Journal of Archaeological Research, VoL 3, No.

L 1995
Worldwide Cross-Cultural Studies and Thei r
Relevance for Archaeology
Mel vi n Ember 1 and Carol R. Ember 1,2
Archaeological inference based on ethnographic analogy may or may not be
correct. What is worse, there is no systematic way to tell. With certain provisos,
it is better to generate archaeological inference from the results of worldwide
cross-cultural tests of relational hypotheses. Such tests may provide more
benefits than within-region comparisons. This paper discusses a number of
ways in which worldwide cross-cultural research may be used in archaeological
inference, including: generalizing about societal types, inferring from presumed
causes, inferring from material correlates, and inferring f rom noncausal
associations. The paper concludes with a discussion of how comparative
archaeology coul d help cross-cultural researchers test causal theories
diachronically.
KEY WORDS: inference; archaeology; cross-cultural; indicators.
I NTRODUC~ ON
Archaeol ogi st s of t en rely on et hnographi c anal ogy t o make i nf er ences
about t he mat eri al s t hey collect and excavate. Des cendant or si mi l ar cul-
t ures may suggest parallels in archaeologically known cul t ures, but such
i nferences may or may not be correct . What is worse, t her e is no syst emat i c
way t o tell. We suggest her e that, with cert ai n provisos, a bet t er way t o
gener at e archaeol ogi cal i nf er ence is to use t he results of worl dwi de cross-
cul t ural studies t hat test rel at i onal hypotheses. We admi t at t he out set t hat
not many of t he kinds of things we suggest her e have been done yet . We
1Human Relations Area Files, P.O. Box 2054, Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut
06520-2054.
2Department of Anthropology, Hunter College, CUNY, 695 Park Avenue, New York, New
York 10021.
87
10594}161/95/03004)087507.50,t0 t995 Plenum Publishing Cortx)ration
88 Ember and Ember
hope that our discussion, and our examples, will encourage more such work
and more interchange bet ween cross-cultural researchers and t hose archae-
ologists who want to generalize to and about the archaeological record.
Cross-cutturalists have accumulated a large number of statistically signifi-
cant findings about the worldwide ethnographic record (Ember and Ember,
1993; Ember and Levinson, 1991). The question we address here is, How
could archaeologists use those findings, and future ones, to draw reliable
inferences about the archaeological record?
We begin with a brief review of the assumptions of the cross-cultural
research strategy. Then we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of
within-region versus worldwide comparisons. While archaeologists t end to
be regionalists, and therefore might be most comfortable with within-region
comparisons [e.g., Feinman and Neitzel's (1984) study of middle-range so-
cieties in the New World], we discuss how worldwide comparisons may pro-
vide more benefits than within-region comparisons. Then we examine the
types of inferences that might be drawn from worldwide cross-cultural re-
search. The literature of cross-cultural research is quite large now; nearly
a thousand studies have been published, most in the last 20 years or so.
So our discussion of the relevance of cross-cultural research for archaeology
is far from exhaustive.
THE STRATEGY OF CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH
The fundamental assumption of a cross-cultural test is that if an ex-
planation (t heory or hypothesis) has merit, measures of t he pr esumed
causes and effects should be significantly and strongly associated synchron-
ically (Whiting, t954). A synchronic association (correlation) describes a
relationship bet ween two or more variables that are measured for each
sample case as of a brief time period (which may vary considerably across
the cases, from some time in the 18th century or even earlier to some time
in the 20th century). When we make a cross-cultural test, then, we are
examining a series of ethnographic "snapshots," each capturing some fea-
tures of a culture or society as of a particular time and usually a particular
locality. (By a society we mean a territorial population whose members
speak a language that is different from those of neighboring societies.) Re-
gardless of the different time loci across the sample cases, a statistically
significant result should be obtained if there is a systematic or quantitatively
describable relationship bet ween or among the measured variables,
Most cross-culturalists assume that it is possible to falsify a t heory on
the basis of hypothesis-tests using cross-cultural data. If the meaning of a
causal theory is 'clear and internally consistent, and if the theory logically
Worl dwi de Cros s - Cul t ural Studi es 89
suggests or implies testable hypotheses, then the hypothesis-tests coul d pro-
vide inconclusive or contradictory statistical results that would falsify the
theory. If the hypothesis-tests produce results that are contrary t o predic-
tions derived from the theory, or if the results are not significantly different
from chance results, we are obliged to conclude that parts or all of the
t heory are probably false too. We say "probably" because all understanding
in science is tentative, subject to possible revision on the basis of fut ure
research. But statistical support for implied hypotheses cannot be said to
"prove" a theory. This is because logically incorrect premises could lead
to correct predictions. Consider the syllogism, "Humans are unicorns; uni-
corns eat meat; therefore, humans eat meat." The derived hypothesis, "Hu-
mans eat meat," may be true, but it is a fallacy to affirm the premises from
the consequent. Although we can never prove a theory, we can be more
confident about it the more its implications are supported statistically, that
is, the more there are confirming or supportive tests in the absence of non-
supportive tests. [For how cross-cultural research to test theory compares
with ot her types of comparative research, see Ember (1991).]
The typical cross-cultural study compares all types of society, from
small hunter-gatherer societies, with bands of fewer than 75 peopl e and
total populations in the hundreds, to large societies dependent on intensive
agriculture with cities and populations in the millions. To be sure, the typi-
cal cross-cultural sample contains few or no modern industrial societies; so
cross-cultural research is typically not as broadly comparative as it could
be. (But that will change as accounts of modern cultures continue to be
added to the ethnographic record.) Despite not being as broadly compara-
tive as it could be, the cross-cultural type of study has a bet t er chance than
ot her kinds of comparison of coming close to the goal of discovering that
an observed relationship has more or less universal validity, which is what
we seek when we do science. That is, the general scientific strategy is to
seek more and more comprehensive explanations. The results of a single
field study or a within-region comparison may or may not be applicable to
other places, and the results of a cross-national comparison may or may
not be applicable to the world of preindustrial cultures. But the statistically
significant results of a worldwide cross-cultural comparison are probably
applicable to most societies and most regions.
To be sure, although most cross-cultural or comparative studies in-
volve a worldwide sample or a sampling of all types of society, not all do.
How you sample depends on what you are interested in, what population
or universe of societies you want to generalize your results to. You could
choose to sample only foragers, or only horticulturalists, or only societies
from a particular world region. The most important thing is to sample in
an unbiased way, so that your set of cases accurately represents the statis-
90 Ember and Ember
tical population (of societies) to which you want to generalize your results.
