is so immense that it nearly d
efiesassessment. I think we may justifiably point to archaeology's role in clarifying man's past,especially when one considers the myths, fr
auds, and misconceptions that have beencounterbalanced as a result.
However, as a part of anthropology the contributions of a now dependent subdiscipline aredifferent. One such contribution and theme is pr
ecision. Accurate description is so essential toknowledge, yet so often identified as a means, that we sometimes fail to recognize the impo
rtanceof the methods and techniques that enable precision in the first place. Ethnology has long beenfamous for the crudeness and impre
cision of its descriptive tools. And linguistics, by contrast, aswell as genetics have been equally renowned for the precision of their own de
scriptive concepts.Ethnologists have, of course, borrowed heavily from linguistics for method and descriptivedevices in the last two decad
es.
Part of the environment producing a demand for precision has come from archaeology'soccupation with means for obtaining descriptive ri
gor. That preoccupation has been part ofarchaeological research efforts for decades and has been one of the field's identifying traits. Inad
dition to the ranges of techniques for dating, palynology, stratigraphy, floatation, and thedescriptive classifications for data so precisely re
covered, archaeology pioneered in the use ofstatistics and computer analysis in anthropology. Archaeology also had its debate over the re
alityof native categories and the relationship between them and analytical categories fifteen yearsbefore ethnology had its argument over
whose head held more truth, the native's or theanthropologist's. The authors whose work is within this book all take the use of precision in

description as a sine qua non for research. This represents the continuity of rigorous descriptionwithin archaeology and as a goal is often u
nspoken. But as a part of the anthropological world,this has also been one of archaeology's frontier interests.
While archaeology has been conscious of the need for technical accuracy, it has not so often beenaware of the need for rigor of the same
quality in linking its data to its conclusions. Inductiveinference has usually been used as the logical method to provide such links. It is rece
ntly arguedthat the unalloyed use of such a device is debilitating to archaeology. It is within the domain ofthe methods of logic, methods w
ithin the philosophy of science and very closely linked toconsiderations of accuracy and precision, that
-xiiarchaeology continues to contribute to the environment of anthropology. The occupation inarchaeology now with problems of logical proce
dure parallels the continuing debate among otheranthropologists over the validity of types of taxonomies and the proper places of inducti
on anddeduction in research. Many of the authors within this book have such a concern and manyothers act on recently suggested solutio
ns.
A second area in which archaeology has made and continues to make noteworthy contributionsto anthropology is in its ability to consider
natural factors and their relation to cultural context.Factors like demography, nutrition, and the natural environment, the last often express
ed asecology, have played important roles in archaeological research, and by reflection have had animpact in the anthropological world. T
here are certainly areas within anthropology whereecological, demographic, geographic, and a host of other biological and environmental f
actors areconsidered as critical variables in describing and explaining cultural behavior. Archaeologistshave been responsible for providing
many of the test cases where the relationship betweendemographic and ecological variables, on the one hand, and cultural variables, on t
he other, havebeen worked out experimentally. And with all of this, archaeology has not been guilty ofenvironmental determinism althoug
h it has sometimes emphasized the importance ofenvironmental factors over cultural variables.
Although archaeologists are not especially responsible for founding cultural ecology, they areresponsible for providing that approach with
massive support in the form of performing criticalresearch, of perfecting methods, and of inventing techniques. When one considers the w
ork ofGordon Childe, Grahame Clark, Robert Braidwood, the long and continuing work ofScandinavian and British archaeologists in the do
main of building models incorporating andmeasuring natural variables, one sees the habitual regard of archaeologists for factors thatinflue
nce, if not govern, large portions of human behavior. That is a legacy to anthropology thatis neither inconsiderable nor over. There are ver
y few substantive articles in this book that do notconsider natural variables, whether these be ecological or demographic or geographic. T
here ishardly an article either that does not follow the rule that culture is to be explained in terms ofculture. What is represented as a resul
t is a complex, often non- deterministic statement aboutthe relation between cultural and noncultural variables.
For this discussion, the third and final area in which archaeology has contributed toanthropology and an area which can be seen moving th
rough the essays in this volume istechnology. More than any other discipline archaeology has provided us with an idea of howobjects refle
ct the culture that created and distributed them. Our ideas of how objects function ateconomic tasks is remarkable. The information derive
d from chipped stone tools from thepaleolithic, for example, covers tasks of food preparation and use, techniques of toolmanufacture and
use, type of food dealt with, the divisions of the economic base, hunting habits,and several more domains. We have developed the use of
settlement patterns to inform onkinship patterns, land use patterns, social stratification, defense and competition, populationgrowth and d
ecline and population proliferation and aggregation, and the subdivision andfunction of urban centers to give only an incomplete list. Here
is the use of patterned sets ofmaterial objects to impute the form of several other subsystems in culture. It is a listing of howranges of obj
ects reflect and function at other levels. We have contributed enormous amounts ofclearly specified information about how technology, in i
ts large sense, reflects human behavior.That is still one of our major tasks in archaeology, and it is undergoing an emphasis of unusualstre
ngth today. The artifacts of prehistoric archaeology are being applied to demographic, social,and even religious problems as well as to a co
ntinuing interest in ecological problems.
