Shifts in Archaeological Thought
Culture History - each historical period has a unique impact on culture, emphasis on cultural diversity, and rejects the idea that phenomenon can be explained through reductive reasoning/generalization → in archaeology cultures and their phases are identified by assemblages of key traits, categories determined understanding of time
Civilization - universalizing condition, considers that ‘civilization’ refers to a socially stratified/urbanized state that uses currency, symbolic systems beyond a spoken language → existence of an idea of continual development and that most societies will end up progressing towards ‘civilization’, focus on external factors
Kultur - unique state of being, considers that cultures are built on complex systems of belief and expressed thru symbols/art, focuses on internal factors/processes/developments
Diffusionism - change is attributed to the diffusion of information/migration of ideas, Culture/Ethnicity relationship can allow us to study spread of ideas between cultures through context of warfare/trade → theory emphasizes the ways that migration impacts groups/the spread of ideals, tends to have focus on groups as ethnicity
Functionalism - appealed for need to design specific scientific frameworks to understand the operation/effects/purposes of social practices/institution, rooted in biology/psychology, believed that society functions to support individuals rather than social harmony/cohesion and their cultural institutions are developed to support individuals/fulfill their needs
Social Evolution - classifying cultures and societies based on an idea of linear progression from ‘simple’ to ‘complex’/’civilization’, functionalist perspective emphasizes demographic pressures that drive subsistence and economic change, components of culture are treated like genes and theorized to be passed down from generation to generation
Structural Functionalism - society is bound by structure of judicial/social status/moral norms which condition and regulate individual’s behaviors, social structures manifest as abstract concepts that individuals try to recreate/emulate → anthropologists should aim to understand/’discover’ these social structures/standards
Processualism - Methodology diversity with an emphasis on quantitative and statistical data, Procedures are applied to investigations of different questions relating to historical/ideological natures, data is objectified, historical context is disregarded, and those being studied are often dehumanized/are viewed as having no agency or free will
New Archl - Archaeology as a scientific field, searching for cross-cultural truths/similarities that speak to larger universal laws, emphasis on changes that occur over longer periods of time, changes are viewed as adaptations to pressures from within/outside a society, people act rationally and according to least-effort models, analysis should focus on the study of functional relationships between artifacts and social segments that represent the functions of cultural systems
Ethnoarchaeology - by studying living cultures one can find parallels or generalizations that can be applied to past cultures/societies → assumes that people are more alike than they are different and key to understanding universal human adaptations/behaviours
Scientism: adoption of logical-positivism in archaeology, believes that data exists objectively and that observations of data produces neutral/truthful facts about the universe, interpretation/theory are closely linked to observation
Cultural Ecology - Culture is adaptive, set of processes/mechanisms that allow societies to survive and thrive within their environment, anthropological research should focus on the interaction of specific cultures and their unique environments → assumes that people react objectively to the environment, not as they understand/perceive it
Structuralism - analyzes broader religious structures/narratives and kinship, studying aspects that determine cultural categories/classifications which structure elements of social life, sets out to understand/decipher universal qualities of meaningful systems → elements of these systems are meaningful because of relationships and unimportant on their own
Power - The ability to impose will upon others and make them perform tasks against their own wants/wishes, power is seen as being imbedded/encoded in society → Power interacts with various aspects of society in dynamic ways and a ‘structure’ needs to be defined in order to be studied
Materialism - material realm of the world is used to understand the passage of time, history is a product of the struggle between social classes, any change/transformation is a result of pre-existing structures that allow for new relationships/institutions to develop
Idealism - human consciousness determines material/social existence, more intangible aspects of culture/civilization → abstract concepts drive change, focuses on internal ideas and how they impact culture/historical changes
Ideology - A system of values/beliefs that make up a social grouping’s worldview, creates the ability to exercise authority through the production/monopolization of meaning, and is viewed as inherently political → ideologies are pluralistic and have many working components, and they are instrumental in the identification of ‘otherness’
Dualism/Binarism - contrasting pairs that exist on opposite ends of a binary, separates things in nature/society into opposites → allows for an explanation of the simplification of the world’s complexities within mythologies/cultural understandings, categorization allows for ease of analysis of culture/material record
Post-Processualism - Shift in understanding/approach to the archaeological record, emphasis on understanding ideology/meaning/emic perspectives, less focused on discovering universal laws or generalizing cultural systems → material culture are important because of the cultural systems of meanings that produce/form them
Feminism - Women in archaeology/anthropology were the first to question the basis of ethnographic research and challenge biases/misconceptions that distorts the understand of ‘social others’
First Wave - attempt to remedy bias by adding female perspectives, fails to actually deconstruct the problems in the disciplines in anthropology and archaeology that led to the exclusion of women and their perspectives → intersections of power, values, practices, and gender within the society of BOTH those being studied and those doing the study need to be considered
Remedial Stage - Gender is a understood as a social construction and that biological sex isn’t the basis of female oppression or exclusion → gender dynamic will vary based on each societies understandings and we need to undo the narrative that women are viewed as subordinates in all cultures
Post-Modernism - employs critical theory to consider impact of ideology/society/history on culture/cultural development, criticizes ideas of universal truths and complete objectivity → deconstructs the idea of universal truths/frameworks, and views the world through independent local/individual voices rather than through schools/theories
Ontology - culturally specific constructions of being, reality, and the understanding/conception of personhood → being able to study ontology is recognizing/stating how you would argue humans interact and conceptualize their relationship with people/world around them, Each culture’s ontology will be specific to their traditions/historical context
Cartesian Dualism - based in Judeo-Christian beliefs, the world is believed to be divided into dual perspectives or binaries and that all of human behaviour will fit into these established categories of being/understandings → popular amongst structuralists
Relational - Relationships, developments, and relationships are an interconnected web, in which every aspect is related to/impacted by other aspects in some way
Marxism in Antropology - construction of the social system was founded on infrastructure of production which shapes ideological superstructures → influenced anthropologists to explore more internal social relationships within a culture/society (ex. power dynamics, labour production, etc.)
Structural Marxism - represents a shift in thought/framework and considered an ‘intellectual revolution’, focused on bridging gaps in our understandings that were caused by previous frameworks and what they left out
Cultural Marxism - analysis of social inequality/alienation/conflict is central, emphasis on power dynamics that operate within the realm of cultural values, recognizes infrastructure/superstructure should be understood as a dynamic relationship
Practice Theory - focuses on the human body as medium of social behaviour, analyzes everyday practices in relation to frameworks of powers/dynamics of structure and agency, attempts to reconcile methodological individualism and collectivism
Phenomenology - emphasis on interacting with sites by moving through and interacting with the constructed landscape and trying to connect with the sensory/emotional experiences of past people → Individuals are treated as social beings and recognizes that a person’s identity/world-view impacts their interpretation/interaction with the world around them
Proxemics - Heavily influenced by phenomenology, explores an individuals awareness/consciousness of their interactions with others and with the landscape/space → focuses on social implications, spatial interactions, communication, and perception