Using cases that are widely known, or using cases you have books on in
your own personal library, is biased sampling. Ot her things being equal,
random sampling from a more or less complete list is the best way t o sam-
pie representatively, because random sampling (e.g., choosing a simple ran-
dom sample of cases with the aid of a table of random numbers) is the
best way to protect against biased results. [For a general discussion of cross-
cultural sampling strategies, see Ember and Otterbein (1991).]
The cross-cultural study typically uses qualitative (full-text) ethno-
graphic information and codes it nominally or ordinally. It is of t en pre-
sumed that the coding of qualitative information is likely to introduce error,
because of coder mistakes or false statements in the ethnography. However,
error is not as serious a problem as some might think, if the sample is
representative, and if the investigator uses ways to test for and minimize
error (Ember e t a l . , 1991). In any case, errors are not likely to pr oduce
falsely significant results; if you have sampled randomly, errors are usually
random and therefore usually make it more difficult to find systematic re-
lationships. In our own research on war, for example, we found that results
improve substantially when our statistical analyses do not include cases
about which two independent coders disagreed substantially in their initial
ratings (Ember and Ember, 1992b, p. 172).
The coding of variables for a society in a cross-cultural study is gen-
erally based on the ethnographic information that is available for at least
one community or locality in the society. Thus, most cross-cultural studies
are really comparisons of localities in different societies, as John Whiting
(1954, pp. 526-527) noted years ago. Most ethnographers conduct their
fieldwork in a single community, and it is that group they mostly write
about, despite the titles of books and articles referring to the society as a
whole. This would be a problem if cross-culturalists were interested in es-
tablishing the typical values (on variables) for a given society. But cross-
cultural researchers are usually interested in discovering rel at i onshi ps
bet ween and among variables a c r o s s s o c i e t i e s , rather than inferring what is
characteristic of communities in a particular society. So the fact that the
community described in the ethnography may or may not be representative
of the society is not a serious problem for statistical inference about cross-
cultural relationships among variables, because we can assume that t he fo-
cal communities in the ethnographic record were not selected for study
according to some single biased plan. The hundreds of ethnographers who
contributed to the ethnographic record, who came from many different
countries at many different times to make observations according to many
different theoretical perspectives, are not likely to have chosen their field
sites in the s a m e ~oiased way. Therefore, we can assume that any errors in
Worldwide Cross-Cultural Studies 91
the dat a provided by those ethnographers are likely to be randomly dis-
tributed, and hence a random sample of the ethnographic record is prob-
ably an unbiased or representative sample of recent cross-cultural variation.
Societies for which we have a lot of ethnography are generally de-
scribed for only one or at most just a few points in time. This fact may at
least partly explain why there has been little cross-historical research using
ethnographic data, and it is probably no accident that most cross-cultural
researchers think it is more efficient to test explanations nonhistorically
(synchronically for each case) first. But the ethnographic record may now
provide more opportunity for diachronic research than we think. For ex-
ample, the full-text database known as the Human Relations Area Files
( HRAF) contains information on two or more points in time for a sub-
stantial proportion of its sample cases. 3
It should be noted that, contrary to what many bot h in and outside
anthropology still believe, the HRAF database does not provide coded in-
formation. Rat her the full-text dat abase provides sections from et hno-
graphic documents that have been indexed (by topic) and grouped (by
culture) for easy retrieval of the desired kinds of information. If users of
HRAF want to code its full-text information to measure variables, they
must do so themselves!
Nearly a million pages of ethnography have been processed so far
for inclusion in the HRAF database. (About 750 of the 8000 or so sources
were originally written in languages other than English; the English trans-
lations can be found only in the HRAF database.) Each file on a culture
includes hundreds or thousands of pages of ethnographic text, the sections
of which have been are indexed for the topic(s) covered therein. The in-
dexing system used is the Outline of Cultural Materials by Murdock et al.
(1982), which comprises about 700 different, often cross-referenced, cate-
gories of information.
The HRAF database facilitates information retrieval because you do
not have to do hours of research to construct bibliographies for each of
your sample cases, you do not have to chase down the books and ot her
materials you need to look at (which might otherwise have to be obt ai ned
by interlibrary loan), and you do not have to search through every page
of a source (that may lack an index) to find all the locations of desired
information. The HRAF database gives you all of the information on a
3Retrieving and coding information from the ethnographic record is greatly facilitated by the
annually growing HRAF database. Complete and incomplete sets of the database, which
currently covers more than 350 societies past and present, are located at more than 300
institutions in the United States, Canada, and 24 other nations. Now usually available in
microfiche format, the HRAF database wilt be converted over the next decade to electronic
format, which will gr6atly facilitate comparative research.
92 Ember and Ember
particular topic, from all of the sources processed for that culture, in a
single place. Up until now, that place has been one or more microfiche
(with some 200 pages on each). Beginning in 1994, with the first installment
of the Electronic HRAF, that place will be your comput er screen, where
you will be able to search and scroll through the texts of interest to you,
and call up ot her things at the same time, in a Windows platform. We trust
that this fact will become more widely known in the future, which may
translate into more cross-historical hypothesis-tests in the future.
In any case, it seems advisable to look for cross-historical and perhaps
cross-archeological data (to test for a presumed sequence) only aft er an
explanation has successfully survived a comparative nonhistorical test. We
return to the latter point toward the end of this paper, when we discuss
how cross-archaeological as well as cross-cultural research could test causal
explanations of cultural variation and change.
WITHIN-REGION VERSUS WORLDWIDE COMPARISONS
Because individual anthropologists specialize largely in the study of
particular regions, it is likely that when they think of comparisons t he focus
is on a particular region. If that region is all that the researcher is interested
in generalizing to, a within-region comparison is all that is called for. A
within-region comparison offers a significant advantage to the investigator
who specializes in that region. He or she is likely to be throughly familiar
with the complex of cultural and historical features found in that region.
These features may generate an intuitive awareness of the context of certain
phenomena of interest, and therefore comparing within a region may be a
good way to generate hypotheses.