Archaeologists have not always been aware of the knowledge about technology or ma
-xiiiterial culture that they have. The information about how items and artifacts reflect and inform onthe less permanent aspects of cultural sy
stems has rarely been codified and identified as such.The principles of technology's reflective properties have rarely been specified. They
are in handnone the less, and more important is every archaeologist's ability to use objects and patterns ofthem to talk about the nonmat
erial behavior they were a part of. The full range of reflectiveabilities of objects, or material culture, or technology, will undoubtedly be in h
and one day. As acontinuing contribution to anthropology, this domain represents a major theme expressed in thevolume. But expressed a
lso is a new question about technology. How does technology performthe tasks it does? Not how does it reflect, but how does it reinforce,
enforce, and even determinethe tasks and functions that it is involved with? Assuming technological determinism for amoment, we are all
owed to ask as archaeologists how items from axes to village plans tomachines influence behavior. This is different from asking how ecolo
gical arrangements or socialstructure are exhibited in objects; the question here is what role do items play in economics,social organizatio
n, and religion. And another question: what are the properties of specificartifacts that allow them to behave as they do?
In outlining some of the areas in which archaeology has been positively allied with anthropology,I have emphasized contributions in the ra
nge of larger theoretical and nonhistorical issues. Ihave not discussed the exemplary achievements our subdiscipline has made in addressi
ngsubstantive issues like the origins of man, domestication, the rise of cities, and the peopling ofthe New World. But here are areas where
archaeology alone has contributed the only viablehypotheses to address the problems and provided the evidence to verify the hypotheses
. Theseare universally recognized issues on which the only solutions offered have come fromarchaeologists. Some of these issues are addr
essed within this book and provide some of theexplicit organizing problems around which modern research is organized. These are usually
self-evident problems whereas those I mentioned earlier are often implicit motifs that run throughmost articles here. Such motifs are, how
ever, counted as the firm contributions of archaeology toanthropology.

Just as it has been impossible to deal with all of the contributions made by modern archaeology,it is also impossible to deal adequately wit
h the reasons for those I have chosen to emphasize. Aswith any book of such scope, there was the necessity of seeking much advice. Man
y colleaguessuggested contributions as well as domains that would be appropriately covered. In many cases Ihave taken their advice and
am grateful for it. In all cases I have made the final choices andaccept the errors that may be latent in those. Since I have wanted to collec
t the most importantpieces of recent archaeology, I have had to duplicate articles that have been reprinted elsewhere.Presented here are
also a few pieces readily available in major journals. My rationale for whatmay seem to be redundance is the desire to present the new par
adigm as a whole with itstheoretical statements and concrete accomplishments juxtaposed in one place.
None of these essays has been cut. The bibliography has been maintained for all articles, andnotes appear following individual essays. Wh
ere there has been any rewriting, it has beenminimal and functioned to adapt an essay to a presentation such as this. Rewriting neverinter
fered with an author's thoughts as originally stated in his article.
This book has been two years in the planning and execution, and during that time I have built upmany debts for assistance given by collea
gues. To them I am grateful. Two that I wish to mentionparticularly are Thomas Lewis who suggested the phrase and title, "ContemporaryA
rchaeology," and Jeannette Mirsky who provided continual encouragement.
Mark P. Leone
Princeton, New Jersey January 1972
-xiv-

Notes on Contributors
ROBERT M. ADAMS is Professor of Anthropology in the Oriental Institute and Department ofAnthropology of the University of Chicago.
LEWIS R. BINFORD is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico.
V. GORDON CHILDE, 1892-1957, was Director of the Institute of Archaeology at theUniversity of London.
GRAHAME CLARK is Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University.
JAMES F. DEETZ is Professor of Anthropology at Brown University.
EDWIN S. DETHLEFSEN is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Franklin Pierce College.
KENT V. FLANNERY is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan.
JOHN M. FRITZ is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California atSanta Cruz.
PETER T. FURST is Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany.
CHERYL K. GARRETT is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at theUniversity of California at Los Angeles.
MICHAEL A. GLASSOW is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Californiaat Santa Barbara.
FREDERICK GORMAN is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at theUniversity of Arizona.
JAMES N. HILL is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at LosAngeles.
CLYDE KLUCKHOHN, 1905-1960, was Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University.
MARK P. LEONE is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University.
WILLIAM A. LONGACRE is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona.
PAUL S. MARTIN is Chief Curator of Anthropology, Emeritus, of the Field Museum ofNatural History.
CRAIG MORRIS is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University.
FRED T. PLOG is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at LosAngeles.
SONIA RAGIR is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Richmond College of the CityUniversity of New York.
WILLIAM L. RATHJE is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona.
ROBERT L. SCHUYLER is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the City College of NewYork.
ALBERT C. SPAULDING is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at SantaBarbara.
STUART STRUEVER is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University.
WALTER W. TAYLOR is Professor of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University.
RAYMOND H. THOMPSON is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona.
EDWIN N. WILMSEN is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan.
EZRA B. W. ZUBROW is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University.
-xv-

PART 1
The Scope of the Changes in Contemporary Archaeology

Introduction
The following four essays represent the agreement of most contemporary archaeologists that thechanges occuring now in archaeology are
unlike those most remember from the past. Whetherthe present changes are summed up as a revolution or simply as faster than ordinary
change,there is no substantial disagreement that archaeology in the United States and withinanthropology is, to one degree or another, be
ing transformed. There is disagreement over therate, the nature, the origins, and the tone of the transformation, but there is no disagreem
entthat at the moment and for the last ten years, the pace has changed.
