Processual Archaeology, was a movement in the archaeological field that began in the 1960‘s and changed the course of archaeology forever. Anthropologists such as Julian Steward were absolutely influential on many archaeologists and anthropologists during the early 1960s with his theories of cultural ecology which established a scientific way of understanding cultures as human adaption to the surrounding environment (Steward, 1955: 36-38). It was approaches such as Stewards that led eventually led to a rejection of culture-historical approaches to the archaeological record and propelled the ideas of cultural evolution and its reaction with the environment. This approach to cultural systems was essentially a rejection of the culture-historical approach of determinism by suggesting that the environment influences culture but is not a deterministic feature and that both culture and the environment were two separate systems that are dependent on each other for change (Steward, 1955: 36).
Following Steward, existing explanations of migration and cultural diffusion as explanations for the formation of cultural systems became inadequate. Thompson, argued that simply acknowledging that migration had happened was not enough to explain culture-systems but that the processes that propelled migration were important (Thompson 1958: 1). Leslie White, went on to propose that cultural systems functioned as a reaction of humans and their environment and as a result, the materials created, relate to the relationship to their environment via means of tools, techniques and symbolism (White, 1959:8).
These leading anthropologists paved the way for Lewis Binford and his absolutely influential paper titled Archaeology as Anthropology in which Binfo...
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...adequate use when trying to explain complex ones (Salmon 1978: 179-180). Trigger notes that the fundamental flaw of the Systems theory was that it ‘was less useful in explaining change as it was in describing it (1989: 308).
Whilst there have been major criticisms of the Systems Theory, it is still occasionally applied to modern day archaeology to describe the components of culture-systems.
As an instance, in the field of paleolinguistics, Colin Renfrew, in re-examining Proto-Indo-European language and making a case for the spread of Indo-European languages through neolithic Europe in connection with the spread of farming,[11] outlined three basic, primary processes through which a language comes to be spoken in a specific area: initial colonization, replacement and continuous development. From some obvious reasoning he proceeded to some radically new conclusions.
...ncyclopedia of Archaeology, Ed. Deborah M. Pearsall. Vol. 3. Oxford, United Kingdom: Academic Press, 2008. p1896-1905. New Britain: Elsevier, Inc.
...the social structures in a society, and the relationship it has with the functions of the society. In understanding the system theory, it is worth pointing out on important features defining the theory. According to Luhmann, functioning differentiation is the most complex form of differentiation. Thus, functioning differentiation refers to the working of differentiated elements in a social system. Functional differentiation asserts that in system theory, there is a dependence and interdependence of various elements of a society. Social systems refer to the structural elements that make up a society. In addition, subsystems are the individual societal structures and elements that make up a social system. According to the systems theory, sub systems are instrumental in initiating communication between elements of a social structure.
Bruce Graham Trigger was born in 1937 in a small town called Preston in Ontario, Canada (Fagan 1). From a very young age, he showed a profound interest in acquiring knowledge, which gave his father the idea to give his son a book about ancient Egypt (Martin). In one of his publications, Trigger recalls being “Wonderstruck” by the subject (Martin). Following his childhood, his college education was focused on furthering his knowledge of the ancient past. Trigger’s bachelor’s degree in Anthropology was obtained in 1959 at the University of Toronto, and his doctorate was obtained at Yale in 1964 (Fagan 1). His dissertation as a student of Yale was an expedition to Nubia to study the different factors that influenced the changes of Nubian settlements (Fagan 1). His first post-college publication, History and Settlement in Lower Nubia, was first seen in 1965, and was based on his thesis (Fagan 1). He moved back to Canada after obtaining his degree, this time settling in Quebec, where he would write publications that would greatly impact the anthropological field (Yellowhorn 1).
Discussions in the 1970’s and 1980’s within both sides of the debate indicate population change, behavior change and natural processes to be the large determining factors (Attenbrow, 2004). Many archaeologists accepted there was a continuing increase over time in the number of archaeological sites established and used, as well as in the number of artefacts accumulated in individual sites, particularly in the past 5000 years (eg. Johnson 1979:39; Bowdler1981; Morwood 1984:371, 1986, 1987; Ross 1984, 1985:87; Beaton 1985: 16-18; Fletcher-Jones 1985: 282, 286; Lourandos 1985a: 393-411, 1985b: 38; White and Habgood 1985; Hiscock 1986) (Attenbrow, 2004). Population change refers to the changes in number of people or size of the population, behavioural changes referring to changes to activities such as tool manufacturing, subsistence practices as well as the use of space within a site (Attenbrow, 2004). Whilst natural processes include geomorphological and biological process that may have affected the archaeological record (At...
The cultural innovations analyses presented here illustrate the presence of cumulative cultural evolution in the upper Paleolithic and portray how a steady rate of change continuous with that seen in later human history. This should serve to encourage interests in the internal process of evolution that may tend to produce a smooth curve, including the possible the autocatalytic effects of the increasing technological
...anges which occurred over a period of time and why these changes occurred but who was responsible for them. Archaeological findings are essential especially when there is a lack of written primary sources. The most common findings in this field include; cave art, pottery, and weaponry used for both hunting and fighting. In later cases of archaeological excavations written evidence was well provided and artifacts recovered at the site were used as an aid in studying a particular culture. Moreover, it is quite obvious that all of the following elements pertaining to archaeology have positively contributed to our further understanding of human culture in previous centuries. Discoveries by archeologists not only give us significant insight into our past but they also give us essential information necessary for a comprehensive understanding of our present and our future.
