Archaeology in The Making - Lewis Binfor PDF

ARCHAEOLOGY IN
THE MAKING
Conversations through a discipline
Edited by William Rathje , Michael Shanks and

Christopher Witmore
WITH
SUSAN E. ALCOCK, LEWIS BINFORD , VICTOR BUCHLI, JOHN CHERRY,
MARGARET W. CONKEY, GEORGE COWGILL, IAN HODDER, KRISTIAN KRISTIANSEN,
MARK LEONE, RANDALL H. MCGUIRE, LYNN MESKELL, ADRIAN PRAETZELLIS,
MARY PRAETZELLIS, WILLIAM RATHJE , COLIN RENFREW, MICHAEL SCHIFFER,
ALAIN SCHNAPP, MICHAEL SHANKS, RUTH TRINGHAM, PATTY JO WATSON,
AND ALISON WYLIE
00_Witmore et al_Prelims.indd 3
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In Memoriam
Lewis R. Binford 19312011
William L. Rathje 19452012
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CONTENTS
Editorial preface
1 Introduction
William Rathje, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Witmore
x
1
PART I
The archaeological imagination

2 Lewis Binford
5
7
3 Michael Brian Schiffer
25
4 Patty Jo Watson
47
5 Colin Renfrew
68
6 Alison Wylie
93
7 Ian Hodder
122
PART II
The workings of archaeology
139
8 Adrian and Mary Praetzellis
141
9 Kristian Kristiansen
164
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viii Contents
10 George Cowgill
185
11 Alain Schnapp
204
12 Susan E. Alcock and John F. Cherry
229
PART III
Politics
249
13 Mark Leone
251
14 Victor Buchli and Randall H. McGuire
270
15 Margaret W. Conkey
290
16 Ruth Tringham
308
17 Lynn Meskell
335
18 William Rathje and Michael Shanks
352
19 Archaeology: An ecology of practices