However, when the investigator is looking to test hypotheses, within-
region comparisons can be disadvantageous. In general, we can expect that
the smaller the region, the less the variation on a given variable. This fact
by itself may minimize the possibility of discovering a relationship that is
true (if we look only at the dat a from one region). Hypot heses are usually
tested with some measure of correlation or association. Any measure of
association will be zero or close to zero (suggesting no relationship) when
there is no or little variability on a crucial variable. In the bivariate case,
if there is no variation on either the independent or dependent variable,
the correlation has to be zero. Even if there is some variability, but only
a limited amount, that would also reduce the likelihood of obtaining a sig-
nificant result, even when the true association is strong cross-culturally. For
example, suppose that the researcher is interested in the strength of the
relationship betWeen economic and political development. We know that
Worl dwi de Cros s - Cul t ural St udi es 93
t h e r e is a s t r ong r el at i ons hi p cr os s - cul t ur al l y ( Ab r a h a ms o n , 1969; Emb e r ,
1963; Hi l l , 1979). But t he cas es wi t hi n a r egi on ma y s how l i t t l e va r i a t i on
o n o n e o f t he var i abl es o f i nt e r e s t (e.g., l i t t l e or no var i at i on o n t he e c o-
nomi c si de) , a nd t h e r e f o r e it will be di f f i cul t or i mpos s i bl e t o s e e a ny r e-
l at i ons hi p wi t hi n t he r egi on e v e n i f t he r e is s o me pol i t i cal var i at i on. Th e r e
is a n o t h e r wa y we ma y b e mi s l e d by t he r es ul t s o f a wi t hi n- r egi on c o m-
par i s on. Wh e n t h e r e is c ons i de r a bl e var i abi l i t y in a f e w cases, in a r e gi on
wi t h onl y a smal l n u mb e r o f cases, t hos e f e w var i abl e cas es ma y f al s el y
s ugges t t he p r e s e n c e o f a r e l a t i ons hi p t hat is n o t t r ue cr oss- cul t ur al l y, o r
t he a bs e nc e o f a r el at i ons hi p t h a t / s t r ue cr oss- cul t ur al l y.
I n eval uat i ng t he pos s i bl e gener al i zabi l i t y o f t he r es ul t s o f a wi t hi n-
r e gi on anal ysi s, it is al so i mp o r t a n t t o c ons i de r t wo o t h e r f act or s: t h e f o r m
o f t h e r el at i ons hi p be i ng c o n s i d e r e d a nd t he s t r e ngt h o f t ha t r e l a t i ons hi p.
For exampl e, i f we ar e deal i ng wi t h a bi var i at e r el at i ons hi p whi ch is l i near ,
a ny pa r t o f t he r ange on o n e var i abl e s houl d be l i near l y r e l a t e d t o t he
o t h e r var i abl e. But i f t he r el at i ons hi p is cur vi l i near a nd t he r e s e a r c h e r l ooks
at t he var i at i on wi t hi n a smal l r egi on, t he r es ul t s ma y be mi sl eadi ng. Co n -
s i der t he e xa mpl e o f a pa r a bol i c r el at i ons hi p b e t we e n t wo var i abl es . Th e
c or r e l a t i on b e t we e n t he va r i a bl e s ma y l o o k ver y di f f e r e nt i n o n e r e g i o n
ve r s us a not he r ; in s o me r egi ons it mi ght l ook posi t i ve, in o t h e r s ne ga t i ve ,
a nd in still ot he r s t he r e ma y s e e m t o be no r el at i ons hi p at all. Al l t h e s e
p r o b l e ms ar e e xa c e r ba t e d if t he t r ue r el at i ons hi p o f i nt er es t is we a k. I f
t h e r e is not muc h t her e, a nd t he var i abi l i t y y o u exami ne is l i mi t ed, y o u
will s e e not hi ng.
Ho w do we de a l wi t h s uc h p r o b l e ms ? I deal l y, we c oul d do b o t h wor l d-
wi de a nd wi t hi n- r egi on c ompa r i s ons . Th e wor l dwi de c o mp a r i s o n n e e d n o t
i nvol ve a l ar ge n u mb e r o f cas es ( a nd t h e r e f o r e ma y not b e t o o e xpe ns i ve
i n t i me a nd codi ng) if t he cas es a r e s e l e c t e d r andoml y; a nd it gi ves us t he
o p p o r t u n i t y t o avoi d concl us i ons b a s e d on t he pecul i ar i t y of a gi ven r egi on.
I f t he wor l dwi de c ompa r i s on d o e s not pr ovi de a s t r ong r es ul t (e. g. , a hi gh
mul t i pl e r egr es s i on coef f i ci ent ) , a wi t hi n- r egi on c ompa r i s on ma y s ugges t
( par t i cul ar l y t o a speci al i st i n t ha t r egi on) addi t i onal pr e di c t or s t ha t mi ght
al s o pr e di c t cross-cul t ural l y. Wh a t is t r ue f or a r egi on ma y o r ma y n o t b e
t r ue f or t he wor l d, but a wi t hi n- r egi on anal ysi s mi ght a dd t o wh a t we k n o w
f r o m a wo r l d wi d e anal ysi s. [ For mo r e di s c us s i on o f t he a d v a n t a g e s o f
wi t hi n- r egi on compar i s ons , s e e Bu r t o n a nd Whi t e (1991). ]
Wh e n we ( Emb e r a nd Emb e r , 1971) u s e d a wor l dwi de s a mpl e t o t es t
Mu r d o c k ' s (1949) t he or y t hat t he di vi si on o f l a bor by sex d e t e r mi n e s ma r i -
t al r e s i de nc e ( par t i cul ar l y ma t r i l oc a l ver s us pat r i l ocal ) , we f o u n d n o si gni fi -
c a nt r el at i ons hi p. [ Our r es ul t s we r e r e pl i c a t e d b y Di va l e (1974, 1975) ; cf.
al s o Hi a t t (1970) a nd Wh i t e (1967). ] Bu t wh e n we e xa mi ne d t he r e l a t i on-
shi p wi t hi n l ar ge r egi ons (e. g. , Oc e a ni a , So u t h Ame r i c a ) , we got s o me t i me s
94 Ember and Ember
opposite results from one region to the next (Ember and Ember, 1971).
Previously, Driver and Massey (1957), looking just at Nort h Ameri can so-
cieties, had found a moderate association between division of l abor and
residence, which seemed to support Murdock' s theory. (Our own results
for Nort h America were like Driver and Massey's.) However, without the
worldwide findings, we would not have discovered that North Ameri ca is
unusual! So why does North America show a relationship? Ember (1975)
found that division of labor did predict residence for hunter-gatherers, so
North America may be unusual (cross-culturally speaking) because the eth-
nographic record for North America includes a high proportion of hunter-
gatherers. Keeley (1992, p. 30) gives us another example of how regional
analyses can yield misleading results, as compared with worldwide analyses.
