THE OLD VS.

THE NEW IN ARCHAEOLOGY: A PHILOSOPHICAL OVERVIEW

Author(s): Elizabeth M. Dumont
Source: Archaeology of Eastern North America, Vol. 3 (SPRING 1975), pp. 1-9
Published by: Eastern States Archeological Federation
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40914136
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ARCHAEOLOGY OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

THE OLD VS. THE NEW IN ARCHAEOLOGY:

A PHILOSOPHICAL OVERVIEW

Elizabeth M. Dumont

The past two decades have witnessed an upheaval in archaeology that has either elated,
infuriated or bewildered those with more than a passing interest in the discipline. When the
polemic has been stripped away, the debate dividing the field into two camps- the Mold!f and the
"new"- can be seen as focussing on issues which are philosophic rather than strictly archaeo-
logical, issues concerning the character of archaeology as science and ultimately the nature of
science itself. The dispute is not a new one, nor is it unique to archaeology. It is currently
being fought out in political science as well, and has in the past found its battlefield in the social
sciences, in history, in psychology and in many other disciplines claiming to be scientific. The
pivotal problem is not primarily one of methodology nor does it concern itself with the use of
sophisticated techniques, but rather hinges on two elementary questions: 1) how is science to
be defined? and 2) in the context of that definition, what is scientific archaeology? To put the
issue succinctly, the Newtonian revolt has finally reached archaeology, causing many of its
practitioners to question and reformulate the traditional self-image of the archaeologist.
As a result of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, science came of age
and cast off the overt rationalism of its Greek and Mediaeval ancestors, a rationalism that
turned to logic for the verification of its theories. For the Classical mentality the index of the
truth of a scientific theory was its deductive demonstrability, its consistency with itself (its
non- contradictory character) and its logical coherence with what was already accepted as true,
its "fit" in the already established body of knowledge pertinent to the area in question. The
psychologist William James expressed the mentality of modern science most clearly when he
wrote to his brother, !I have to forge every sentence in the teeth of irreducible and stubborn
facts.1 Empirical observation has replaced logic as the ultimate test of the truth of scientific
theories, bringing about, as a practical consequence, a reformulation of what a scientific
explanation ought to be.
To explain has always meant to rationalize- to make sense of- an occurrence, to make it
intelligible by inserting it into a systematic framework, thereby establishing connections
between it and other knowledge. The mind cannot tolerate dissonance- facts that cannot be con-
nected via some logical system. The human intelligence always asks "what?", "why?" and
"how?* when seeking explanations, yet is truly satisfied only with "because" answers. Simple
"what" answers define, describe facts, but neither establish causal linkages between them nor
elucidate the laws governing those linkages. For the most part, such answers are not scientific
in either the ancient or modern meaning of the term, because they do not profess to connect
facts by means of any intelligible system.
However, not all "because" answers are scientific either, at least not in the post-
Newtonian sense. In the Greece of Aristotle's day, an explanation of the falling of an object in
terms of its 'seeking its proper place1- a "because" answer- was considered scientific. Like-
wise, in a primitive society permeated by a belief in malevolent spirits, fthe devil made me do
it1 would be an acceptable causal explanation of abnormal behavior. Today's pooh-pooh attitude
toward the scientific character of both explanations indicates that a profound change has come
about in even the layman1 s understanding of what science is and what constitutes a scientific
explanation. We would prefer to explain falling objects in terms of the law of gravity and
erratic behavior in the language of psycho- pathology.
What constitutes the difference between the two pairs of explanations? They are alike in
that both pairs show an event to be subsumable under what is taken to be a law of nature, as an
instance of the operation of that law. In both cases, the assumed law itself has its place in a
system of inter- related laws concerned with these sorts of events- the disciplinary matrix or
paradigm as Thomas Kuhn calls it (Kuhn 1962:10). Here, however, similarities between the