Christopher Witmore and Michael Shanks
380
References
Index
399
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EDITORIAL PREFACE
This book has been a long time in the making. The main chapters are transcriptions of actual
conversations that took place between the fall of 2002 and 2011. They have been edited to
ensure clarity and flow. They are supported by an editorial introduction, section headings,
footnotes and references in the conversations, and an end commentary that aims to situate
the conversations in the context of the discipline of archaeology and in relation to the history
of disciplines generally.
A result of convenience and chance more than design, the roots of the book are to be
found in the way Rathje and Shanks grabbed opportunities to share their passion for archaeology and to exploit synergies in a new archaeological institution, Stanfords Archaeology
Center, founded in 1999, and particularly also in Metamedia, the collaborative lab environment Shanks created within the Archaeology Center. A brief account of personal history and
these circumstances will explain a good deal about who appears in our conversations and
what is discussed.
Having retired from the University of Arizona and moved to the Bay Area in 2000, Bill
Rathje took a position as a Consulting Professor in the new Archaeology Center at Stanford
University. Soon thereafter, Michael Shanks, enthralled by Rathjes garbology and archaeology
of the contemporary past, invited him to team teach a graduate seminar on Archaeological
Theory. Seizing what he regarded as a learning opportunity from Shanks, whose reputation
in the area he had known for decades; from the grad students who would attend; and from the
cutting-edge environment at Stanford in which he found himself Rathje agreed.
After observing Stanford for a year, Rathje realized that he was part of a nexus of contemporary archaeology. One or two or three admired colleagues appeared every week to
give talks at the Center, to interact with students, and to informally discuss a wide variety
of theoretical issues. In 1969, while a graduate student at Harvard, Rathje had taken what
was called the Archaeology Super-Seminar. Under the direction of Professor Stephen
Williams, then the Director of the Peabody Museum, eight internationally renowned
archaeologists each took up residence at Harvard one-at-a-time for a week and participated
in the Super-Seminar where students asked them questions. Rathje suggested to Shanks that
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x Editorial Preface
they take a lead from this experience and invite some colleagues to participate in the
Stanford Archaeology Centers weekly public talk to be followed by a dinner to which students in the Theory seminar would be invited. On the following day the visiting scholar
would participate in a conversation with Shanks, Rathje and students in the seminar about
the visitors background and the general state of archaeological theory. Shanks instantly
agreed; he thought this would give a human face to theory, a field that can appear abstract
and daunting, while also reaching out with an invitation to participate in debating what
theory is really all about thoughtful archaeology.
Rathje and Shanks set right to work. Rathje had always wondered why the discussions in
Harvards Super-Seminar had not been published. After all, these were some key figures in
archaeology directly answering graduate students questions. Well before any conversations
began at Stanford, it was decided that the conversations should be published, if at all possible.
As the founder and director of Stanfords Metamedia Lab, Shanks saw to it that, with the help
of Chris Witmore and other graduate students at the time, all public talks were thoroughly
documented, as were all of the seminar conversations, and even the social events.
The guests of that seminar back in 2002 were meant to offer some of the different flavors
of archaeological thinking, though there could never be an aspiration to be in any way representative of archaeologys diversity. There were some who could be called icons of contemporary archaeology, notable figures in the most cited and utilized theoretical strains of
archaeology Lew Binford (New or Processual archaeology), Michael Schiffer
(Behavioral archaeology), and Ian Hodder (Postprocessual and Interpretive archaeology). Marxist archaeology and gender and feminist perspectives came also with Randy
McGuire, Victor Buchli, and Meg Conkey. Patty Jo Watson, who had written Explanation in
Archeology in 1971 with Chuck Redman and Steve LaBlanc, offered clarification of the
Processual format for doing archaeology. Mark Leone, who had frequent talks with Hodder
in England as he was hashing out the initial underpinnings of Postprocessual archaeology,
who had spent considerable effort on a major Marxist approach to historical archaeology, and
who developed Postprocessual approaches in his comprehensive work in Historic Annapolis,
offered more scope and nuance. We figured that both Rathje and McGuire had interacted
closely with Schiffer as he published the papers that built the structure of Behavioral archaeology and could knowledgably discuss its components. Shanks had a similar relationship with
Hodder that would open up the discussions. And, in order to explore Cultural Resource
Management (CRM), that pivot of archaeological theory, we asked Adrian and Mary
Praetzellis to describe the projects they used to build a major CRM program at Sonoma State
College. We were easily able to connect their pioneering work with Leone and McGuire, for
example, who had both plied CRMs practice and political waters.
The seminar went better than expected. What emerged was indeed the experience of
archaeology in its human face. Less a story of competing theories, of great discoveries or
seminal publication, of leading figures pursuing and promoting their new ism (structuralism
in archaeology, feminism, processualism et al.), we discovered common ground across what
were held to be radically competing and opposed viewpoints, unexpected common orientation on topics such as creative relationships with other cultures, on robust and secure discourse, on the cultural politics of the past.
We felt that we had to continue what was looking like a kind of ethnography or even psychoanalysis of our discipline, and one that was opening up new angles on its working, on its
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Editorial Preface xi
recent history, revealing much that is normally hidden and left unspoken. So Rathje and Shanks
continued to invite colleagues and guests of the Archaeology Center to conversation. It became
an even more opportunistic mix, depending upon the accidents of competing schedules as
much as attempts to cover particular topics and agendas Colin Renfrew, Kristian Kristiansen,
George Cowgill, Ruth Tringham, Alain Schnapp, Alison Wylie, Susan Alcock, John Cherry, Lynn
Meskell, and finally, Rathje and Shanks themselves.While most of the conversations are centered
on individuals, some took place with pairs of scholars, and here too a combination of opportunity and design played a role. A halt was called in 2011 when it was clear that we had accumulated a wonderfully rich picture, approaching a decade in its contemporary reference, stretching
over forty years of some careers, more than enough to be collected in a single volume.
Acknowledgments
Over the years many have put a great deal of labor into seeing this project through.
Elizabeth Gremillion Witmore and Christopher Witmore spent many hours transcribing
the original tapes. We are grateful for the encouragement of Susan Alcock, Alfredo
Gonzlez-Ruibal, Gavin Lucas, Bjrnar Olsen, Krysta Ryzewski, Timothy Webmoor, and
especially Susan Bielstein, John F. Cherry, Mark Leone and Elizabeth Gremillion Witmore.
Comments from Susan Bielstein, Bob Chapman, John F. Cherry, Matthew Gibbons,
Matthew Johnson, Alex Knodell, Gavin Lucas, Bjrnar Olsen, John Robb, Timothy
Webmoor and an anonymous reviewer went far in improving the manuscript. Conversations
with numerous students and colleagues about the contemporary climate of the discipline,
the states of archaeological affairs, have had an impact on both the structuring of these
conversations and the commentary; here we wish to acknowledge Susan Alcock, Douglas
Bailey, Mary Beaudry, Peter Carne, John F. Cherry, Ewa Domanska, Matt Edgeworth,
Alfredo Gonzlez-Ruibal, Omur Harmansah, Ian Hodder, Alex Knodell, Kostas Kotsakis,
Kristian Kristiansen, Gavin Lucas, Ian Morris, Bjrnar Olsen, Alain Schnapp, Ruth
Tringham, Timothy Webmoor, and Joseph Zehner.
This project received generous support from the Stanford Archaeology Center and the
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University. In addition,
we are grateful to both the Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures and
the College of Arts & Sciences at Texas Tech University for research support and to Timothy
Lenoir, the Jenkins Collaboratory and the Information Sciences and Information Studies
Group at Duke University for hosting one of us (Witmore) as a visiting scholar during the
summer of 2011 when the final edits were completed. We owe a great deal to the graduate
students who participated in the original Conversations Seminar at Stanford University in
2002. We also extend our thanks to the former Administrator for the Stanford Archaeology
Center Aileen Bibaoco-Agustin for all her logistical support. Finally, we wish to thank all the
conversationalists for their steadfast confidence, encouragement, and patience.
Postscript
Lew Binford passed away during the final preparation of the manuscript, Bill Rathje just as
the book was going into production. Bill delighted in describing Lews friendly banter with
Michael, the sparring that revealed not the inflexibilities of hardened academic positions, but
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xii Editorial Preface
true and generous exchange, and Lews wonderfully dry humor. We suggest that the conversation recorded in this book is a great testament to Lews intellectual courage and daring, a
testament of all that he gave to archaeology, and what will be sadly missed.
In many ways, Bill embodied what this book stands for a deep human understanding of
archaeology, indeed of all the archaeological aspects of contemporary society. With a perspective that began in the archaeology of central American civilizations, Bill reached out in the
1970s to create two of the foundations of archaeology today the anthropology of modern
material culture, and garbology, scientific research into all things garbage. At the core of both
lies the care for things that marks the human condition. As Bill originally put it, his was an
archaeology of us, inclusive and connecting past and present.
Bill wrote academic papers, a textbook (with Mike Schiffer), a best-selling popular work
on garbology (with Atlantic Monthlys Cullen Murphy), and his greatest contribution was
arguably to be found in his interventions and commentary upon everyday life. Bill was a
model of public archaeology. In newspaper editorials, magazine articles, television programs,
court testimonies, and more, Bill took every opportunity to challenge common public opinions about the waste we leave behind. He was always faithful to a maxim of our current era,
what we say we do rarely matches up to what we actually do. You claim to lead a healthy
lifestyle? You laud your efforts at recycling? Bill knew that your trash, by and large, said otherwise, and he literally had what he routinely described as a 237-ton mountain of garbage
to prove it. Bill knew that soft solutions to waste issues often came with hard consequences
and he regularly demonstrated what archaeological research and thinking could contribute to
addressing the ecological and social crises that we face today. Bills science was a passionate
one committed to consciousness raising and making the future a better place.
Bill carried lightly his expertise, born of the great changes in American anthropology in
the 1960s and 70s. It never stopped him appreciating and learning from alternate standpoints;
he was big enough to deal with disagreement and diversity. Bill always chose to begin with
what we share, rather than what makes us different. This is so very clear in the conversations
contained in this volume; his direct and candid questioning, accompanied by his fabulous
anecdotes, prompted profound reflection.
Bill had a laugh that shook the room. This laugh was matched by his sense of humor. Bill
never missed an opportunity to make a joke; garbage was an easy target, and he always
responded with style. A kind and gentle man, his open generosity ran deeply into his Buddhist
faith. His intellectual creativity was here matched by experiment in photography, to which
he devoted much time in his last years. With wit and sometimes lyrical intensity Bills natural
still lives explored the fleeting and ephemeral, which is also often to say the timeless, in our
engagement with material things.
Bill and Lew shared a profound love and mutual respect for each other. We feel it appropriate to dedicate this volume to their memory and the bonds they shared in a care for
people and their things, past and present; this care was, and is, so central to archaeologys ongoing importance.
Tucson, Palo Alto, and Lubbock 2011
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1
INTRODUCTION
Bill Rathje, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Witmore
This book is intended to change the way we understand archaeology, the way it works, and
its recent history. We offer seventeen conversations among some of its notable contemporary
figures, edited and with a commentary. They delve deeply into the questions that have come
to fascinate archaeologists over the last forty years or so, those that concern major events in
human history such as the origins of agriculture and the state, and questions about the way
archaeologists go about their work. Many of the conversations highlight quite intensely held
personal insight into what motivates us to pursue archaeology, what makes archaeologists
tick; some may even be termed outrageous in the light they shed on the way archaeological
institutions operate excavation teams, professional associations, university departments.
Something of an oral history, this is a finely focused study of a creative science, a collection
of bold statements that reveal the human face of archaeology in our contemporary interest in
the material remains of the past.
The conversations took place at Stanford University, California, from 2002 to 2011. They
began at the instigation of Bill Rathje and Michael Shanks who wanted to share their own
conversation about all things archaeological with colleagues and visitors to Stanford. More
of the circumstances under which the conversations occurred can be found, appropriately,
in the Preface.
We are well aware that the group of archaeologists gathered here is not a representative
sample. Neither are we nave about this. While all hold academic positions at universities that
are located in the Global North and West, all contributors have also worked across boundaries and borders; all have been involved in archaeology in the making. Indeed within these
conversations can be found a persistent application to the political economy of archaeology
in order that more equitable and inclusive distribution be made of the benefits of archaeological work and knowledge.We are all subject to our standpoints; the task is to recognize this
and reflect upon the implications in order that we might do better archaeology. Archaeology,
as is so well illustrated in these conversations, is located in lives and institutions as well as in
aspiration to address matters of common human interest and concern, even, indeed, matters
of cultural policy.
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2 Introduction
This consciousness of the politics of theory and of the role of critical scholarship is very
prominent in our discussions and so well exemplifies David Clarkes announcement in 1973
of the emergence of a critical self-consciousness in archaeology. But the evidence of these
conversations also makes it hard to imagine how such reflexive self-consciousness implies
Clarkes corollary of a loss of innocence. Archaeologists, we suggest, were never innocent.
Disciplines like archaeology never innocently pursue their purpose, to build knowledge of
the past, or however they conceive it.
In order to achieve this aspiration to capture the humanity and working of archaeology,
Shanks and Rathje adopted, precisely, an open and conversationalist attitude. Shanks, because
of his fondness for wide reading in the reach of all things archaeological, aspiring to draw
French or other European philosophies into the critical nuances of archaeological theory and
practice, and in which Rathje was less interested, typically started the conversations with a
gentle high-toned conundrum enmeshing all manner of interlacing practices. Rathje, trained
in traditional American Processual approaches, would admire from afar, as he puts it, behind
his more pragmatic understanding of the general theory of science. Shanks would encourage
delving into philosophies bolstering high-arching theories, while Rathje would pursue queries about practical interpretations grounded in moving dirt and in bits of artifacts. Later
conversations increasingly involve Witmore, who filled in for Rathje at a time when Bills
health wasnt so robust. Witmore brought an inflection that drew upon science studies, combined with a deep appreciation for the history of the discipline.
There is a rudimentary menu of questions asked in each conversation: they concern the
changing state of the discipline in the direct experience and opinion of the discussants. The
brief for each guest was to consider archaeologys key questions, methods, and achievements,
to outline trends and goals, as would be appropriate to an introductory seminar on archaeological thought. But tangents are followed and logical breaks occur as Shanks, Rathje, and
Witmore try to weave theory and practice together, personal experience and blue-sky thinking, while letting their guests take the lead. The one bottom-line was to create an open and
unfettered forum, serious, but not pompous, for everyone to say whatever they wanted about
their work, their career, their colleagues, and the past, current state, and future of archaeology.
In a few cases, reviewers of the manuscript of transcribed conversations suggested that we
tone down or delete some comments. We offered everyone the opportunity to do this in a
revised draft. Changes received were minor and throughout retained the tone of the argument. We suggest this reflects the honesty of these conversations. The result is a kaleidoscope
of personalities, their values and goals, their passions, what they saw as their successes and
failures, and the realities of archaeology to which all have contributed so dramatically. A
couple have expressed a mild concern that some of their comments were timely, that they
would change now what they said then, or that their opinion, conveyed in conversation, is
not so much of lasting concern, in the face of those histories of archaeology that, with hindsight, synthesize the to-and-fro of debate and practice. Such analysis, typical of the orthodox
histories of disciplines can, however, appear over-coherent, delivering narrative that is often
over-dramatized, missing the simple and messy nuances of the human experience of pursuing
research and forging knowledge. The value of these conversations is that they reveal this
human experience.
Looking over these nine years of conversation and one of editing, Rathje, Shanks, and
Witmore offer this collection of conversations as a case study in that hybrid and relatively
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William Rathje, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Witmore 3
new field of science studies. Archaeological science is this flawed assemblage of thinking,
aspirations, practices, highly personal, constantly confronting institutions and discourses. It is
a weakly articulated assemblage because there is no teleology here, no great drama or inexorable journey from less ignorance to more enlightenment, from one paradigm to another,
with debates between coherently constituted communities of processualists and Marxists, or
fieldworkers and academics, whatever. Instead, in reading these conversations, look to and
mark out the opportunities opened up (and as often closed down) for our labors as archaeologists, the potential to affect the manifestation and mediation of the past in the present, as
we are led in such wondrous places as spelunking with Patty Jo Watson, among the Inuit with
Lew Binford, into fieldwork with Victor Buchli, as we share with Colin Renfrew the concerns prompted by the contemporary looting of antiquity, read Ruth Tringhams memories
of setting out on her own archaeological journey, discuss field methodologies with Susan
Alcock and John Cherry, and face the challenge of constructing prehistory for a new Europe
with Kristian Kristiansen.
Though there is a great deal of common ground, the conversations have been divided into
three groups. We have chosen headings for these groupings that reflect some of the challenges
that the conversations make to orthodox treatments of archaeology. Each group is centered
on a theme that cuts across what are typically kept separate in studies or introductions to
academic disciplines: theories, methodologies, disciplinary expertise, specialist interest in a
region or period of history, academics and heritage professionals, personal anecdote and institutional history. The parts of the book are instead intended to reflect aspects of archaeology
in the making.
One group of conversations covers what we have termed The Archaeological Imagination. In
a hybrid field between the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, archaeologists work on
what remains of the past in practices that combine the analytical, empirical, interpretive, and
creative. This group offers insight into attitudes and engagements with the objects of archaeological interest, in the quest to reconstruct, repair, respect the remains of the past, in creative
use of whatever resources are available material, social, cultural, emotional to enable our
archaeological purpose.
The second group is titled The Workings of Archaeology. This contains much reflection on
the craft and science of archaeology, skills and competencies, and the institutional supports
for archaeological work.
The third grouping is headed simply Politics. Here we read about commitment to certain
common values, principles, and ethics that enable an authentic engagement with the past in,
a fortiori, certain kinds of contemporary collaborations and communities. Involved are mindfulness and critique of stakeholder standpoints, interests, and ideologies.
The challenges found in this book to the way we typically think of archaeology are so
great that they prompt us also to offer summary concepts to describe the work of archaeology.
We introduce three new concepts, one to accompany each part: pragmata, tekhne, and demokratia. We make no apology for neologism and our use of old Greek terminology. We argue that
new concepts are needed to see freshly into what the conversations are telling us about our
discipline, to reframe our perspective on the workings of archaeology. Greek terms distance
us from conventional common-sense understanding of academic disciplines. Again, we
emphasize how much overlap there is across the three parts of the book. The new concepts
are intended as a further aid in exploring these cross-connections.
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4 Introduction
We will introduce the new terms in our introductions to the three parts of the book. Here
we mention that each term is meant to bridge some typical, and we argue confusing and
debilitating, distinctions in the description and understanding of archaeology, and other disciplines. Pragmata is the concept associated with our first part. The term refers to both things
and their constitutive practices: pragmata assumes the entanglement of things and practices,
places and events, people and objects/instruments. Techne goes with the second part and
describes the craft of archaeology, the art/science, the know-how, the competencies and agencies in pursuing (archaeological projects). Demokratia, associated with the third part, is not
democracy, but the agency of the commons, the powers of association, issues of establishing
a commons centered upon the past-in-the-present, bridging the past and its representation or
mediation, connecting and acknowledging diverse interest. The commons refers to a community and its mode of inhabiting its world of goods, including tangible and intangible
heritage. Ultimately demokratia is about the civility of archaeological practice, care and respect
for people, sites, and things.
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PART I