He found a strong relationship between population density and socioeco-
nomic complexity (sedentism, storage, class distinctions, money) in a world-
wide sample of hunter-gatherers, but Schatk (1982, referred to by Keetey)
found a negative relationship among Northwest coast groups, probabl y be-
cause those groups did not vary very much socioeconomically.
In short, a within-region analysis may be misleading about t he direc-
tion, as well as existence, of a worldwide relationship. On the ot her hand,
a worldwide study may not tell us enough to account for most of the vari-
ation within a particular region.
INFERENCES THAT CAN BE DRAWN FROM CROSS-CULTURAL
STUDIES
There are several types of inferences that can be drawn from cross-
cultural studies. One type of inference is to presume that extant or recent
cases will tell us something about traits of cases in the past. So, the rea-
soning goes, if we want to understand hunter-gatherers of the past, we
should look at hunter-gatherer groups in the ethnographic record. We dis-
cuss immediately below how this type of inference by itself is ill-advised,
even when based on systematic cross-cultural surveys. But even more ill-ad-
vised is generalization without systematic surveys at all!
Generalizations about Societal Types
Most anthropologists know that we should not generalize from our
own society to others. We call this ethnocentrism. It is not as oft en under-
stood that we should not casually generalize from one or a few societies
to a class of supposedly similar societies (past and/or present). For example,
Worl dwi de Cros s - Cul t ural St udi es 95
some have generalized from the !Kung San as if they were typical of past
and present hunter-gatherers (Lee, 1976; Lee and DeVore, 1968). If we
generalize from the !Kung (in the 1950s and 1960s), we might expect that
most recent hunter-gatherers would have bilocal residence, depend mostly
on gathering, and lack intercommunity fighting. But these generalizations
are wrong. Before we say why, we should first make some general remarks
about when generalization is justified.
Generalization from one or a few cases is never warranted. One rea-
son is that classic or well-known cases are not necessarily (or even likely)
to be representative of a type of society. As we should know by now- - f r om
the history of science as well as from the postmodernist cri t i que--cases
may become classics for ot her reasons than representativeness. In t he ex-
ample of the !Kung San, they are n o t like most recent hunter-gatherers
(as we will see). Second, a culture is not unchanging. It is unreasonabl e
to expect even a single case to remain invariant over a short, never mi nd
a long, time period. For example, a perusal of the materials in the Human
Relations Area Files ( HRAF) on the San (formerly called Bushmen) re-
veals that in the 1920s there was frequent armed combat bet ween bands.
[See Source 3 (Lebzelter) in the San file in the HRAF database; page 30
of the HRAF translation from the German.] Indeed, some researchers
have suggested t hat the San were only sometime foragers who rel i ed
mainly on herding in the not -so distant past (Schrire, 1984; Wilmsen,
1989). The lesson from this example is that we should not generalize from
cases that may be untypical of some set of societies. The only valid way
to establish that a trait or correlation is typical for some set of societies
is on the basis of systematic research that measures variables for a rep-
resentative or very large sample of that particular set (e.g., hunter-gath-
erers).
So what do we know about recent hunter-gatherers? How do we know
it is wrong to generalize from the !Kung (as of the 1950s and 1960s)? A
survey of foraging societies in the ethnographic record (Ember, 1978) shows
that, in contrast to the bilocal, mostly gathering, and peaceful !Kung of the
1950s and 1960s, described foragers of the last few hundred years wer e
mostly patrilocal, derived most of their calories from fishing (with hunting
generally next in importance), and went to war fairly frequently!
So should we generalize from these results for recent hunter-gatherers
(or, more precisely, "fisher-hunter-gatherers") to foraging societies in the
past? We could, and it would probably be more likely to be valid t han
generalizing on the basis of a few cases, but we would still suggest that
such generalization or inference may be ill advised. Why? Because even if
we know that something is likely to be true for the ethnographic record,
that does not necessarily make it true for the archaeological record. This
96 Ember and Ember
is because few if any societies described in the ethnographic record, even
those described shortly after first contact with the West, were pristine in
t he sense of being completely unaffected by that contact (cf. Trigger, 1981,
pp. 12-13). Whatever the earliest time of description, many societies had
already been subject to a variety of forms of culture contact with a variety
of effects, including serious depopulation due to introduced diseases (C.R.
Ember, 1975; Ember and Ember, 1972; M. Ember, 1975), pacification (Em-
ber and Ember, 1992a, 1992b), depletion of resources by exploitative West-
ern agents (Bodley, 1990), and changes in subsistence patterns (Bradley e t
a l . , 1990).
Moreover, the social and physical environments of foragers in t he past
were sometimes if not often different from the environments of recent fora-
gers. For one thing, many recent hunter-gatherers lived in marginal envi-
ronments (deserts, the Arctic, and tropical forests). So what we observe
among t hem should not be casually extrapolated to the past, especially if
you consider that recent foragers have been interacting with, and oft en run-
ning away from, certain kinds of societies (e.g., agriculturalists, pastoralists,
expanding states) that did not exist until after 10,000 years ago (Myers,
1988; Schrire, 1984). Some have suggested that humans did not live in de-
serts, polar regions, and tropical forests until after 30,000 years ago (Cohen,
1977; Hassan, 1981). And Bailey e t a l . (1989) have argued that foragers
were unlikely to live in tropical forests until after the rise of agriculture.
Thus, the adaptations of recent foragers in marginal regions may not be
particularly relevant to inference about archaeologically known or knowable
foragers.
The effects of Western expansion in the ethnographic record may sug-
gest to some that cross-cultural comparisons of cases in that record will
not help archaeological inference at all. But that view assumes it is impos-
sible to discount or control on the effects of Western expansion. On the
contrary, we argue that contact conditions (as well as ot her conditions) can
be measured for their degree of effect on cultural variation; those condi-
tions can then be controlled statistically to remove their effects (see, e.g.,
Ember, e t a l . , 1992, 1993). Moreover, we suggest that cross-cultural results
can best help archaeological inference if those results tell us about rela-
tionships between or among variables.
We now turn to the kinds of archaeological inference we can draw
from cross-cultural (comparative ethnographic) tests of relational hypothe-
ses. But - - and this is a major caveat --t o infer from the results of cross-cul-
tural hypothesis-tests, we must have a way of archaeologically inferring at
least one of t he variables in the relationship. Some examples we discuss
below will spell out why this is so.
Worldwide Cross-Cul t ural St udi es 97
Inferring from Presumed Causes
Just because patrilocality is the most typical residence pat t ern in a
sample of recent foragers (Ember, 1978) is not sufficient reason to infer
that it was probably so in the past. That inference would be more justifiable
if we had material indicators of the various patterns of residence (validated
by cross-cultural studies) that could be applied to the archaeological record.