There is another common feature in these essays as well. No author regrets the change, and nonecondemns it. That is not to say that all A
merican archaeologists agree on the beneficial characterof the, present changes. But the discipline as a whole, while perhaps flinching at t
he rhetoric andsquabbling, has accepted recent innovations with increasing equanimity. Any number ofsociologists and allied analysts of A
merican culture have pointed out the receptivity Americansshow to change and even to radical innovation. The fact that archaeologists be
long to the largerculture is surely in part responsible for the rapid recognition, albeit at differing levels, given tothe new archaeology. Withi
n archaeology itself, the reasons for the rapidity of the change and itsacceptance are not so clear. Many of the reasons are identified and e
valuated by the followingessays.
In an attempt to identify the causes for change in archaeology, the principles that have beenchanged, and the origins for what is now goin
g on, the four authors here have used differentmodels depending on their predispositions. W. W. Taylor has assessed the new archaeology,
orreally parts of it, against his monumental A Study of Archeology. Taylor's 1948 work was one ofthe most valuable intellectual services A
merican archaeology has had performed for it. A massivecollection of evidence clarified the aims and accomplishments of archaeology up
to that time andassessed the fit between the two. To remedy the discrepancy he found, Taylor suggested analternative theoretical approac
h which has itself rarely been used by archaeologists. Taylor'swork brought to a new level of consciousness matters of goals and methods i
n archaeology andits relation to anthropology, history, and science. Since his study, it has not been possible forarchaeology to be unaware
of any of the major issues centering on its rationale. The level ofcritical awareness he created has been part of the backdrop in front of whi
ch the new archaeologyhas grown.
-1Appropriately, W. W. Taylor examines here the fit between his own study of 24 years ago and several of the crucial theoretical innovations
of the new archaeology. This assessment is especially useful because Taylor provides one of the ways for discovering the roots of
contemporary change. The problem of the intellectual origins of the new archaeology has not yet been adequately addressed. It may also
be impossible to do so for some time. But Taylor points an unambiguous finger at his own seminal study as one of the theoretical factors in
the current scene. The claim can not be dismissed.
Paul Martin, who is unquestionably the senior archaeologist in this section, exercises the rights of experience and seniority and calls
current events in archaeology revolutionary. From the perspective of 40 years in the field, Martin sees both it and himself revitalized by the
new archaeology. There is no contradicting the data of his personal experience. What remains to be seen is how widespread among other
archaeologists that experience is. Paul Martin has voiced in the opening of his essay a sentiment that is not a part of the new archaeology
but is found among a few of its members. Long before the word relevant became slang, he supported the idea that if archaeology were
really linked to anthropology, and if anthropology were directed at problems that were truly pertinent to modern conditions, then
archaeology need be neither moribund nor beside the point. Besides enunciating that idea, he argued for its logical corollary:
archaeologists should address problems that have real significance for the larger society, that society being archaeology's sponsor in the
first place. Martin argues that there should be some explicit fit between the world's problems and archaeology's. That thought is not so
unacceptable as it is novel.
As mediator in the assessments offered here, Raymond Thompson plays a significant role. Arguing justifiably that more claims are made
by the sponsors of contemporary changes than are empirically verifiable, he further points out the position of many archaeologists on the
issue of spontaneous invention versus gradual development for the new archaeology. Using a favorite archaeological device, the
continuum of development, he argues that the new archaeology is not so divorced from traditional archaeology as some of its adherents
have said. He further argues that fruitful research can most profitably occur when it is understood that there are not two archaeological
strategies, but a series of exciting innovations
-2coupled with essential and older practices that will enable the development of archaeology to anew level of accomplishment. Although ma
ny new archaeologists would disagree withThompson's interpretation of the uninterrupted nature of archaeology's growth from the past to
the present, none would fail to recognize the reasonableness of what Thompson suggests on theplane of social relations. In fact, over the l
ast two or three years there has been far morecooperation and far less castigation between the various sides than was the case just earlie
r. Theunity that Thompson suggests may be becoming a reality.
My own essay is complimentary to Martin's. The major point is not simply to agree with the otheressays here and the opinions they repres
ent, but rather to suggest that the changes everyonewillingly admits have happened are not so much over as they are only beginning.
-3-

PART 2
The Origins of Contemporary Change
Introduction
Archaeology has been called the science of origins. It seems particularly appropriate in a time ofmore rapid than usual change to acknowle
dge our historical predecessors in anthropologicalarchaeology. There are many predecessors to the changes that now characterize archae
ology,more, in fact, than can be accurately and intelligently cited. The articles in this section werechosen because each piece represents a
special and particular glimpse of what its author wantedarchaeology to become. Those glimpses are relevant to the present.
The number of pieces in this section could be doubled or tripled. But there are probably not morethan a dozen articles by a handful of auth
ors in the last few decades who accurately reflect adissatisfaction with the usual challenges of the field and who then took on a task unusu
al fortheir time. These pieces reflect some of the changes current in American archaeology becauseeach author had sensed the nearing co
mpletion of the historicalist approach and had attemptedto experiment with additional problems and approaches. These articles are indice
s and signpostswhich occurred in the 1940s and fifties pointing to the present changes in archaeology.