Archaeologists do not discover the past as it was; they work on what becomes of what was,
and they work with old things in order to achieve particular ends. These ends may be narratives related to long-term entanglements with wheels, stories concerning the origins of
agriculture, the kinetic experiences of holding a pot, or the act of sharing the sensory intimacies of exploring a long-forgotten cave; they may be more tangible, such as the construction
a museum or a visitor center. Archaeologists deliver stories, big and small. Archaeologists
generate tacit experiences with the things of the past. This commitment is borne out in
archaeologys diversity as a bridging field connecting diverse ways of working with remains.
The conversations in this part speak to the archaeological imagination; they reveal how an
archaeological imagination hinges upon things and creative approaches to them. We therefore
connect this field to the Greek notion of ta pragmata.
Encompassing the richness of the old Greek meaning of the term, pragmata are things,
but also, deeds, acts (things done), circumstances (encounters), contested matters,
duties, or obligations. The verb at the root of pragmata is prattein, to act in the material
world, engaged with things. This is cognate, for us, with making as poetics (the Greek root is
poiein) a creative component to practice generally. Here we once again place emphasis
upon the care archaeologists have for their matters of concern, and their larger loyalty to
what we recognize as ta archaia, literally translated as old things. Remnants, vestiges, monuments, artifacts hold memories which archaeologists attentively piece together with, typically, an aspiration to fidelity and authenticity. Of course, archaia demand a particular
orientation, both practical and imaginative. To regard these old things of archaeological
interest as pragmata reminds us of the primacy of engaging with things, that many others are
drawn to these matters in different ways, in different engagements or encounters, and so may
even constitute them as different things, because pragmata do not stand on their own they
become what they are through our relationships with them. This constitutive importance of
particular engagements with the past, as the past comes to be what it is through our actions
upon it, means that there is no definitive end to the past; the past lives on in our relationships
with what remains, and so there is always more to be said and done; the challenge is to meet
things, the past, halfway, in our future-oriented archaeological projects to make something
of what remains.
In this part, readers learn of how Lew Binfords interest in Nanamuit amulets and
Neanderthal milk teeth are connected with a commitment to community; of Michael
Schiffers passion for technological change, electric cars, and making pots; of Patty Jo Watsons
02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 5
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Part I
recollections of women in archaeology, experiences of caves in Kentucky, and the team practices they instigate; of Colin Renfrews worries over illicit antiquities and reflections on the
conceptual art of Carl Andre; of Alison Wylies experiences of Fort Walsh and the ethical
practices of stewardship; and of Ian Hodders thoughts on entanglements with wheels and the
intimate practices behind the origins of agriculture.
We return to both pragmata and archaia in Ch. 19.
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2
LEWIS BINFORD
with William Rathje and Michael Shanks
Lewis Binford is a leading figure in the momentous changes in