We return to this possibility later; suffice it to say here that we have not
yet discovered material correlates of all five major patterns of residence
(patrilocal, matrilocal, bilocal, avunculocat, and neolocal).
But we do have cross-cultural studies of what predicts variation in resi-
dence. If we could infer those predictors archaeologically, we could infer the
likelihood of a particular pattern of residence. For example, cross-cultural
research on foragers suggests three predictors (and presumed causes) of bilo-
cal residence: sudden and drastic depopulation, usually because of introduced
European diseases; small community size (under 50); and high rainfall vari-
ability around a low mean (Ember, 1975; cf. also Ember and Ember, 1972;
Service, 1962). The theory is that couples in a foraging band might have to
move to other bands (with wife's or husband's relatives) because it had be-
come difficult or impossible to continue practicing unilocal residence. Given
that couples in foraging noncommercial societies had to live and work with
or near kin, they would have to move to another band if an appreciable
number of kin in their original band had died because of introduced diseases,
or if the adult sex ratio had been severely skewed (which can happen by
chance in a small community), or if there had been a shortfall of rain in an
already arid environemt (which might compel the band to split up). In non-
foraging societies, disease-produced depopulation by itself seems to predict
bilocal or, more accurately, multilocal residence (Ember and Ember, 1972).
People from Europe, and their diseases, spread into distant parts of
the world only in the last 500 years. Therefore, we can expect that sudden
and drastic depopulation and hence bilocal residence was probably less likely
in the distant past than in recent centuries. Although Ember' s (1975) cross-
cultural study of foragers did not test for the independent and combined
effects of the three predictors of bilocality (depopulation, small community
size, and rainfall variability in an arid environment), multiple regression
analysis using the cross-cultural data could be used to generate an inference
about the likelihood of bilocality in a particular site, i f the causal condi t i ons
can be measured archaeologically. Similarly, Ember' s (1975) study suggests
that the likelihood of matrilocality versus patrilocality could be estimated
for foragers from the importance of fishing (a predictor of patrilocality), the
importance of gathering (a predictor of matrilocality), and the overall con-
tribution of men to'subsistence (which predicts patrilocality only among fora-
98 Ember and Ember
gers). Al t hough we do not currently have a material correlate of i nt ernal
warfare (within the society), it would help us infer residence in an archae-
ological site because such warfare is t he strongest predictor of patrilocality
in the et hnographi c record (Ember and Ember, 1971).
Coul d we know for sure what the residence pat t er n was in a part i cul ar
site, i f we had the results of t he appropri at e multiple regressions and some
archaeological indicators of the presumed causes? The answer is no, not
for sure. But statistical analysis allows us to est i mat e how much of t he vari-
at i on is explained by the predictors, and it also allows us to comput e the
degree of confi dence we can justifiably place in our conclusions. Statistically
based conclusions are more likely to be t rue t han generalizations based on
a few nonrepresent at i ve cases.
In our discussion so far, we speak of pr esumed or likely causes. But ,
given t hat t he hypotheses at issue have been mostly t est ed synchronically,
t here is r oom to question whet her we have got the causality right. St i l l - - and
this is an i mpor t ant point (particularly for archaeological i nf er ence) - - i f the
pr esumed causes are envi ronment al or ecological variables, it is doubt f ul
t hat the causality is the ot her way around. For example, high rainfall vari-
ability ar ound a low mean is more likely to be a cause of bilocality among
foragers t han an effect. It woul d be difficult t o argue t hat bilocality may
be a cause of rainfall! So, if we can link cultural variables to envi ronment al
or ecological variables, it is likely t hat the l at t er are t he causes, r at her t han
vice versa.
Inferences from Material Correlates
Since inference from the present to the past requires at least one of
the conditions to be estimated, archaeologically recoverable mat eri al corre-
lates are an essential part of the enterprise we are discussing here. We do
not discuss inferences made by archaeologists about past environments, sub-
sistence patterns, etc., for which archaeologists certainly have more expertise
t han we do; rather, we concentrate on material correlates t hat are suggested
by existing cross-cultural comparisons of the et hnographi c record. Much
more cross-cultural work remains to be done, of course. But the findings so
far point to the great potential of cross-cultural research in this connection.
Population o f a Site
Naroll (1962) was the first cross-culturalist to l ook for an archaeologi-
cally recoverable correlate in et hnographi c data. He suggested t hat the
popul at i on of a 'site could be est i mat ed from the t ot al living fl oor area
Worl dwi de Cros s - Cul t ural St udi es 99
(summing over all dwellings or extrapolating from a sample thereof), using
the formula 10 m 2 = 1 person. This formula has been widely used by ar-
chaeologists. However, it was based on a small, nonrandom sample. Brown
(1987), trying to replicate Naroll' s findings, found some serious errors in
Naroll' s codings; when Brown substituted his corrections of those errors,
the formula for estimating a site's population turned out to be 6 m 2 per
person, and he got the same result in a larger and more representative
sample. Interestingly, controls for climate, Western influence, and size of
settlement had little effect on the result. Brown' s replication suggests that
archaeologists can confidently estimate the magnitude of a site's popul at i on
from the floor area of a typical dwelling multiplied by the number of dwell-
ings, using the formula of 6 m 2 per person.
Marital Residence
We noted above that we do not yet have material correlates of all
the patterns of marital residence, but two cross-cultural studies (Brown,
1987; Divale, 1977) have now replicated Ember' s (1973) finding t hat ma-
trilocal societies have significantly larger houses than patritocal societies.
Ext rapol at i ng from Murdock' s (1949, p. 31) observat i on t hat sor or al
cowives usually live in the same house (but nonsororal cowives do not),
Ember (1973) expected that sisters would be likely to live together in the
same house if residence were matrilocat, but unrelated women woul d not
do so if residence were patrilocal.