Gordon Childe represents systemic evolution, a notion that implies directional change affectingthe parts of a cultural system in precisely in
terrelated ways. "The Urban Revolution" appears inthis volume for two reasons. It is a much-used article in a difficult-to-obtain journal. But

alsobecause, taken with What Happened in History and Social Evolution, it outlines the interrelatedcriteria present as urbanism arises. The
article itself does not explain the systemic connectionsbetween the traits. Some are obvious, some less so. But never does the reader get
the impressionthat they are a random collection of bits and pieces which happen to mark a stage in humanevolution.
Childe witnesses the advent of evolution in archaeology and the erection of stage typologies thatcategorize phenomena, from simple to co
mplex and from undifferentiated to differentiated. Animportant addition to this characteristic, however, is his understanding that direction
al changeoperates through affecting all parts of a system. Childe was also, in short, a functionalist.
Paul Martin also represents functionalism as he is reprinted here. It is the explicitnonevolutionary functionalism of Radcliffe-Brown, not the
implicit functionalism of Marx."Conjectures Concerning the Social Organization of the
-39Chapter 5 V. GORDON CHILDE
The Urban Revolution
THE CONCEPT of "city" is notoriously hard to define. The aim of the present essay is to presentthe city historically -- or rather prehistoricall
y -- as the resultant and symbol of a "revolution"that initiated a new economic stage in the evolution of society. The word revolution must
not ofcourse be taken as denoting a sudden violent catastrophe; it is here used for the culmination of aprogressive change in the economi
c structure and social organisation of communities thatcaused, or was accompanied by, a dramatic increase in the population affected -- a
n increase thatwould appear as an obvious bend in the population graph were vital statistics available. Just sucha bend is observable at th
e time of the Industrial Revolution in England. Though notdemonstrable statistically, comparable changes of direction must have occurred
at two earlierpoints in the demographic history of Britain and other regions. Though perhaps less sharp andless durable, these too should i
ndicate equally revolutionary changes in economy. They may thenbe regarded likewise as marking transitions between stages in economic
and social development.
Sociologists and ethnographers last century classified existing pre-industrial societies in ahierarchy of three evolutionary stages, denomina
ted respectively "savagery," "barba
rism" and "civilisation." If they be defined by suitably selected criteria, the logical hierarchy ofstages can be transformed into a temporal s
equence of ages, proved archaeologically to followone another in the same order wherever they occur. Savagery and barbarism are conve
nientlyrecognized and appropriately defined by the methods adopted for procuring food. Savages liveexclusively on wild food obtained by
collecting, hunting or fishing. Barbarians on the contrary atleast supplement these natural resources by cultivating edible plants and -- in t
he Old Worldnorth of the Tropics -- also by breeding animals for food.
Throughout the Pleistocene Period -- the Palaeolithic Age of archaeologists -- all known humansocieties were savage in the foregoing sense
, and a few savage tribes have survived in out of theway parts to the present day. In the archaeological record barbarism began less than t
enthousand years ago with the Neolithic Age of archaeologists. It thus represents a later, as well asa higher stage, than savagery. Civilizati
on cannot be defined in quite such simple terms.Etymologically the word is connected with "city," and sure enough life in cities begins wit
h thisstage. But "city" is itself ambiguous so archaeologists like to use "writing" as a criterion ofcivilization; it should be easily recognizable
and proves to be a reliable index to more profoundcharacters. Note, however, that, because a people is said to be civilized or literate, it do
es notfollow that all its members can read and write, nor that they all lived in
____________________
Reprinted by permission from Town Planning Review, vol. 21, 1950, pp. 3-17, and bypermission of the Institute of Archaeology of the Unive
rsity of London. Fifteen of seventeenfigures have been deleted from the text.
-43PART 3
The Theoretical Base of Contemporary Archaeology
Introduction
The vast bulk of the essays in the second half of this volume are derived implicitly or explicitlyfrom the ideas invented and explained in th
e articles in this section. Although the assumptions ofprocessual archaeology, as well as the rest of its theoretical framework, are incomple
telysynthesized yet, enough exists for a very convincing approach to problems.
As the ideas motivating many archaeologists are voiced by Lewis Binford, they represent anarchaeology-specific version of materialistbased cultural evolution. Whitean evolution orneoevolution or cultural materialism has been extant since before the 1940s in anthropology
. Butit has required a readaptation of those concepts before they could be utilized by archaeologists.That readaptation has involved the in
corporation of ideas not given explicit emphasis inneoevolution, the most important of which is systems theory. But even that notion proce
edsnecessarily from primary concern with the processes of cultural change.
Archaeologists of any era are predisposed to cultural materialism, and also, it can be argued, tonotions of ordered cultural change, like evo
lution. The material artifacts, not the ideas, ofcultures survive and are the data-base of the subdiscipline. Likewise the data exist over time
, andsometimes over enormous spans of time. That the data can be seen to change systematicallywould seem to predispose archaeologist
s to ideas of developmental process. Despite the obvioustruth of these two statements, archaeologists have only been implicit cultural ma
terialists andhave for long periods decried the idea of cultural evolution. Among the contributions made inrecent theoretical statements is
explicit use of materialistic determinism, of evolution, and,crucially, of the notion that technology in addition to being a critical variable re
flects all thecultural subsystems operating on it.