archaeological thinking and practice that came with the shift to
anthropological science in the 1960s, 70s, and beyond New and
Processual Archaeology.
Lewis Binford looking on in discussion with Bill Rathje.
Conversation prcis
After squaring shoulders with Michael Shanks in a debate over fruitful learning strategies in
archaeology both emphasizing the pivotal importance of argument and the deployment of
evidence Lewis Binford reflects on the gains and losses of the New Archaeology of the 1960s
and the Processual Archaeology it spawned. He goes on to discuss his ethnoarchaeological work
with the Nunamiut and his relationship with these communities. He ends with an outline of
what the academy should be doing for archaeology. (Editorial note: This conversation makes
reference to a talk by Binford delivered on the previous evening at the Stanford Archaeology
Center. Rather than remove references to this talk, an act that would obscure much of the flow
of the conversation, the editors have provided contextualizing material where appropriate.)
Michael Shanks:
Can we begin by trying to summarize some of the points you raised in your talk
yesterday afternoon. With great clarity and detail you made a case for archaeology as
science. You emphasized the working of science as a process that suits archaeology.
Rather than a body of knowledge, you described science as what we do. Science is a
practice which focuses on learning opportunities, and you described this as a learning
strategy.This way of working and learning involves being explicit in our fundamental
endeavor of constructing arguments. In this you emphasize clarity, rigor, and providing
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
Part I
opportunities for people to deal with argument, offer critique, find problems, etc. In
other words, this is a process which involves submitting work to a group of peers
who assess it, perhaps verify its points, and then apply it to their own experiences
and, in so doing, create a path to take the learning process forward.
You used the judicial metaphor as an example for dealing with evidences and
judging their reliability; you introduced the notion of faithful witnesses. Also to take
it a little bit further, you made the case, under this judicial metaphor, that the
archaeologist needs to be a reliable council or representative in representing this
material to peers. Here there is a need to be honorable, a need for fidelity, a need to
be trustworthy. Hence, there is a need to be absolutely explicit. As an archaeologist,
reliability is established by the way that we present our ideas and the ways that
they can be conceived and replicated by other. Does that sound about right?
Lewis Binford:
Its partly right. I do not think I was making any claims for morals and
value judgments as fundamental grounding for what we are doing. I think
I was asking one to be logical and to clarify what is and what is not germane to discuss.
The latter may even hold for an opinion, not only about the observational material available, but also the knowledge available, or also what may
be the steps necessary for achieving a given goal. Logic dictates that some
things have to come before others.
Im not making methodological statements about trustworthiness
because thats totally ambiguous. If, for instance, I make an argument and
its found to be inadequate, then you may turn around and say to others
that I cannot be trusted! And you could do so regardless of the fact that
a given assertion was made totally in good faith, and its a function of
knowledge and/or understanding shifts made between the time the statement was made and the time someone else contributed new observations.
In short, something new was learned.
Mixing all these moral issues with a straightforward procedure of heres
what we are doing, heres what I think is going on, seems to me to be
excess and damaging political baggage.
MS:
I was simply applying the judicial metaphor in a way that I thought was
appropriate . . .
LB:
I know you were. But its not a metaphor; e.g., a figure of speech, in which
a term is transferred from the object it ordinarily designates to an object it
may designate only by implicit comparison or analogy. The distinctions
do not derive analogically from the judicial endeavor. The differences
between factual evidence and circumstantial evidence are important far
beyond the limited context of judicial usage. These distinctions are epistemological in nature, and as such are fundamental in all serious considerations as to the nature of experience, which of course, includes research
observations made by scientists studying what ever the subject matter.
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
Lewis Binford (with Rathje and Shanks) 9
In archaeology, for instance, all factual knowledge of the archaeological

record is created at the time persons make observations on the archaeological
record. Factual knowledge, or knowledge claims regarding properties of
the archaeological record are always contemporary with the observationdocumentation event. Thus, most such knowledge is subjectively
dependent upon the observers selection of phenomena for description
and recording. Thus facts are all subject to both subjective selection and
association with other facts.
Im saying that the logic of those things is exactly the same in science.
No metaphor from judicial practice is involved. I cited judicial practice
only because the audience was probably familiar with the uncertainty of
the facts as the records of most jury deliberations demonstrate.
Circumstantial evidence is very different from factual evidence. If
one can give an explanation, then they have a strong argument that is
descriptive of a necessary relationship between something seen and some
prior dynamic process.That is circumstantial evidence of the best form. Its
not a different phenomenon. It is simply an explanation carrying the most
reliable details of causally relevant procedural information. The latter plays
the role of the most powerful form of argument, because it provides the
relevant information regarding causal linkages. As such, the process may be
duplicated experimentally, and/or identified as having acted by patterned
empirical phenomena derived from anticipated causal events and thus
linked to observations indicative of secure causal sequencing.
MS:
We brought up the matter of good faith, as you put it, because we do get people
who present themselves as operating in the way you describe for science, and in fact
they are not doing that at all, because they have other motives.We see this, of course,
notoriously in our judicial process across the globe where people arent necessarily
involved for totally honorable reasons. And I do think you would accept that the
judicial process is indeed an epistemological one of establishing knowledge and
degrees of certainty in adversarial settings. But anyway, we can leave it to one side.
What we really want to ask you is connected with your association of the practice
of archaeology with a learning opportunity, a set of learning strategies. Do you see
any other learning opportunities or strategies other than the one you described?
State your goals! . . . but recognize the limits of your materials

LB:
Well, lets say I see many different things that one could learn and for very
different idiosyncratic goals. I could just say that I want to learn stuff just to be
a more interesting person. Thats perfectly legitimate. I dont want to bore
people in conversation. So talking about other ways of learning also presupposes other learning goals. Ill go back to the proposition I gave you until
you tell me what it is you are trying to accomplish, I cant evaluate the rationality of your arguments for so doing. Do you follow this? Until you tell me
what you trying to do, if you give me all of these programmatic statements that
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
10 Part I
we have to do it this way, or that we have to go at it that way, I cant evaluate