Combining Ember' s data and his own, Divale (1977, p. 114) comput ed
a mean floor area of 28.6 m E for patrilocal societies versus a mean of 175.0
m 2 for matrilocal societies. Judging 2 by the results, if the archaeologically
known floor area is 14.5 to 42.7 m, we could be 95% confident t hat the
society was patrilocal rather than matrilocal. If the area is 79.2 to 270.8
m 2, we could be 95% confident that the society was matrilocal rat her than
patrilocal. Assuming that archaeologists could rule out bilocality as a pos-
sibility (unlikely unless the society had recently been depopulated, or its
communities included fewer than 50 people, or there was high rainfall vari-
ability around a low mean), and assuming the unlikelihood of neolocality
[which is associated cross-culturally with commercial exchange (see Ember,
1967)], only avunculocality would still be a possible inference. However,
avunculocality is relatively rare; it occurs in only about 4% percent of recent
societies (Ember, 1974; see also Keegan and Maclachlan, 1989). So know-
ing the floor area of the average dwelling in a site would entitle t he ar-
chaeologist to infer the pattern of marital residence with a measurabl e
degree of confiderlce.
I 00 Ember and Ember
Mobility
House type appears to be related significantly to degree of perma-
nence of communities. Whiting and Ayres (1968) found that 80% of so-
cieties with rectangular, quadrilateral (four-sided with an inner court), or
elliptical house shapes are fully sedentary. (The elliptical are not as strongly
sedentary.) Seventy-eight percent of societies with one or more of those
t hree shapes as well as curvilinear shapes are seminomadic. Robbins (1966)
found 84% of rectangular, quadrilateral, and elliptical house-types to be
permanent. While curvilinear shapes predict less sedentary settlements, the
Whiting/Ayres and Robbins studies differ somewhat in regard to t he pro-
portions of cases that are correctly predicted by curvilinearity. Whiting and
Ayres found 65% of the circular floor plans to be nomadic, whereas Rob-
bins obtained an 88% proportion. Given that Binford (1990, p. 123) found
the same relationship (although it was not statistically evaluated) among
hunter-gatherers, house-type may be a fairly robust indicator of perma-
nence of communities. In addition, Binford (1990) found that ot her features
of the house (such as surface placement of structures, roof and walls of
the same material) as well as warmer temperatures also predict mobility.
Anot her aspect of mobility is the number of moves foragers make per year,
which Kelly (1983) found is predicted by resource accessibility and com-
muting time. If the features mentioned in this paragraph were examined
among nonforagers, and if the various predictors were combined in a mul-
tivariate analysis, we might have much stronger predictors of permanence
of community which archaeologists could use to draw inferences about sites.
Family and Marriage
Whiting and Ayres (1968) also found that frequent polygyny is asso-
ciated with curvilinear floor plans. Most societies that have only curvilinear
plans have polygyny; however, the converse (that most rectilinear societies
have monogamy) is not t rue. Since curvi l i neari t y is also r el at ed to
nomadism (see above), it may be that if nomadism could be ruled out we
could link polygyny to curvilinearity of house more strongly. Whiting and
Ayres also found that multiroom dwellings almost always predict either ex-
t ended families or wealth distinctions. However, single-room dwellings are
sometimes associated with extended families, particularly if they are clus-
tered into compounds. These loose ends could be tied up with just a little
more cross-cultural research.
Worldwide Cross-Cultural Studies
101
Warfare
Archaeologists are beginning to infer warfare on the basis of the prob-
able causes of death in skeletal populations. Since we do not always have
skeletal populations, a newly discovered indicator of war may turn out to
be more useful. Peregrine (1993) has suggested that the degree of settle-
ment "permeability" may be a very accurate indicator of warfare frequency.
Using graph theory, Peregrine counts the number of "steps" it takes to
enter the innermost part(s) of the settlement from outside the settlement.
This is the index of permeability. If it takes one step to enter any one-room
dwelling (i.e., move from the outside to the inside through one entrance),
the permeability index is 1. If there is an outer fence around the dwelling
or the community, the permeability index is 2. If there is a trench in ad-
dition, the permeability index is 3. If houses have inner rooms that can be
gotten to only from outer rooms, additional steps are added to the score
(see also Blanton, 1993). Cross-culturally, societies that have a permeability
index of 3 or more almost always have war at least once every 2 years;
those that have one or two steps almost always have little or no war. [The
ratings of war frequency were taken from our cross-cultural study of war
[Ember and (Ember, 1992a, b).]
As we noted above, it would also be useful to have separate archae-
ologically recoverable correlates of internal and external warfare, because
internal war is not only a very strong predictor of patrilocality (Ember
and Ember, 1971); it is also a strong predictor of the presence of territo-
rially contiguous unilineal descent groups, and descent groups (lineages)
with known links to the common ancestor (Ember, et al., 1974). And, of
course, purely external war is a strong predictor of matrilocality and ma-
trilineality (see Ember and Ember, 1971; Ember and Ember, 1983, Chap.
1 ) .
Relations Between Regions
A possible guide to future research on indicators of relations be-
tween regions is Blanton's (1994) comparative work on house decoration.
He suggests (p. 122) that regions with more household involvement in
long-distance trade or other economic activities beyond the local commu-
nity are more likely to have elaborate decoration on the outsides of their
houses. Thus, the degree to which the outside of a house is decorated
may tell us a lot about the external relations of an archaeological site or
region.
102 Ember and Ember
Foragers' Dependence on Plant Foods
Since the estimation of the plant component of prehistoric diets is
barely developed (Keeley, 1988), inferences based on cross-cultural com-
parisons may be useful. Using a sample of 94 hunt er-gat herer groups,
Keeley (1988) finds in a stepwise regression analysis that latitude accounts
for 70% of the variation in dependence on gathering, low annual precipi-
tation accounts for 9%, and his measure of population pressure accounts
for an additional 3% of the variability. Although the effect of latitude would
have to be adjusted for climatic variability in earlier time periods, it and
a measure of availability of water may provide fairly robust indicators of
reliance on plants.
Inferring from Noncausal Associations
We do not have to understand the causality of a relationship in order
to use the measured value of one variable to infer the value of another.
For example, if the average living floor area of dwellings is 200 m E , we can
infer matrilocal as opposed to patrilocal residence (as discussed above); we
do not have to consider matrilocal residence the cause and size of dwelling
the effect. The important point is that size of dwelling, whatever the reason,
predicts matrilocal versus patrilocal residence quite well. We can use such
predictive relationships, assuming they are strong, to predict the presence
of something in the ethnographic record, as well as in the archaeological
record.
There are other kinds of predictive relationships based on cross-cul-
tural research that may have import for archaeologists. Some of t he most
important relate to cultural complexity.