The idea that an item of material culture, an artifact, as a product of a culture and its varioussubsystems, is also a statement about those
subsystems is new. That painted pottery could betied to kinship and residence came as a revelation. Archaeologists have always suspecte
d aconnection between objects and social organization and religion. Much of the early, provocativespeculation of nineteenth-century archa
eologists was based on an assumed connection. But theirimprecision and speculation differ from the more secure knowledge that exists no
w. And thatsecurity comes not from assuming that some artifacts operate
-89Chapter 12 JAMES F. DEETZ
Archaeology as a Social Science
THAT PART of anthropology known as archaeology is concerned with culture in the past -- theextinct lifeways of former peoples, how and w
hy they changed and developed, and thesignificance of this to developmental process and to our understanding of culture. In short,archae
ology adds a vital time dimension to the study of man. As such if it is to achieve the endswhich we claim for it, archaeology must remain a
s closely and intimately bound up with generalethnology as possible and constantly contribute to understandings of social man.
This point needs some stress since much of archaeology in the public mind is involved withradiocarbon dating, pollen studies, glacial geolo
gy and other areas of the biological and physicalsciences. While modern archaeology could ill afford to forego these contributions of other
disciplines, they are still just contributions which make the archaeologist better able to makereasoned and valid statements concerning hu
man culture in the past. To paraphrase Willey andPhillips, then, "archaeology is a social science or it is nothing."
Most archaeologists would agree that they are striving to achieve three related ends: 1) thereconstruction of culture history, often over ma
ssive segments of time; 2) the detailing of thedaily lifeways of earlier cultures; and 3) the elucidation of cultural process in a broader sens
ewith emphasis on the dynamic aspects of culture. However, these three goals of archaeology arein no sense mutually independent, and it
would seem in viewing their interrelationships that twoof them are aspects of one larger entity.
If we were able to derive a relatively complete picture of the working of an early culture at onepoint in time and detail the interrelationship
s between that culture's various components, thenthe synthesis of a large number of such cultural statements would at the same time deli
neateprocess in a dynamic sense as well as provide a far more detailed historical statement. Thus,sophisticated history and cultural proce
ss are but two aspects of the same archaeological goal,differing in emphasis and perhaps in scope.

Until relatively recently, culture history as formulated by archaeologists has been quite coarse-grained, with great stress on the major eve
nts of prehistory such as the evolution of lithictechnology over tens of thousands of years, the invention and spread of food production, th
epeopling of the new world or the rise of civilization. This perspective is seen most commonly inoverall syntheses, summary statements in
effect (I mean here such books as Grahame Clark'sWorld Prehistory as an example) of the prehistory of this or that portion of the world, or
for thatmatter the entire world. At a more specific level in space and time, and here I'm really talkingabout site reports, cultural historical
____________________
Reproduced by permission of the American Anthropological Association from Bulletins, vol. 3,no. 3( 2), 1970, Current Directions in Anthrop
ology, pp. 115-25. The bibliographicalreferences have been placed in the general bibliography for this volume by permission of theauthor.
-108Chapter 14 LEWIS R. BINFORD
Archaeological Systematics and the Study of Culture Process
WILLEY AND Phillips ( 1958: 50) have expressed doubts that current archaeological conceptssuch as "phase" have consistent meaning in t
erms of human social units. It is the purpose of thisessay to explore some of the reasons for this lack of congruence and to offer a theoreti
calframework more consistent with social reality.
In any general theoretical framework there are at least two major components: 1) one that dealswith criteria for isolating the phenomenon
under study and with the underlying assumptionsabout the nature of the units or partitive occurrences within the recognized generic class
ofphenomenon, and 2) assumptions concerning the way in which these partitive units arearticulated in the operation of a system or during
change.
Most of the analytical means and conceptual tools of archaeological systematics have arisen inthe context of a body of culture theory whic
h is referred to here as the "normative school." Underthis normative view the phenomenon being studied is variously defined, but there is
generalagreement that culture with a capital C is the subject. In this the normative theorists are inagreement with others. It is in the defini
tion of partitive concepts and the assumptionsconcerning the processes of between-unit dynamics that normative theorists differ markedly
from the position taken here. A typical normative statement is given by Taylor ( 1948: 110):
By culture as a partitive concept, I mean a historically derived system of culture traitswhich is a more or less separable and cohesive segm
ent of the whole-that-is-cultureand whose separate traits tend to be shared by all or by specially designated individualsof a group or societ
y.
A similar view is expressed by Willey and Phillips ( 1958: 18) when speaking of spatial divisionsof cultural phenomena:
In strictly archaeological terms, the locality is a geographical space small enough topermit the working assumption of complete cultural ho
mogeneity at any given time.
The emphasis in these two quotations and in the writings of other archaeologists ( Ford 1954: 47;Rouse 1939: 15-18; Gifford 1960: 346) is
on the shared characteristics of human behavior. Withinthis frame of thought, culture is defined as an abstraction from human behavior.
According to the concept of culture being developed here, culture is a mental constructconsisting of ideas. ( Taylor 1948: 101).
Or as Ford ( 1954: 47) has argued:
First, it must be recalled that these buildings are cultural products -- not the culture.These arrangements of wood, bamboo, and grass are
____________________
Reprinted from American Antiquity, vol. 31, no. 2, 1965, pp. 203-10. By permission of theauthor and the Society for American Archaeology.