any of it until I know what your goals are. So my stress upon learning as an
archaeologist underscores learning about the processes that stand behind, that
is, the dynamics that stand behind, the formation of the archaeological record.
Thats my goal. And I was talking about that. Not about vague things; not about
judicial practices. I was talking about facts in a definitional sense, just like you
would find in a dictionary. And I was accepting that definition as outlined above.
MS:
Nevertheless, given that goal, you stated that this is what I want to do . . .
LB:
Wait, I didnt say this is what I want to do. I said this is what Im doing.
MS:
Fine, this is what you are doing. And you attached that to a way of operating, to a way
of doing it, to a learning strategy.
LB:
Thats right.
MS:
Given a whole series of different learning goals, is this the only kind of learning strategy
there is? Or are there different learning strategies connected with different goals?
LB:
I think that learning goals must be grounded.That is, there must be some understanding as to the character of the tactics available for making germane observations. If we are seeking to understand the causes standing behind the patterned
variability in the spatial, temporal, and associational patterning detectable in the
archaeological record on earth, then the success rate in learning should co-vary
with the observational investments made in actually studying such dynamic
processes, which are taking place all over the earth at present. This, however, is
not enough since there are certainly causal contexts that existed in the past that
are not necessarily taking place in the modern world. Nevertheless, there is
variability in specific dimensions, such as the geographical scale or size of areas
exhibiting common behaviors or patterns of movement.These dimensions leave
telltale patterns in the archaeological record as produced by ethnographically
documented contemporary peoples. Do we see similar patterns associated with
similar phenomena as known from the past? Clearly in the above example,
knowledge of one phenomenon in the present may prompt a learning shift to
an exploration of archaeological remains from the past. This could be seen as a
change in the goals for learning. I would say it is not. It is a shift in the subject
for study, but not necessarily in the strategy used for learning.
MS:
Thats what Im asking you: is there any one way to learn?
LB:
I have no idea, because I am nave as to what other goals there may be for an
archaeologist using scientific learning strategies.
MS:
OK. Lets turn it another way around.You have mentioned in conversation that you are
very concerned to distinguish this learning strategy, call it science, from the humanities.
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
LB:
Yes.
MS:
So are the humanities different? Lets assume that they are; do you see other learning
strategies in the humanities? Can you amplify on the distinction between the sciences
and the humanities in terms of learning strategies?
LB:
Ive read a lot about people who tell me how they do history. Lets take
Jack H. Hexter for instance. He has a whole book about how to do the
logic (Hexter 1971). He has a wonderful section he calls Muddy Pants.
Here he is trying to convince the reader how silly science is. So the situation is this: father tells Johnny, Now Johnny, Ive just bought you a new
pair of pants, and I want you to promise me you will not get them dirty.
Johnny goes off to school with his clean, new pants. Later, when he comes
home the pants covered with mud. At this point, Hexter begins a wonderful section, quite innovative and fun to read, about how a scientist would
try to explain the mud on Johnnys pants. According to Hexter, the scientist would study the viscosity of mud and the acceleration of Johnny while
running. He would then focus on the relationship of the heel surface area
of his shoe to the viscosity of mud. With these factors, he could extrapolate
the probability of falling in mud. Finally, the scientist would say: see its
explained.
Now this section sets up the biggest bunch of nonsense I ever read. The
issue was what father told Johnny: Dont get your pants dirty. Now, when
father asked Johnny: Why are your pants dirty? Johnny is not going to
answer in scientific terms and his father doesnt want Johnny to answer that
way. He doesnt want him to bring in a consulting scientist. What does the
father want to know? He wants to know if Johnny violated the trust that the
father volitionally put in him not to get his pants dirty. So, do you wonder
what Johnnys answer is to his father? Johnnys answer to his father is that he
was leaving school when three big bullies came up and tried and steal his
book bag. He ran, and they chased him with a baseball bat. He slipped and
fell down, at which point they almost catch him, but he gets away in the end.
Father is delighted with Johnnys answer. He has an explanation that there was
not volitional intent on Johnnys part to get his pants dirty.
Hexters point is that the only acceptable explanation for a historian is one
that attends to the motives of the actors. Where are our actors? Where are their
motives in the archaeological record? Where is this germane whatsoever to
explaining the processes standing behind the formation of the archaeological
record? Yes, there are other ways of asking questions. There are other domains
of experience in which we may ask Johnny. But as archaeologists we cannot
do that! So my goal is the explanation of variability and patterning in the
archaeological record and the characteristics of that is what mediates my
notions of how we go about it. Just as Hexter doesnt want to hear anything
about the viscosity of mud, I dont want to hear anything about the alleged
motives of an actor I cant identify.
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
12 Part I
Bill Rathje:
Wait Lew! How does individual or rather human agency fit into this story? What of
the motives?
LB:
If you are going to work with individual agency where the individual is the
agent and I cant see the products of an individual, but instead I see the cumulative products of many individuals or many events in which different individuals did the same thing, what Im seeing is various kinds of structuring of
behavior among individuals. Now they may have had different motives but
they all did the same thing. So the question, then, is why is this stable? Why is
it unstable? Why is this a large scale? Why is it a local scale?
BR:
So, it is an issue of units?
LB:
Yes, Science studies classes of phenomena. Answers regarding such units cannot
be met by simply asking what was the motive. The motive could be this; the
motive could be that; it could be all of the above. But what is it that conditions
the scale, repetitiveness, and redundancy of the behaviors? Whatever the individuals motives may have been is not the issue. I think in order to go to the
next step it must be argued from the standpoint of whatever it is thats motivating people, not what their motives may have been or what form they were in.
What is it that is constraining? What is it that is opening up? What is it that is
causing small units to behave redundantly versus big units? If we stay with
agency we are just going to make up stories. These stories are not going to
help us deal with these issues. Instead, lets stay with the scale at which we can
begin to generalize about properties of the archaeological record. Thats just a
pragmatic suggestion.
Im not saying that the individuals are not the agents. They are, but agents
of what? They are agents of unique individual patterns of long-term redundant
patterns that dont change, so there has to be more to the causation than just
the agent that I cannot model!
MS:
But agency is not specifically tied to the individual. Agency is about the involvement of
individual action in creating structure. Its not just the individual. Its cumulative. Its
about the formation and maintenance of these structures, of the patterning that we are
dealing with.
LB:
Well, we knew that didnt we! I mean were talking about the patterned consequences of human behavior.
MS:
Of course. But it involves motivational actions. They may not be visible. They may
not be available to the individuals themselves, but they are a structural feature of
society.
LB:
It is not necessarily a structural feature. It is a byproduct of the properties of

the agents.
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
MS:
Well, thats a bit circular, is it not?
LB:
Its not circular. There are different ways of doing things. Bringing all those
essential concerns in an Aristotlean sense is just a parenthetical statement. It
doesnt carry any intellectual content beyond what we already knew.
MS:
Lets just back off a little bit and look at it another way. I really have less a problem
with what youre saying about argument in science and logic. What I find interesting
is how you are very focused upon certain aspects of society. I can see why you are,
particularly with subsistence strategies, with how people are feeding themselves, and how
they are organizing all that behavior in relationship to the environment. I think that
one of the issues that I have is that maybe thats not enough. There are other aspects
of society that you are not taking on board.You are, in fact, from the beginning refusing
to concede that other aspects are possible as you are defining agency here as irrelevant
to subsistence strategies.
LB:
No. I didnt say anything about subsistence strategies. I was talking about ideology.
MS:
OK.
LB:
This is a red herring.

Listen, I cannot know everything. My early education was in wildlife biology.
We work from our strengths. Im not saying that there cannot be people from
other equally strong bodies of knowledge who can do neat things. Im not
saying that. Nor am I saying that everybody has to be me. Im just saying, given
who I am, this is what I do.
BR:
Wait Lew! Im going to jump ahead a little to an issue that I think is germane here.
Back in the days of 68, 69, 70, when you were the guiding light of archaeology,
whether you believe it or not, you basically said you can learn anything from the
archaeological record.
LB:
I didnt say anything. I didnt say that we could learn about penicillin from
the record. I said that we could learn that Charles Hawkes hierarchy was not
accurate, because you could not evaluate what you couldnt know until you
had tried.1 Rather, we were in the process of attempting to find out how to
learn about social organization, ideology, and various classes of phenomena
that are organized structurally, and which anthropology normally deals with.
Thats what I said.
BR:
But, to rephrase, you implied that there was the opportunity to investigate all sorts of things.
LB:
Absolutely. I still agree with that. Nevertheless some taxonomy must be imposed
on the archaeological record, since science studies classes of phenomena.
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
14 Part I
BR:
Alright. But you seem a little less optimistic now.
LB:
No, I am not less optimistic. This is a silly account. I brought up the Hexter
example because I think it is a perfect case of what people abstract from. They
say historians do this, so we should be able to do it, because it is in the past.
Well, we dont have the sources to access certain kinds of information upon
which they are building their best argument.2 We have to build our best arguments on our strengths, not on the strengths of somebody else who has access
to linking phenomena that are quite different.
BR:
Fair enough. Archaeological materials are different, but another way of putting it is that
you are recognizing the limitations of the record?
LB:
That is what science is. That is why science bounds various domains. That
is why science says this is the way we have to deal with this domain as
opposed to that domain. Part of science is talking about, and learning about,
where the boundaries conditioning different types of learning strategies
might occur.
Dimensions: one of complexity, one of diversity itself, and one of the patterns of synergistic interaction between such units if you say you dont like
this knowledge, that is fine. I think that there are others who would really like
to know why ethnic differentiation exists, why there are extremely differentiated regions in some cases and not in others, why there is diversity and why
there is inequality within complex systems. I dont think that you can just
explain this by saying that there are good guys and bad guys.
MS:
These are some of the big questions facing archaeology?
LB:
Yes. So the issue is how we can reliably learn and bring to bear reliable information to explain things that are not well understood. I think thats a perfectly
legitimate goal.
BR:
Do you think that part of your very openness and willingness to talk about these limitations is because people like Ian Hodder and others are pushing questions and agendas
that you think are beyond the limitations of our materials?
LB:
I dont think the study of ideology is beyond our limitations. I think studying
the forms of ideological content that some people want to know about is
perhaps a bit ambitious; Ill be kind.
BR:
But youre still very optimistic about where we can go.
LB:
Oh yes. Absolutely.
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
The New Archaeology failed. Processualism failed

MS: Can I pick up on this optimism, because something you said yesterday ties in with what I saw
as a lessening of that optimism? You made a comment about New Archaeology and Processual
Archaeology in terms of what it was and what it has become.You think that people hadnt really
picked up the New Archaeology.
LB:
No. What I said was that the New Archaeology failed.
MS: New Archaeology failed?