Cultural Evolution and Complexity
Cross-cultural researchers have created at least eight different scales
to summarize (and compare) societies at different levels of cultural corn-
pl ent y [Bowden, 1969; Carneiro and Tobias, 1963 (also Carneiro, 1970);
Freeman and Winch, 1957; Lomax and Arensberg, 1977; Marsh, 1967;
McNett, 1970b; Murdock and Provost, 1973; Naroll, 1956]. One of these
scales (Carneiro, 1970) counts how many of 618 traits are present in a so-
ciety; ot her scales use just three variables (Naroll, 1956) or two (Marsh,
1967). Levinson and Malone (1980, p. 34) point out that the various scales
are highly correlated with each other (the correlations range from 0.78 to
0.95). Hence archaeologists who want to infer the degree of complexity of
Worldwide Cross-Cultural Studies 103
sites or areas could use the scale for which they can find the most archae-
ological indicators. In addition, because the intercorrelations are strong,
one could infer one aspect or dimension of complexity from another. For
example, one could infer number of types of craft specialist from commu-
nity size (Clark and Parry, 1990), or vice versa, depending on which variable
can be measured from archaeological information.
The various scales are relevant to archaeological inference for several
reasons. First, the items and variables used in these scales (assuming they
could be assessed on the basis of archaeological information) would allow
archaeologists to make systematic or quantitative comparisons of the cul-
tural complexity of different sites, areas, and time periods. Second, the
scales can help us evaluate which attributes are not particularly useful for
comparative purposes. For example, type of subsistence, used by itself, is
not a good predictor of complexity (Levinson and Malone, 1980, p. 33).
Third, certain scales suggest evolutionary sequences that can be checked
against the archaeological record.
In the latter context, we think one of the the most useful scales is a
Guttman-type scale that involves a hierarchical and presumably evolution-
ary ordering of traits (see Freeman and Winch, 1957). The purpose of a
Guttman scale (if one can be found in the data) is to order traits hierar-
chically, such that if a case has a particular scale score it almost always
has all the traits lower on the scale. The classic example of a Gut t man
scale is one that measures prejudice. If people say that they do not mind
if their son (or daughter) marries a person of X group, they almost certainly
would not mind if a person of X group lives on their street, or goes to
their children's school, etc. A Guttman scale is very efficient because it
does not require information on all items to locate a case on the scale.
If a Guttman scale can be found with items that measure cultural
complexity, we might expect that such an ordering reflects an evolutionary
sequence of acquisition or development. Such a sequence could be checked
against the data from stratigraphically known sites. If confirmed, the find-
ings from one time period might suggest what one would find in subsequent
or earlier time periods.
Freeman and Winch (1957) developed a Guttman scale with cross-
cultural data. The starting point (for selecting items) was Redfield' s (1947,
1953) discussion of the folk-urban continuum. Eleven items formed an al-
most perfect Guttman scale. In order of most to least complex, the items
or traits were the following: presence of a complex, unambiguous written
language; presence of towns exceeding 1000 in population; presence of a
state of at least 10,000 population; presence of a standard medi um of ex-
change with a value fixed at some worth other than its commodity value;
presence of full-tirfie craft specialists; presence of secondary tools; presence
104 Ember and Ember
of ful l -t i me rel i gi ous or magical specialists; pr esence of ful l -t i me govern-
ment al specialists; pr esence of social stratification or slavery; pr e s e nc e of
an e c onomy bas ed on agri cul t ure or past oral i sm; and pr es ence o f t r ade
wi t h ot he r societies. Accor di ng t o this scale, if a soci et y has a wr i t t en lan-
guage, it al most always will have all t he ot her traits. I f it has t owns of 1000
peopl e, it may not have a wr i t t en l anguage, but it will al most always have
all t he ot he r t rai t s bel ow it. Gut t ma n scales can now be fairly easi l y con-
st r uct ed wi t h t he hel p of comput er programs. However, t hey s houl d be
t es t ed f or statistical significance; if t her e are onl y a few i t ems, t he or der i ng
of t he i t ems by f r equency may be at t ri but abl e t o chance and t he r e f or e t he
scale may be unt r ust wor t hy ( Embe r et aL, 1991).
I n addi t i on, t her e are aspects of cul t ure t hat r el at e t o compl exi t y cur-
vilinearly. I n t he following list, t he first at t ri but e we me nt i on is mo s t likely
t o be f ound in t he mi ddl e of t he range of cul t ural compl exi t y: e xt e nde d
families ( Bl umber g and Winch, 1972; McNet t , 1973; Ni mkof f and Mi ddl e-
t on, 1960; Os mo n d , 1969), pol ygyny (Whi t e, 1988; Whi t e a nd Bur t on,
1988), uni t i neal vs. bi l at eral ki nshi p ( Mur dock and Provost , 1973); mal e
i ni t i at i on cer emoni es (Precourt , 1975; Schlegel and Barry, 1980), a nd posi-
tive t r e a t me nt of t he aged (Balkwell and Balswick, 1981; I shi i - Kunt z and
Lee, 1987, Lee, 1984).
Cross-culturally, we know t hat various measur es of cul t ural compl exi t y
pr edi ct vari at i on i n many cul t ural real ms t hat are not obvi ousl y r el at ed t o
cul t ural compl exi t y. We have al ready ment i oned house shape. Pe r ha ps also
of i nt er est t o archaeol ogi st s are t he findings in r egar d t o rel i gi on a n d art.
A large numbe r of aspects of religious bel i ef and pr act i ce s e e m t o
be r el at ed t o a hi gh degr ee of cul t ural complexity, i ncl udi ng t he fol l owi ng
(this is not an exhaust i ve list): bel i ef in a hi gh god (Davis, 1971; Lenski ,
1970; Swanson, 1960; Under hi l l , 1975), lack of bel i ef in ani mi s m (Davis,
1971), oat hs and ordeal s (Robert s, 1965), possessio~ t r ances ( Bour gui gnon,
1973; Bour gui gnon and Evascu, 1977; Wi nkel man, 1986b), rel i gi ous hi er -
archy (Davis, 1971; McNet t , 1970a), priests (Davis, 1971; McNet t , 1970a,
b; Wi nke l ma n, 1986a, 1990), n u mb e r of types of rel i gi ous pr a c t i t i one r
(Wi nkel man, 1986a, 1990), cal endri cal rites (Davis, 1971), f r e que nt gr oup
cer emoni es ( McNet t , 1970a), and mor e el aborat e f uner al s ( McNet t , 1970a).
The i mpor t ance of active ancest ral spirits and bel i ef in t he i mma n e n c e of
t he soul are curvilinearly r el at ed t o compl exi t y- - wi t h t he hi ghest i nci dence
in noni nt ensi ve agri cul t ural societies (Davis, 1971). [See Emb e r a nd Levi n-
son (1991) f or ot he r religious correl at es of complexity.]