-125PART 4
The Methodological Base of Contemporary Archaeology
Introduction
A distinction should be made between method and technique. In science, method is generally aseries of logical and procedual devices insu
ring rigor in the match between data and the variablethose data measure. Technique is a much more particular and narrow set of tools use
d inobtaining and measuring data. Archaeology is famous for the techniques it uses: stratigraphy,dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating, p
alynology, paleoethnobotany, and a whole litany ofothers. Archaeology is not so famous for its methods. Some of these are ethnographic a
nalogy,the direct historical approach, and a variety of taxonomic principles dichotomized betweennative categories thought to represent w
hat the "really real is really like" on the one hand andarbitrary, problem-designed categories on the other.
The major flaw in archaeological method -- a flaw manifestly absent in its techniques -- isimprecision, lack of logical rigor, and a general in
security of the knowledge thereby produced.This insecurity in the knowledge we obtain is manifest in the rhetorical order of archaeology's
work. Volumes end with sections entitled "Speculations" instead of beginning with a sectiondescribing the hypothesis the book will really e
xamine. "Conclusions" occupy totally minimal anddisproportionately minor parts of volumes otherwise populated by descriptive data often
unrelated to the ending in any way. It is with this major flaw in archaeological method that thearticles in this section are concerned.
There are two realms of action to improve on the security of the knowledge that we asarchaeologists produce. The first revolves around th
e logic or arguments of relevance whereby avariable that is to be measured is linked to the data actually collected. A classic modern case
ofthis is the logic connecting ceramic style variation to aspects of social organization: painteddesign elements measured residential units
of kin groups. It is the strength and imagination ofthe logic applied to archaeological data that open an enormously wider range of proble
ms tocontemporary archaeologists than was formerly the case. The arguments which fashion that logicbetween data and variable are dra
wn from the substantive domain in which a problem resides. Ifthe domain is kinship, the ecology of hunter- gathers, nutrition, domesticatio
n, settlementpattern, economics, or demography, then the arguments of relevance linking the artifacts to theproblem come from the litera
ture of that substantive domain and from ethnographic cases wheresimilarities are pertinent. These sources often define new ranges of da
ta and provide the logicmaking the data pertinent to the problem. The expansion of archaeology's data
-133Chapter 15 JOHN M. FRITZ
Archaeological Systems for Indirect Observation of the Past
THIS ESSAY might better be titled "Toward the Construction of Reliable Indicators inArchaeology." The concerns presented here reflect my
conviction that archaeologists seeking toincrease the reliability, i.e., credibility, of our knowledge of the past, and seeking also to expenda
nthropological theory as it relates to the past can borrow profitably from the methodologicaltheory and vocabulary of psychology and soci
ology. I suggest that just as the answers topsychological questionnaires are considered as indicators of inner psychological factors or state
s( Boring 1961; Stevens 1951; Thurstone 1959), and just as the answers to census or opinionsurveys are considered indicators of social ph
enomena (Lazarsfeld and Rosenberg 1955:1-18),e.g., class or economic factors, the characteristics of the archaeological record (here term
edarchaeological data) can be considered as indicators of past phenomena. In this essay, I referonly to past sociocultural phenomena, alth
ough past environmental and human biologicalphenomena could equally well be used.
It is heuristically useful to isolate those archaeological activities that can be termed "naturalhistoriography" from those that are considered
subsequently. The philosopher F. S. C. Northrup (1947:35-58) argues that classification and typology are essential characteristics of natural
history. Scholars, confronted with masses of empirical data, attempt to reduce their complexitiesby placing them in smaller, more easily h
andled categories that may be grouped, in turn, intoeven fewer classes. The Linnaean system for the classification of animals is archetypic
al.
Such classification in archaeology can be termed "time-space systematics" (cf. Chang 1967a), or"culture-historical integration" as by Wille
y and Phillips ( 1958:4). It consists, first, of theclassification of artifacts and features recovered in excavation and survey into types; secon
d, ofthe grouping of types into assemblages, i.e., classes having similar sets of types; and third, of thegrouping of assemblages into "cultur
es," or "culture-types." Cultures are conceived of as havingspatial and temporal boundaries -- either natural or arbitrary (cf. Willey and Phil
lips 1958:14-17)-- and are assigned to areas and periods on the basis of the spatial and temporal occurrence ofthe similar assemblages of
which they are composed.

Natural historical archaeology does not, indeed should not, venture beyond the description of thearchaeological record. No doubt there are
some archaeologists wholly devoted to observation andclassification and there are many others whose work entails almost as much devoti
on. However,almost all archaeologists aspire beyond natural historiography. Almost all archaeologists hope toknow the past.
-135Chapter 16 LEWIS R. BINFORD
A Consideration of Archaeological Research Design
IT SEEMS fair to generalize that archaeologists are becoming more interested in the explanatorypotential which studies of paleoecology, p
aleodemography, and evolution offer for increasing ourunderstanding of formal and structural change in cultural systems. Several anthrop
ologists haverecognized a growing interest in questions dealing with the isolation of conditions andmechanisms by which cultural changes
are brought about ( Adams 1960a; Braidwood 1959; Haag1959; Steward 1960). In short, we seek answers to some "how and why" questio
ns in addition tothe "what, where, and when" questions so characteristically asked by archaeologists. This essay isconcerned with presenti
ng certain methodological suggestions, some of which must be adopted ifwe are to make progress in the study of processes and move arc
haeology into the "explanatorylevel" of development ( Willey and Phillips 1958:4-5).