LB:
And so did Processualism, in my opinion.
MS: Lets consider Americanist Archaeology, and for the sake of argument lets take American
Antiquity as representative of it. I know a lot of people who think that there is a clearly identifiable orthodoxy in Americanist Archaeology, which you can quite adequately term processualist to a degree (also see Hegmon 2003; Moss 2005). This orthodoxy includes various features
of archaeological practice that you have promoted and were promoting yesterday in your talk. It
includes generalization, problem orientation, systems thinking, interest in the archaeological record
and particularly in the material features of the archaeological record, especially in relationship to
subsistence strategies and culture/environment relationships. Altogether, this field of practices looks
like a processual orthodoxy. So are you saying that it is not, or that you missed something, or it
is not the way that you wanted it to be?
LB:
Why do you want to label something as something? Why is that important?
MS: Well OK, lets not give it a label. There is an orthodoxy, which to me looks like what you stood
for. Are you disappointed with that?
LB:
No.
MS: And yet a disappointment seemed to be expressed in your statement that it failed.
LB:
I am not in any state of disappointment. But what I thought would happen in the
discipline is not what happened.
MS: So what did you think was going to happen, in relation to what did?
LB:
Well, I thought people were curious. If so, I expected them to go to work seeking to
improve our learning strategies, and that the consequent growth of our ability to learn
would enhance the actual growth of knowledge and understanding of the past.
However, most archaeologists were adherents to different suites of interpretative conventions. Most of the people in the field are not researchers. Instead, they belong to
different cohorts of ideological belief, and seek to impose their orthodox interpretative conventions on the archaeological record. In addition, they want to organize or
disorganize the community of archaeologists (OBrien et al. 2005), thereby creating a
past and present that they like to believe in.
18-Aug-12 5:53:35 PM
16 Part I
So, I was arguing against conventions for interpretation. That was the fundamental
argument I started with. We do research, and then they take your suggestion of what
might be useful to think about as a convention for interpreting the archaeological
record. Where the problems come from was a good example of that. Here these people
were just taking my observations on the Nunamiut and saying, oh, very inadequate as
theory to interpret my site from Illinois. That is a failure. Now I dont think that it
was a failure from the standpoint of the people that did good work. But Im stating
this from the standpoint of the total population of practicing archaeologists primarily
using the English language. The use made of the products of the really good New
Archaeologists was inappropriate. In that sense, it didnt draw people in to see how to
do good productive research. This work simply gave a different verbal style to the old
interpretive format that I was arguing against in the first place.
MS: You mention good work. It might help at this stage if you describe for us a piece of research,
your own or somebody elses, where you think it delivered the goods, where it worked well on the
basis of being a learning strategy, and something came out at the end which took the field forward.
Can you give us an example?
LB:
Let me give you a generic response. Good work, for me, is research that carries an
argument honestly from the standpoint of the limitations of the author (knowledge,
experience, and so forth) and takes it to the point that there is a series of statements
with strong intellectual content as to how we can go and look and learn further in a
given direction. That is what I consider to be good work, because it has all the
properties of a cumulative growth process for either an individual or a community of
researchers. Such research points to things that might productively involve more people, and so it is work that stimulates further work, and commonly with more intellectual content. That is how I would do it. Any specific case is going to have its
limitations. That doesnt mean that I dont like it. We are not all the same.
MS: Can you describe something that you have done, that you feel that you got where you wanted to
go, given the limitations?
LB:
BR:
LB:
I think a better question to ask me is What did I do that I feel I could have done
better? . . .
. . . So what did you do that you feel you could have done better?
I dont think that I handled the issue of analogy very well in arguments with other
anthropologists, because I didnt deal at the same time with the issue of scale or taxonomy; both are also related to the use of analogy.
For example, we can have analogy at the scale of a scraper, at the scale of one item
or another item. We can have analogy thats argued in an abstract way between properties of a system and properties of another system. Of course, the problems of one
are different than the problems of the other. Because of the problems of the other, if
Im saying this is an analogous function in another system with different properties,
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM
I then have to come up with a variety of ways to tell you why things that are truly
different are the same.Whereas with an item most of the time I am never making such
an assertion.
People thought, taking the other way of looking at analogy, that similar causes produce similar effects. So, if I can see similar effects, then I must have similar causes. With
this cycle of thought one is in a logical trap. Because how does one identify the cause
when cause cant be seen, as far as I know. Cause is a property of an argument. The
ontological locus of cause is in a logical argument by a person. It is not out there in
the external world. One cannot see it. One cannot say similar properties have similar
causes even when they know the cause in the first case.
Lets take a real example. Here is a scraper lying in a museum, hafted. It is a little end
scraper and the associated plaque says: Collected from so and so in Point Barrow on
July 2nd 1863. Used for scraping hides.
What is the cause of the scraper? Many archaeologists would say that it is used for
scraping the hides. That is the cause of the scraper. Scraping hides is what causes its
design properties, and that is what I should refer to in answering why it looks the way
it does. Man, someone is going to have a huge problem trying to argue that is a cause.
However, such was the way analogy was generally used, when we view analogy as
similar effects having similar causes.
The key issue is the inevitable ambiguity of cause, since it is not a discrete observable entity. To the contrary, cause is a synthesis made in an argument regarding interactive dynamics that implicate entities and their patterned interaction. In the absence of
argument you cannot cite causal properties. Was the cause that the woman was using
it? Is the cause that it was used specifically on July the 2nd and that caused the scraper
to be this way? Which of those attributes that I listed could be put together into an
argument about cause? I dont think you can do it. I think you would have to take the
properties of the scraper and the principals of engineering to get to a reasonable argument that it was a scraper. One cannot use any of those ethnographic statements.
In retrospect, I think I dropped the ball on the whole logic of analogy. For me it
seemed that everybody was citing an analogy and all of the arguments somehow just
didnt go anywhere. So my reason for taking it up was that you had to add another
step.You just cannot make an interpretation and seek to justify it as a cause.You have to
go another step to see if it holds water. But I stopped. I didnt go further in that argument.Therefore, I would say that I didnt succeed there, and that I didnt do it correctly
looking back. I didnt do it good at all.
On issues of community relations

