Ethnoarchaeology Case Study

1004 Words3 Pages

Ethnoarchaeology: Processual Approach
Bridging the gap between past and present and bestowing archaeological record in more coherent, and systematically was provided by Binford in the 1970. He is regarded as the prominent processual archaeologist and envisioned ethnoarchaeology as the rightful methodological heir for elucidating archaeological problems scientifically.
According to Binford cultures are not internally homogenous they differ by age and sex roles and therefore culture change is better understood through ecological factors. Thus, changes are result of both external and internal factors which are complex in nature. And accordingly, advocated comparative ethnography i.e. correlated human behavior and material culture studies with …show more content…

The assumed result would be an existence of social inequality within the society. Similarly he further explains how the middle range theory can provide essential help in providing an estimation in identifying the settlement size and thereby the population of an ancient society. He mentions that size of settlement can be obtained by inferring the number of rooms in each household consist within a settlement. This result can also be correlated with population size. Hence, Binford argues such assumption are possible through observing the pattern of distribution of population within a settlement in present society. Such observation of population dynamics, production, consumption and redistribution is highly appreciated in his classic work on the Nunaviut Ethnoarchaeology (Johnson …show more content…

His new method focused on the interpretation based on personal understanding than outside influence. He was greatly dissatisfied with the processual approach for the interpretation of culture (Trigger 2006). Thus, post processualist were critical about the processual methods of positivism and scientific study to achieve objective reasoning. Hence, the main argument proposed by post processualist was that past societies needs to be observed through ideology. For instance religion and how it can help in interpreting the world and influence the behavior of man. Therefore, Hodder emphasized on the analysis of symbols and symbolic meaning towards comprehending culture change. Henceforth, the post processualist argued that archaeology is more subjective than

Open Document