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 2

pairs of explanations end, for the disciplinary matrices capable of integrating spritualistic
explanations of human behavior or 'proper place1 explanations of motion are vastly different
from those of modern psychology or mechanics. A revolution has occurred, whose locus is the
paradigm- the general character and orientation- of science as such.
The precise paradigm shift that separates the "old11 from the lfnewM in archaeology is a
species of that which divides classical from modern science. The abstract formulation of the
latter is irrelevant for our purposes; but its empirical consequences touch our daily lives every
time we find ourselves rejecting an explanation as fanciful or mythological or a law as a mere
rationalization. We have grown up in an intellectual climate that announces, 'Tm from
Missouri." and then demands, "Show me! If your theory is true, design an experiment whose
results prove it, an experiment other people can perform. Otherwise, your theory only tells
me what Aas happened and not what always will happen. It does not enunciate a law."
In the language of the philosophy of science, what is demanded of any theory is veri-
fiability; and verifiability is the parity of explanation and prediction. This is to say that no
theoretical explanation is acceptable to a modern scientist unless it could have predicted the
event it explains. Theories are tested, therefore, by deducing the empirical, observable conse-
quences of their hypothetical truth (e.g., if A is true, then B, C, and D ought to be observable)
and then designing and performing replicatable experiments in which those consequences can be
observed Thus a modern theory can be accepted as scientific only if the law it hypothesizes is
a matrix from which predictions can be deduced and tested. This norm applies not only to
sciences concerned with the discovery of laws governing the behavior of individuals (determin-
istic laws) but also those seeking the laws governing the behavior of groups (statistical laws).
The theories themselves originate from inductive generalization, a process beginning
with the observation of events not explainable by already verified theories and continuing along
a path of imaginative "wondering11 until a likely hypothesis is hit upon. The hallmark of modern
science, the general paradigm shared by all its branches, is therefore the construction and
verification of hypotheses. Sufficient confirmation experiments establish a hypothesis as a
theory- as true with a specifiable probability- and it is accepted as such by the scientific com-
munity if it is compatible with the current paradigm of the discipline in question.
It is important to note that the revolution establishing science on its modern footing took
place in the hard sciences- physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc.- and only spread to the soft
sciences- biology, psychology, etc.- in the nineteenth century. Our century has witnessed the
winning over of the social sciences to the new view of science, with sociology and anthropology
among the vanguard. When, in this context, Willey and Phillips declared, "American archaeol-
ogy is anthropology or it is nothing," (1958:2) another recruit formally joined itself to Galileo's
Nuovo Scienza and went in search of an understanding of itself and its goals that would be
consonant with the newly accepted scientific paradigm.
Part of the contemporary turmoil in archaeology concerns itself with the legitimacy of
that declaration, part with the way it should be implemented. To put the problem succinctly,
the pivotal questions are: 1) is archaeology a science in the post- Newtonian sense? can it
adopt the general paradigm of modern science and demand explanation- prediction parity?
2) if so, what is the most fruitful approach to the interpretation of the "old things?" 3) what,
in the concrete, then, ought to constitute an archaeological explanation?
Perhaps the best way to respond to the first question is to take a brief look at the way
archaeologists have defined their own discipline in the past, and at the definitions implied in
the sorts of conclusions archaeologists have tended to draw from their field data. Some have
argued that archaeology is merely a set of techniques for recovering information about the past
and the archaeologist is simply a skilled technician (cf. Taylor 1968:41, 1948:43). This under-
standing of the discipline may be true from a severely limited point of view, but it no more
justifies archaeology calling itself science than possession of the requisite ability to use a
microscope makes one a biologist. Technique aims solely at the recovery of data, not at its
interpretation. If archaeology is to be science in any sense of the term, and not merely a
practical, albeit sophisticated, skill, it must attempt to make sense out of its findings, to insert
them in some way into an intelligible context.

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ARCHAEOLOGY OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

Since archaeological remains are the hardware of an extinct culture, it was a logical first
step for archaeology to see itself as an attempt to reconstruct cultural prehistory from its
surviving remnants: i.e., as primarily descriptive/narrative in aim. In order to accomplish
this aim, artifacts first had to be analyzed into classes and typical assemblages on the basis of
stylistic similarities and habitual associations, classes and assemblages that could be diag-
nostic indicators of the presence of specific cultures. With point types, typical assemblages
and type sites clearly delineated, i.e., with culture content made identifiable through taxonomy,
the next move could be made- the attempt to reconstruct cultural sequences on the basis of
evolutionary similarities, stratigraphie position and sophisticated dating techniques. An
admirable example of this sort of historical reconstruction can be seen in William A. Ritchie1 s
work in New York State, (cf. Ritchie 1969)
It is totally unfair to denigrate the culture historian, for his work is an essential step to
culture-understanding. Any science must begin by classifying and arranging. Where would
biology be without Linnaeus? or chemistry without Mendeleev? But in the dialectical growth
of a science, any step soon reveals its own inadequacies and calls for further steps. (The same
is true of the "new" science. The Newtonian paradigm had to yield to an Einsteinian world-
view, which itself will ultimately succumb to a more adequate one. This is simply the nature of
the growth process of science. Scientific systems are asymptotic to the truth about the natural
world: they ever approach it, but can never unfold its totality.)
Archaeology's first step viewed only the static elements in prehistory, seeing it as a
series of stages which are to be defined and then arranged in chronological order. The
approach has three short- comings which soon initiated the movement that resulted in the new
archaeology: 1) it does not concern itself with the dynamic aspects of culture- the causal
mechanics of culture change; 2) it cannot test its own conclusions, thereby verifying and falsi-
fying them to the satisfaction of the modern scientist; and 3) from a more practical point of
view, once the cultural sequence for a region has been delineated, what then? does the archae-
ologist pick up his tools and go into retirement?
The road which archaeology de facto has taken in the last half of the twentieth century is
a road already travelled by cultural anthropology- i.e., beyond culture description and culture
history to culture-understanding, seeking explanations for the similarities and differences
between cultures, laws for cultural evolution. The aim is no longer the "what" of culture con-
tent and sequence, but the "why" and "how" of culture change- a "why and how" expressible in
testable hypotheses. In other words, the new archaeology has allied itself with the general
paradigm of modern science. Two legitimate questions can be raised at this point: 1) can
archaeology be a hard or even a soft science; and 2) should it?
The "can" question derives its legitimacy from a number of difficulties peculiar to the
study of extinct cultural systems. Culture- the complex set of ideas, ideals, beliefs, traditions,
technologies, emotional and behavioral patterns that identifies a people- is a human product,
and human beings tend to act in non- deterministic ways. Deterministic laws, those sought in
the hard sciences, cannot be applied to the behavior of individual human beings. However, the
social sciences have sought with considerable success the laws which make group behavior
statistically predictable if certain methodological pre-conditions such as random sampling, etc.
are satisfied. One has only to watch the returns on election night to see the concrete achieve-
ments of social science methodology.
But the ease with which voter behavior can be predicted is a function of the wealth of data
that has been collected about the voting population. No such wealth is available to the archae-
ologist, who must analyze cultures and predict their behavior on the basis of an insignificant
aspect of the total cultural context: its hardware, detritus, and whatever other data can be
gathered from the soil. The task is similar to reconstructing the Mona Lisa from a few sur-
viving brush strokes. Granted, currently existing primitive cultures can be used as analogues
in attempts at extinct culture reconstruction, but the archaeologist has no firm assurance that,
for instance, because a contemporary tribe in a similar environment uses a certain tool for a
certain purpose, a prehistoric tribe did likewise. Arguments from ethnographic analogy lack
the deductive rigor demanded in science.