BR: Having lived through the Binford Era, which is still an era, and now living through the
Hodder Era which is overlapping, it strikes me that you are not interested in gender-related
questions. If I look at your background, if I look at what issues you are interested in, if I look at
your life and the way that you have lived it, I cannot believe that you are not interested in
gender issues.
LB:
I have always been interested.
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM
18 Part I
BR: I cannot believe that you have never taken an interest in empowering the voices of the groups
whose past you are looking at, which is one of the consumer groups for the science that you are
producing about the past. I am not saying that you are going out and telling them this is the
way things were. You should change your lives accordingly. Or, this work validates your
lives. The native communities you have worked with are interested in what you are doing and
you are interested in their plight. My take is that the reason that you didnt emphasize this
more at the time that you were developing your focus of attention was that you were still dealing with the normative group, and, therefore, you focused on more central issues regarding scientific method, knowledge construction, and other related issues. Am I wrong, or did you really not
care about such things?
LB:
I cared. However, what most consumer groups want, lets take Native American people,
is validation for some of their ideology concerning their clan origins, their sacred
mountains, and so forth. The validity for that rests in their own belief systems and not in the
archaeological record. I might be able to learn how long certain forms of belief have been
part of their history, but if such knowledge challenged their own beliefs about their history, they
would be upset, and I would be unable to ease their situation. (The discovery of humanly
butchered human skeletons in Hopi country caused a big stink among the Hopi. Local
archaeologists went through a rough patch there for a while.)
Beyond this I detect an additional issue, namely should political issues guide and
direct what science studies? There was certainly a time when gender issues dominated
the patterns of association, the research topics, and the hiring practices of some
Departments of Anthropology. There is certainly a legitimate ambiguity as to the quality of the science conducted under such emotionally charged intellectual conditions.
In my opinion science should study comparatively patterns of gender differentiation
and organization. That good science can be done in contexts of strong advocacy is not
likely. Most of the intellectual problems found in the field of sociology are because of
the belief that they should be solving other peoples problems.
I really worried with labor organization, and gender is hugely important there. Of
course, many of the problems that I was facing, much of the archaeological record I
was working with, and worrying with, was Mousterian. But you couldnt see much
of anything in the Mousterian. I have made observations of binary oppositions of
certain tools, e.g. denticulates versus scrapers, for example, that could be interpreted as gender differentiated use areas on sites. Such differences could, however,
be referable to two different activities, both of which were conducted by, for example, females! But that too was pure speculation. I couldnt see any way of gaining
more confidence in identifying gender differentiated use areas on sites. In conversation with Francois Bordes, we hit upon milk teeth distributions. It was suggested that
milk teeth should be disposed of primarily in areas of female-dominated activities
and social interaction.
I began to suspect that we were not getting any milk teeth from certain kinds of
Mousterian deposits. In these Mousterian deposits we were getting only adult teeth
and this was not a function of sample size. But, even then, the number of cases was very
small. I shared my suspicions with Erik Trinkaus who was then a colleague at
New Mexico. Eric was uncomfortable going to press with the milk teeth association
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM
with essentially one Mousterian possible example. I was too, so I said youre going
to travel and see more museums and Im going to travel. Lets systematically check out
milk teeth associations.
I was going to China to Choukoutien.3 I knew that milk teeth were largely unreported because the physical anthropologists were not interested in milk teeth; thats
why they are still around and accessible in many museums. They are always in a little
box, and they are not even in a catalog because you cannot work on species and adult
physiology from milk teeth. But they frequently had provenance. So when I went to
China, I was able to get some records on milk teeth.
The milk teeth there are associated with deposits full of pounded pebbles, which
yield flakes like the denticulates in the Acheulean context. When I had imported lithics at Choukoutien, they were associated with big flakes and basalt raw material was
common; I never had any milk teeth, even in giant levels in terms of tool count. This
was provocative, but not conclusive. The lithics at Choukoutien were not much like
Mousterian lithics!
Unfortunately, I was largely unable to get physical anthropologists to collect data for
me. When you asked me what I was going to be doing, I now have some data from
the Acheulean and some for the Mousterian. So, I think it is possible to do something
on gender with milk teeth. Getting enough data to actually make a strong case is hard
and not very encouraging. Nevertheless, at Combe Grenal, a deeply stratified shelter
in southwestern France excavated by Bordes in 1972, it looks like the Neanderthals
females are sitting on reliable resources. Their ranges are really small from the standpoint of their movement patterns. The males, however, are covering huge territories.
They are visiting females, obviously. But they appear to have independent foraging
ranges. I suspect they are not foraging as family units. I also suspect that much of the
food consumption is individual and at the point of procurement.Very little of the total
diet is returned to places like caves or other sites. The exception may be during glacial
events. It is returned for processing or returned for childrens consumption.
All this interpretation that I am now giving you, I think I can warrant. It has taken
how many years to warrant the claim tentatively made above. Much more work collecting milk teeth associations from museum records would be required to present a
strong and convincing argument for what I have suggested here.
BR: So you are more than willing to deal with gender and with Native American issues when you
feel the data warrant it. What of social inequality?
LB:
Well, I think social inequality is ubiquitous. And so the issue is how social inequality is
organized and whom does it impact? Social inequality is an organizational issue and
probably is a necessary differentiation or segmentation upon which complex society is
at least partially based. The integrative scale of the society probably correlates with the
magnitude of inequality present. This is certainly consistent with one of the most
common objections to Globalization. How do you have a strongly, internally differentiated society that is not also differentially privileged?
BR: That is a huge question. It is one of your long-term archaaeology questions.
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM
20 Part I
LB:
I want to return to the question of Native Americans. The problem, as I stated, is that
they want you to verify their belief system. I cannot do that. I cannot do what they
want . . .
MS: Does that mean that they are not part of the community that you are working with? Are they
outside of it, because you cannot connect with them on this issue? Is your community more of a
research community, as I said at the beginning, a community of peers to whom you submit your
arguments and work through these issues?
LB:
I have had many conversations on this issue with Native Americans. The most success
I had was with the Eskimo, because I lived with them for some time.4 Basically, in
conversation I could show them why I was doing what I was doing. In turn, they could
learn why it was fun to do what I was doing.
For example, I showed a group of men the excavation map of a place that they had
lived in when they were teenagers. Because their older relatives were still alive, we had
detailed information on what went on in this camp. Everything we had pretty much
fit with their stories except that over here we had mapped a pile of bones that should
not have been there the presence of these bones made no sense in terms of economic
processing. And so I asked these informants what this was about. In response, they said,
we dont know. I then said, Well, lets go ask uncle so and so. After about a month
had passed I had to leave and take the crew somewhere some Eskimo came running into camp yelling, We know, we know. They had undertaken research to try to
figure out what these bones meant in the camp they had lived in. They were now
involved and could see the value of doing this. So they were perfectly comfortable with
there being more knowledge about themselves and this was not contradictory knowledge, it amplified what they knew. It was an opportunity for them to learn more
through just talking about it.
For instance, when I dug the old sites from the pre-gun era I learned very quickly
to take the artifacts from these sites immediately to the older men of the village.
They would call the villagers together to talk about artifacts. Everybody in the village would come and the old men would hold the artifacts reverently and say: This
is like what my grandfather used to use. In such instances they would talk all night
long. Kids would hear things that they had never heard about their own culture from
the elders.
MS: When they came back to you saying hey, we found out, were they presenting arguments to you?
LB:
They were presenting arguments, but, for instance, they were also presenting information, which they didnt originally have; only the older people did. My question
prompted their questions to the older generation.
MS: So were they learning in your sense?

LB:
Yes.
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM
MS: And it was in the form of an argument. They came back to you with an argument regarding this
amount of bones they didnt know about.They did a bit of research and such. Can you give an example of how they explained these bones? Did this differ from how you came to explain these bones?
LB:
Well part of it was that people in different age sets knew different things about people
in different age sets. So one of the things that this particular example established was
that there were two women living in the house that I dug up. Both women had been
pregnant while they lived there. Thus there were various kinds of restrictions and
expectations on the part of pregnant women to carry out kinds of personal rituals with
amulets that they wore underneath their clothes. For example, if one put the skull of
a wolf next to their abdomen when they were pregnant, it was thought that the child
would be very clever (a raven is also very clever). So, women selected the amulet and
carried out the amulet business when they were pregnant in order to influence the
properties of the fetus. Body parts of animals were tied around their paunch to influence the fetus inside. This was a private behavior. Men didnt know what the women
were doing. The children didnt know what the women were doing. The women were
storing such bones in piles of moss or under some other cover. When they were finished with an amulet it would be replaced with another. Nevertheless, a removed
amulet was not just tossed away, it was kept in a cache.
After the birth, all such amulets used were collected and placed in a hidden location,
generally around vegetation, outside the house. This was what this particular pile was
all about. I did not know this and I had asked men about it. They had to go through
the gender barrier to find out first what this pile of bones was. Of course, the women
now had to feel secure enough to tell the men what they were doing when so-and-so
was in the womb. The result in the village was really interesting. The men made jokes
to me: Find out some more things that we can learn from the women. It was that
kind of situation. These bone piles were disposed amulets used during pregnancy.
MS: Would you accept that your presence as an anthropological archaeologist was great in this case
because it elicited, it produced a situation were the community could learn something that they
wouldnt have learned otherwise, if you had not have been there?
LB:
Well, my presence certainly provoked such situations. For two reasons: because the state
of Alaska had shipped out all of the children over a certain age to boarding schools that
required English. Those kids would come home and wouldnt be able to speak to the
grandparents and sometimes their parents even. Accordingly, I tried to use them as an
intermediary for a lost generation with respect to the use of language.
For instance, I was back last year for an event in the village in order to tell stories
about childrens grandfathers in a session that was purely for the Nunamiut childrens
education about the past before there were guns or a post office all the kind of stuff
which the younger people take for granted. They paid my way to come up there to do
that. This is just part of being a human being as far as Im concerned. It was not part
of my research strategy; it was what one does when one respects other people. You
dont stand up at a meeting and say you should go out and find out about animals or
something.
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM
22 Part I
A big question for the discipline: the relationship between