Archaeologists commonly offer differing hypotheses for the origins of food production. Various theoretical approaches have attempted to identify the circumstances that caused people to shift to deliberate cultivation and do...
Systems ideas is referring to three different types of systems, each created in a different era; general systems theory, ecosystem perspectives and complex systems theory (Healy, 2005). Systems Ideas in social work originated with general systems theory in the 1940’s and 1950’s, formulated by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy in the 1970’s (Payne, 2005). Systems Ideas are very relevant to human related professions such as; doctors, social workers and other institutions. The systems Ideas theory aids social workers to find an individual’s “fit” and “adapt” to the current society (Payne, 2005). There are many people involved in an individual’s social system, from friends and family to institutions such as schools and doctors. These can also be put into further categories formal and informal theories. Formal theories consist of systems such as institutions like social worker and doctors but informal theories include friends, family and community. In complex situations, systems ideas and theory is more appropriate to use than other more casual models of practice.
How can it be that something so uniquely human and commonplace in our everyday existence as language, could transcend the limits of our immediate understanding? We all know how to speak and comprehend at least one language, but defining what we actually know about that language an infinitely more demanding process. How can a child without previous knowledge of the construction and concepts of language be born into the world with an innate ability to apprehend any dialect? Mark Baker, in his book The Atoms of Language, seeks to address these unsettling questions, proposing as a solution, a set of underlying linguistic ingredients, which interact to generate the wide variety of languages we see today.
When it comes to anthropological theory the combination of several established ways of thought often result in a completely new and independent way of thinking. Cultural Materialism is one of these children theories that resulted from a coming together of social evolutionary theory, cultural ecology and Marxist materialism (Barfield). The goal of cultural materialism is to explain politics, economics, ideology and symbolic aspects of a culture with relation to the needs of that society. From a cultural materialist point of view society is indisputably shaped by the factors of production and reproduction. From this all other facets of society, such as government and religion, must be beneficial to that society’s ability to satisfy the minimum requirements to sustain themselves (Harris 1996). An example of this would be the invention and continued use of industry because it increased the ability to produce needed materials and food. One important aspect of the cultural materialistic approach is that it operates completely from the etic perspective. Marvin Harris, one of the founders of cultural materialism, believed that a holistic approach is vital to correctly analyzing culture and believed that the emic approach failed at providing a wide enough scope. Harris tried to employ the scientific method and incorporated it into his theory. The result of this is that cultural materialism focuses only on events that are observable and quantifiable and replicable (Harris 1979). Cultu...
Since its inception, the academic discipline of anthropology has gone through constant paradigm shifts. In the nineteenth century, anthropology began as a nomothetic study based upon the development of cultures and societies through the process of evolution. Later on, several anthropologists particularly Franz Boas shifted the nomothetic approach of American anthropology into an idiographic approach, which focuses on assessing the development of cultures individually as their own separate entity. (Moore 2012:161) In the twentieth century, however, anthropology ushered in another paradigm shift. Several American anthropologists during this time, valued empirical data rather than applying the idiographic or the “Boasian” approach into their
The systems theory came from the whole concept of biology. The theory endeavors to understand the group as a system of interacting elements. The theory suggest that just as the body needs all its part to function effectively so do people and institutions. As a result of the interconnectivity of the systems, what happens in any part of the system affects the entire systems, both in and out. Homan states that maintaining equilibrium or balance is one of the core concerns of any system; a system acts out when it feels out of balance, when a need is felt system experiences a kind of imbalance, which leads to acti...
The evolution of languages is constant even though minor and major changes are not usually apparent unless looking at the broader picture over a long period of time. Vocabulary is lost in the process, pronunciation and syntax are changed, and more vocabulary is added. Any language in the world has evolved from another, and most of these proto languages have suffered extinction. The Indo-European macro-family has seen this evolution and it has given rise to smaller micro-families that are each derived from a common ancestor. The Proto-Indo-European, in which the ‘proto’ stands for a reconstructed language from evidence that was given at a later point in time, gave rise to the Indo-European branch of the language tree, which in turn has been subdivided into ten different micro-families including Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Balto-Slavic, Balkan, Hellenic, Anatolian, Armenian, Indo-Iranian, and Tocharian (Slocum). In addition, each of these families is broken up based on the common language that is shared. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, which is further split into Latino-Faliscan, Osco-Umbrian, and Romance.
Since humans have come together, there has been culture, and while we continue to live there will continue to be culture. Culture is a thing that we as humans all have in common, but our culture is also what keeps us apart. Anthropology is the study of humans, how we work, what are our rituals, the study of our past. The anthropological perspective is how one must look at culture or at another society to observe it without bias and without judgement. There are four important parts to observing through the anthropological perspective the first being the concept of culture, holistic perspective, comparative perspective, and culture relativism. Through the study of cultural anthropology one, will understand how societies as people are the same and how they are different. The same things that make societies different make them the same. It is also important to understand why and how societies work. The anthological perspective is an important part of viewing cultures.
Boas, F. (1930). Anthropology. In, Seligman, E. R. A. ed., Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. Macmillan: New York.