In any general discussion of method and theory there is inevitably an argumentative bias on thepart of the writer. It should be pointed out
that I believe the isolation and study of culturalsystems, rather than aggregates of culture traits, is the only meaningful approach tounders
tanding cultural processes ( Steward 1960:173-74). A cultural system
is a set of constant or cyclically repetitive articulations between the social, technological, andideological extrasomatic, adaptive means av
ailable to a human population ( White 1959:8). Theintimate systemic articulation of localities, facilities, and tools with specific tasks perfor
med bysocial segments results in a structured set of spatialformal relationships in the archaeologicalrecord. People do not cooperate in ex
actly the same way when performing different tasks.Similarly, different tasks are not uniformly carried on at the same locations. As tasks a
ndcooperating groups vary, so do the implements and facilities ( Wagner 1960:88- 117) of taskperformance. The loss, breakage, and aban
donment of implements and facilities at differentlocations, where groups of variable structure performed different tasks, leaves a "fossil" r
ecord ofthe actual operation of an extinct society. This fossil record may be read in the quantitativelyvariable spatial clusterings of formal c
lasses of artifacts. We may not always be able to state ordetermine what specific activities resulted in observed differential distributions, b
ut we canrecognize that activities were differentiated and determine the formal nature of the observablevariability. I have argued elsewher
e ( Binford 1962:219) that we can recover, both from thenature of the populations of artifacts and from their spatial associations, the fossil
ized structureof the total cultural system. The archaeological structure
____________________
Reprinted from American Antiquity, vol. 29, no. 4, 1964, pp. 425-41. By permission of theauthor and the Society for American Archaeology.
-158PART5
Archaeological Strategy for the Study of Hunter-Gatherers
Introduction
For most of man's history, his economy has been based on hunting and collecting. And althoughfew societies have such an economic base
today, the archaeological record consists in great partof remains that characterize that longest of human economic eras. It is often sugges
ted thatbecause hunter-gatherers are both simple and nearly extinct, anthropological concern with themis myopic and irrelevant. Their stu
dy can be defended, however, since knowledge of themexpands our comprehension of the total range of cultural variation in time and spa
ce. But a moresolid argument resides in our use of that part of the prehistoric laboratory to understand thelong-term effects of ecological a
djustment, population dynamics, economic exchange, andtechnological growth. The behavior of organisms entering an empty niche is a p
articularly usefulsubject to us now, especially since we as a species are concerned with overpopulation and thepotential use of hitherto em
pty areas. The whole of the prehistoric New World provides alaboratory for testing ideas about population dynamics and cultural change in
an empty zone.Likewise, the principles of ecological management and adjustment used by Paleolithic andMesolithic hunters and gatherers
can be used to augment the precision of our present knowledgeof ecological change. The laboratory of prehistoric hunter- gatherers is a p
articularly unexploitedone, and one having great promise.
As a whole, hunter-gatherers have a less differentiated and more homogeneous culture thanagriculturalists and industrialized peoples. Tha
t is not to say their culture is either rudimentaryor in some sense simplistic. The sophistication and complexity in the domains of kinship a
ndecological orchestration are adequate citations of the systemic precision hunter-gatherers use inadjusting to their circumstances. One of
the best archaeological illustrations of our improvedknowledge of hunting-gathering cultures comes from the work of Lewis and Sally Binfo
rd on theMousterian cultures of the Middle Paleolithic. Mousterian is the designation for assemblages oftools found with the Neanderthal p
opulations throughout the Old World. The Mousteriancoincides with the climax and amelioration of the last major glaciation. The Binfordsd
emonstrated ( Binford and Binford 1966:2:2:238-95) that specific tool kits very likelycorresponded to specific kinds of activities, e.g., killing
-butchering, shredding-cutting,manufacture of tools from nonflint materials: wood, antler, etc. They demonstrated further thatMousterian s
ites presented a variety of distinguishable activities carried on at them.
-193PART 6
Archaeological Strategy for the Study of Horticulturists
Introduction
The invention of agriculture and its effects on culture are the special domain of archaeology. Thecircumstances surrounding domestication
as well as the simultaneous and long-term results of ithave been appropriate topics in anthropology since the 1870s. In archaeology detail
edinvestigations concerning domestication must go back to the second decade of the twentiethcentury. But it was probably Gordon Childe
who gave the fillip to such studies. He not onlyoutlined the so-called oasis theory, but provided the detailed logic making the rise of urbani
smdependent on the use of domesticates. Childe suggested that as the Near East dried up at the endof the Pleistocene, men, plants, and
animals were forced into greater proximity andinterdependence on one another. And at the remaining places where water was available,pr
opinquity and interdependence resulted in men harnessing the energy of hitherto wild plantsand animals. Braidwood demonstrated the hy
pothesis to be wrong by showing that the post-Pleistocene had little effect on the climate of southern Mesopotamia, the postulated theatre
fordomestication. But the inaccuracy of the hypothesis is not so important here as is Childe'slegitimation of the topic, outlining a research
design for studies of domestication, as well asconnecting that ecological innovation to the origin of cities. Many of the following pieces spe
akdirectly to the problem Childe first outlined.
It is in the study of domestication and of agriculturalists that archaeology has demonstrated itsgreatest inventiveness with techniques. Th
e precise measurement and description of data, usingdevices from the natural sciences, has obtained for us an unbelievable range of data
throughwhich the origins and effects of the use of domesticated plants and animals have been addressed.Borrowing descriptive technique
s from disciplines ranging from physics to geography has beenone of our strengths and has permitted an infinitely more fine-grained exam
ination of someaspects of extinct agricultural developments.