basic research and applied research
MS: I am going to change tack. Is it appropriate still to think that archaeology has a set of big questions; big questions that should be setting research agendas, like the origins of agriculture?
LB:
The answer is yes and no. In any given research project the goals should be realistic to
the particular scale of the project. In the long run, and this is where waste occurs
enormously in archaeology, the documentation stays at the level of that little project.
If I then use the results of many peoples work, I can address larger scale issues over
greater lengths of time and so forth. That kind of research is rare in archaeology. It is
one of the reasons I wrote the book Constructing Frames of Reference (2001), using ethnography as an example. I plan to have a second one in which we take what I learned
in ethnography to the archaeological record itself, showing that we can work at the
macro-scale. The ethnography book also has an argument about the origins of agriculture in general. So you can take it to the archaeological or historical record, or you can
move to a larger scale project. Simply as an aside, we might also equally, profitably
investigate why many peoples did not adopt agriculture.
What Im avoiding is the word should. I think we should take advantage of all
the learning opportunities we have. Those opportunities are at different scales and
the big questions are the greatest challenges. Should everybody address them? I
probably think, no. But, I think that archaeology is in a strange position of having
an applied discipline by law and no basic research. I really think that those of us
who have been privileged enough to be supported by universities and gone off to
do CRM (Cultural Resource Management) are working against ourselves. We that
have the privilege to carry out long-term comparative research in a university context should be doing the basic research that feeds the applied discipline by providing more and more techniques and strategies for maximizing the utility of the data
that they produce.
BR: In CRM as well?

LB:
I do not think we can charge the contractors for basic research. They are technically
hiring experts. Producing those experts is the responsibility of archaeologists
employed by universities.
BR: Do you think there is a threat to archaeology as a whole because of the awkward issue at the
moment of that relationship between basic research and applied research?
LB:
I do. Brian Fagan, for instance, says (and its terrible): we should change our university
programs and teach small business administration, being realistic as to what the future
of archaeology is. Well, if the university advocates the responsibility of doing basic
research and decides to advise applied disciplines and have a developed vocational
program, then the potential of archaeology is gone. Its like saying Im going to have
engineering without physics. You cannot do that.
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM
MS: This articulation, this connection, of research and that notion you described as learning strategy
is, for me, the heart of the traditional university, that articulation of research and teaching. The
pedagogical role of the university is intimately associated with basic research. What do you think
an undergraduate degree in archaeology should contain? Clearly not business practices . . .
LB:
Well, I would say that the first course should be in argument construction and recognition, but not the logic course taught in the philosophy department at most institutions, because that is really pseudo math. The problem I have with new students is that
they read for facts; they dont know how to make an argument with them. Nor do
they recognize an argument in the literature. They just extract the facts and use the
structure provided by the author. In short, they are not getting the fundamentals, which
are arguments, how arguments are constructed, how arguments are vulnerable, and
how arguments can be elaborated upon.
Firstly, I believe we need to teach how to use logic in argument recognition, diagnosis and production. These skills would comprise a critical component at an early
stage in archaeological education. Because you never know where you are going to be
employed you never know if you are going to be employed in the university and
have the opportunity to do fieldwork diversity should be maximized for our students. Either way you are going to encounter the archaeological record from many
different time periods, regardless of what patch you work in.
Secondly, the other fundamental knowledge that archaeologists should have is a
general education at the descriptive level, analytical, to be sure, but descriptive. This
also connects with the range of organized variability in cultural systems as known
ethnographically. If you dont know the range of variability then you dont have
good tools to think with when you encounter a partial archaeological record. You
dont even know how to estimate, if I see X, the scale of the system you might be
dabbling with.
I think the notion that archaeology should be separate from cultural anthropology
may be politically interesting for those of us who are in departments, but intellectually
it would be devastating if we ended up like many classics departments and just talked
about how to do archaeology and interpretation. The interpretive skill just comes from
heaven I guess!
BR: Other than landfills, Ive dug two archaeological sites in my life. Given this, I wonder is it because
of the scope of your questions that you are taking in this broader view that you have not identified yourself with a particular dig, a particular site, a particular set of very intimate data? Is it
partly because there is only so much time and you want to focus on the bigger questions?
LB:
Let me put it this way: Ive always thought of myself as a methodologist. I realized very
quickly that if you get a job and you say Im going to do local archaeology, your commitment is to an area and whatever is in it. Well, I was convinced that we really didnt
know how to deal with the archaeological record, or get the most out of it. What I did
was quite consciously say to myself, Im going to go anywhere that I think I can learn
what I think I need to know to deal with this issue. Hence, Ive gone all over the
world either for archaeology, to study museum collections, or just to see the variability.
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM
24 Part I
For instance, some of the pottery from Bulgaria appears to me indistinguishable from
Middle Woodland in Eastern North America. I find that interesting. I also find it interesting that you dont get painted pottery in anything but dry environments until you
have complex societies and only then do you get painted pottery. But early on you get
cord-roughened caldrons in very regular patterns. You dont know these things from
concentrating on Illinois; you know it from seeing a broad set of patterns. Here is part
of the problem of doing basic research vis--vis CRM or from sitting in one place;
some of us need to move around. We need methodological research to progress.
Notes
1 (Editors): Christopher Hawkes hierarchy refers to the path taken in inductive reasoning from
comparison and analysis of observed phenomena to the human activity that produced them (1954,
161). This path, from simplest to most difficult, from, according to Hawkes (162), the base animal to
the specifically human, has come to be known as the ladder of inference. Above archaeological
phenomena, the lowest and easiest rung to achieve equated to the techniques that produced particular phenomena. The next rung was subsistence-economics, which was followed by social/political
institutions. The final rung and hardest level of inference related to religious institutions and spiritual life.
2 (Editors): Binford recognized that archaeological facts are never historical facts (past events).
Archaeological facts are always contemporary observational events. Facts, for Binford, refer to
aspects of the actual occurrence of an event (1986, 392).
3 (Editors): Choukoutien (also spelled Zhoukoudian), a cave near Beijing, China, is renowned for the
early hominid remains including Peking Man excavated there in the decades after 1921.
4 (Editors): Binford worked with the Nunamuit Eskimo of Alaskas Brooks Range from 1969 to 1973.
18-Aug-12 5:53:36 PM

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ARCHAEOLOGY IN

Edited by William Rathje , Michael Shanks and

The archaeological imagination

3 Michael Brian Schiffer

The workings of archaeology

8 Adrian and Mary Praetzellis

12 Susan E. Alcock and John F. Cherry

14 Victor Buchli and Randall H. McGuire

18 William Rathje and Michael Shanks

19 Archaeology: An ecology of practices

xii Editorial Preface

William Rathje, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Witmore 3

The archaeological imagination

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 5

The archaeological imagination

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 6

Lewis Binford is a leading figure in the momentous changes in

Lewis Binford looking on in discussion with Bill Rathje.

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 7

The archaeological imagination

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 8

Lewis Binford (with Rathje and Shanks) 9

In archaeology, for instance, all factual knowledge of the archaeological

State your goals! . . . but recognize the limits of your materials

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 9

The archaeological imagination

we have to do it this way, or that we have to go at it that way, I cant evaluate

Thats what Im asking you: is there any one way to learn?

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 10

Lewis Binford (with Rathje and Shanks) 11

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 11

The archaeological imagination

So, it is an issue of units?

It is not necessarily a structural feature. It is a byproduct of the properties of

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 12

Lewis Binford (with Rathje and Shanks) 13

Well, thats a bit circular, is it not?

This is a red herring.

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 13

The archaeological imagination

Alright. But you seem a little less optimistic now.

These are some of the big questions facing archaeology?

But youre still very optimistic about where we can go.

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 14

Lewis Binford (with Rathje and Shanks) 15

The New Archaeology failed. Processualism failed

No. What I said was that the New Archaeology failed.

MS: New Archaeology failed?

And so did Processualism, in my opinion.

Why do you want to label something as something? Why is that important?

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 15

The archaeological imagination

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 16

Lewis Binford (with Rathje and Shanks) 17

On issues of community relations

I have always been interested.

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 17

The archaeological imagination

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 18

Lewis Binford (with Rathje and Shanks) 19

BR: That is a huge question. It is one of your long-term archaaeology questions.

02_Witmore et al_Ch-02_Part I.indd 19

The archaeological imagination