Al t hough t her e are relatively few worldwide, cross-cul t ural st udi es of
art, cer t ai n f eat ur es of art style are strongly l i nked t o cul t ur al compl exi t y.
Fi scher (1961), f or exampl e, usi ng Barry' s (1957) codi ng of art styles, f ound
t hat egal i t ari an 'as oppos ed t o st rat i fi ed societies wer e significantly mor e
Worldwide Cross-Cultural Studies 105
likely to have simple repetitive elements, a lot of empt y space, symmet ry,
and few encl osed figures, in t hei r graphic art. In support of Fischer' s t heory,
Dressier and Robbins (1975) f ound t hat At heni an vase painting became
more complex, more crowded, and more enclosed when At hens became
more socially stratified. While variation in music and dance may not be as
interesting as art to archaeologists, t here are remarkabl e parallels in t he
findings across these di fferent areas of expressive culture, largely rel at i ng
to variation in cultural complexity. Ar t styles are not the only kinds of ex-
pressive culture t hat relate to complexity. [For a review of these findings
see Ember and Levi nson (199t, p. 100).]
Even when it comes to art styles, then, there may be connect i ons t o
ot her aspects of culture. Some may assume t hat art is mor e free t o vary
t han ot her aspects of culture because it is seemingly unrel at ed to mat t er s
of life and deat h, unconnect ed to survival or adaptation. It may be assumed
for this reason t hat art styles are more likely t han ot her aspects of cul t ure
to diffuse, as if by chance. But the fact t hat we can now predict some as-
pects of stylistic variation suggests t hat in the future, as research cont i nues,
we may be able to predict even more. There is no a priori way to est i mat e
how our quest for predictability may be limited in any area of culture. And
so we encourage archaeologists to j oi n in this quest by starting t o t hi nk
and design t hei r research with cross-cultural issues and knowl edge in mi nd.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
We have suggested a number of ways t hat worldwide cross-cultural
research may be useful for archaeological inference. Some of these types
of i nference are weaker t han others. The weakest is generalizing about so-
cietal types (e.g., hunt er-gat herers) from a representative sample of et hno-
graphic cases. While this strategy is far bet t er t han generalizing from a few
cases chosen opportunistically, it is still a weak form of i nference because
it presumes t hat recent cases are like past cases. But few i f any societies
described in the et hnographi c record, even those described shortly aft er
first contact with the West, were compl et el y unaffect ed by t hat contact.
Still, even t hough many societies when first described had al ready been
subject to t he effects of culture contact, these effects can be measur ed and
cont rol l ed statistically.
St ronger forms of inference use results of cross-cultural (comparat i ve
et hnographi c) tests of relational hypotheses. I f we have st rong predi ct ors
(causes or correlates) of some aspect of et hnographi c vari at i on and t her e
is some way of inferring (from archaeology) at least one of t he variables
in t he relationship,' t he inference to archaeol ogy will be st ronger t han an
106 Ember and Ember
inference derived just from the prevalence of a trait in some set of cases
in the ethnographic record. Inferences using cross-cultural associations and
archaeological indicators do not depend on the frequency of a trait in the
ethnographic record; as long as there is one strong predictor t hat can be
measured archaeologically, we can use a strong cross-cultural association
to infer the archaeological likelihood of correlated traits. And the stronger
the relevant statistical associations, the more confidence we can have in
the inferences. In this paper, we have described some material indicators
of cultural traits that have emerged from cross-cultural tests of relational
hypotheses. These can be used now for archaeological inference. We pre-
sume more such will be found in the future, if we look for them.
Cross-cultural researchers who study cultural variation are also often
studying culture change (if they test causal theories). Aft er all, what is cul-
ture change if not cultural variation viewed over time? The variations we
see cross-culturally are the products of change processes. Hence t he study
of cultural variation, past and present, may also be the study of culture
change, past and present. To be sure, when cross-culturalists test causal
theories of culture change, they usually do so synchronically; but t hey as-
sume that if the theory is true, the causes and effects should be highly
correlated synchronically. We conduct synchronic tests of causal theories
because they are economical in time and money, but even if a causal theory
survives such tests it still needs to be tested diachronically.
This is an important interface between cross-cultural research and ar-
chaeology. Cross-culturalists who test causal theories about why cultures
vary have much to gain from archaeologists. For it is archaeology, particu-
larly comparative archaeology, that could provide diachronic dat a to help
us evaluate many causal theories. [Ethnohistory can also provide such data;
but archaeology can or could provide much more (Ember, 1973).] If we
had archaeological indicators of the cultural (and other) variables of inter-
est, we could test the temporal orderings suggested by our causal theories
against the data from archaeological sequences. For example, we ( Ember
and Ember, 1992a) have presented cross-cultural evidence consistent with
a theory that fear of resource scarcity (suggested by a history of unpre-
dictable disasters that destroy food supplies) is the major cause of war.
The temporal priority presumed in our theory could be t est ed in a sample
of archaeological sequences, using Peregrine's (1993) indicator of warfare
and some still-to-be discovered indicator of aperiodic resource scarcity. If
the theory is correct, more war should occur after the appearance of signs
of aperiodic resource scarcity. [Haas and Creamer (1993, p. 133) have sug-
gested a similar explanation of warfare among the Kayenta Anasazi of the
13th century A.D.]
Worl dwi de Cros s - Cul t ural St udi es 107
If cultural anthropologists and archaeologists are to do complemen-
tary research on the same problems of cultural process and variation, we
must explore, systematically and comparatively, how the behavioral and ma-
terial realms may be correlated. The more we do so, the more archaeolo-
gists will have a firm empirical foundation for interpreting the cultural
significance of the materials they collect and excavate. And if we are suc-
cessful in discovering archaeological indicators of different aspects of cul-
tural variation, cross-cultural and other comparative researchers will have
a new way to test the priorities they assume in attempting to explain syn-
chronic cross-cultural correlations. (If we could build an archaeological
equivalent of the HRAF database, we could do such research very easily.)
Thus, the possibility of using archaeological data to test causal hypotheses
will supplement the tests we can make using documentary data. Indeed,
the archaeological record will forever be more useful than the ethnohisto-
rical record for the testing of causal theories, since the archaeological re-
cord will always be mor e ext ensi ve t han the et hnohi st or i cal r ecor d,
particularly of course in regard to nonliterate cultures.
We hope that this paper encourages comparative archaeologists to
join with comparative cultural anthropologists in separate and joint studies
of cultural process and variation.
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