In addition to containing two articles devoted to hypotheses concerning the advent ofdomestication itself, this section attempts to show th
at archaeologists have become concerned ina more precise way with the interrelationships between agriculture as an economic base, on t
heone hand, and demography, technology, social organization, and religious conceptions on theother. Domesticated plants and animals pr
ovide a completely new source of energy and, in sodoing, foster a
-235Chapter 27 WILLIAM A. LONGACRE
Archaeology as Anthropology: A Case Study

RECENTLY, certain archaeologists have expressed concern over the few contributions thatarchaeology has made to the general field of ant
hropology ( Taylor 1948; Willey and Phillips1958; Binford 1962). A combination of advances in methodology and the adoption of culturalmo
dels which focus on cultural processes has resulted in contributions that go beyond meretaxonomy and inventories of stylistic traits. Many
aspects of extinct cultural systems (forexample, social organization) are not directly reflected in material objects and are thereforedifficult
for the prehistorian to interpret. This essay1 indicates one way in which archaeology canelucidate some of the features of social life.
Selected data obtained during the excavation of one prehistoric community in eastern Arizonawere used to answer questions concerning a
spects of its social system. The purposes of this studywere: 1) to augment the cultural history of the upper Little Colorado area and to prov
ide a clearerunderstanding of the role of the region in the prehistoric Southwest, 2) to demonstrate the valueof combining systematic sam
pling procedures with traditional as well as new methods of dataprocessing (for example, computer processing), and 3) to make specific co
ntributions to thegrowing body of anthropological knowledge and theory (for example, to demonstrate thepresence of localized matrilinea
ges in the Southwest by A.D. 1200).
In this report I describe the analysis of one community, the Carter Ranch Site, located in easternArizona and occupied approximately from
A.D. 1100 to 1250. This area today is semiarid withmost of its precipitation occurring during the summer months as torrential storms. Paly
nologicalstudies, which permit inferences concerning the past climate, indicate that there have been nogreat climatic changes in the past
3500 years. There is evidence that a minor shift in the rainfallpattern, from one of roughly equal wintersummer precipitation to the presen
t pattern,2 tookplace by about A.D. 1000. It was after this shift became pronounced that the Carter RanchPueblo was occupied.
By A.D. 1000, the area was covered by a network of small villages (pueblos) consisting of one ortwo multiroom buildings. By 1250, most of
the region was abandoned; very large Pueblo villageswere located on two permanent streams in the area. The area was totally abandoned
by 1500.
The Carter Ranch Site consisted of 39 dwelling rooms built as a main block with two wingssurrounding a plaza which contained two kivas (
underground ceremonial structures). A detachedGreat Kiva (a large ceremonial building built partly aboveground) was situated about 10 m
etersnorthwest of the room block. The site was located in a valley containing about 60 sites roughlycontemporary with it.
During the course of the occupation of the
____________________
Reprinted from Science, vol. 144, 19 June 1964, pp. 1454-55. By permission of the author andthe American Association for the Advanceme
nt of Science. Copyright 1964 by the AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science.
-316PART 7
Archaeological Strategy for the Study of ComplexAgriculturalists
Introduction
If the invention of domestication has always been recognized as the proper domain forarchaeology, then so has its corollary, the rise of citi
es. The phenomenon of civilization and itsprincipal characteristic, urbanism, are understood to be founded on agriculture. And this usually
means a type of agriculture made possible by complex technology. Here resides, for example, theirrigation hypothesis. This is the propositi
on made by Wittfogel that irrigation under somecircumstances leads to a social organization characterized by elites and pyramidally arran
gedpower. Since the first cities are all founded on agriculture supported by complex irrigationpractices, it is reasoned, and not lightly, that
agriculture, irrigation, autocracy, and cities arelinked factors.
Aside from the complex technology that comes into existence with certain kinds of agriculture,are economic and social forms and radically
new forms of religious organization ( Bellah 1970:9-15). There are in this section some of the significant efforts in American archaeology to
cope withaspects of urbanism and its allied traits. Certainly the theoretical foundation for the study ofurbanism had been laid by Gordon C
hilde and Julian Steward. These men had pointed out theissues within the problem-domain of the rise of cities and each had contributed hi
s share ofcompetence and publicity to a series of provocative solutions. What we see now, however,acknowledges and builds upon Childe
and Steward as a base and goes on as well.
Whether or not Robert Adams would feel comfortable being called a new archaeologist is an openquestion. That he is mentor, initiator, an
d guide for numbers of them is not such a debatableissue, however. Adams began in the middle 1950s to address the problem of the rise
of cities. Hetook the remarkable step of making a general comparative statement about the factors behindthe rise of cities and their early
transformations as seen in the archaeological record. The articlereprinted here is one of his earliest statements and cites evidence from an
cient Mesopotamia andpre-Columbian Mesoamerica. This model of presentation undoubtedly enjoyed inspiration fromJulian Steward. But t
o have an ethnologist, even one trained in archaeology, discuss the uniformqualities in civilization and to have an archaeologist do the sa
me thing are not parallel. Stewardcould stand safe in a comparative field. Adams faced the particularists in their own house. (SeeAdams 1
966 for the most up-to-date and comprehensive statement on this subject.)
-355-

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