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 4

A more knotty pro

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or was never collected in the first place.
It would seem, therefore, that nothing positive prevents archaeology from adopting the
scientific paradigm on a trial basis. One warning is nevertheless appropriate: let the archae-
ologist take seriously the lesson learned by the physical sciences at the beginning of our cen-
tury. There is a randomness inherent in nature, a randomness which on the human level
approaches freedom. To interpret human behavior in rigidly deterministic models after the
fashion of B. F. Skinner, to reduce it to quantifiable mechanical causes, be they environmental
or social, to view it as woodenly predictable, is de jure to rule out the spontaneous human curi-
osity about the world that is the condition for the possibility of archaeology or of any other
science.
If we grant that, in the pragmatic spirit, archaeology can and ought to adop
paradigm of the sciences, it remains to ask what shall be its version of that p
to say, the specific approach to culture that it takes as its unifying theme. There
mous answer to this question as yet; but this situation is predictable. The infa
is characterized by competition among alternative paradigms until one establi
most productive. The protagonists in archaeology's paradigm conflict are the
historical, the normative and the cybernetic models.
We have already seen the value of the culture- historical approach as a pr
tific archaeology. Can it become rigorous enough to be the paradigm for a sc
not, for history's concern has always been with sequences. Even when it seek
sequences, it seeks the particular causes of particular events and not general

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 ARCHAEOLOGY OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

all events of a similar nature. Ar

is merely a technological servant and not an autonomous discipline.
The normative approach is loosely allied with the culture- historical paradigm, but takes
a more psychological view of culture as its starting point. It sees culture as residing primarily
in the human mind in the form of a complex of shared ideas, values and beliefs, which becomes
incarnate and expressed in human behavior and its products. Since ideas do not keep in the
ground, the archaeologist must work backwards: from the artifact to the idea or "normative
template" in the mind of the artifact maker. How is the normative template arrived at?
Through observation and isolation of shared attributes in a collection of artifacts. Thus, a
small, converging stemmed projectile point can be recognized and defined, and the assumption
made that the flint knapper deliberately aimed at producing these characteristics in his product,
that his intent was to materialize his idea of a small point with a certain stem configuration.
Ideas such as those directing the flint knapper1 s work are viewed as the building blocks of a
culture, and cultures can be compared across time and space by means of the number of ideas
they can be demonstrated to share in common.
It is obvious that the normative approach takes its beginnings from taxonomy, refining
those beginnings by a rigid application of statistical method. It is the sort of reasoning, how-
ever, that assumes too much. In the first place, it tends to atomize the real continuum of
variation in human products, a procedure that is pragmatically useful but not necessarily valid.
With respect to the projectile point category described above, how small should small be in
order that a point be taken as an exemplification of the normative template? The statistician
finds the mean length of the points in the sample; but like the proverbial " average man," points
of the mean length are few in number.
The sample clusters around the mean in a bell curve, deviating from it in measurable
ways. Therefore, a range of acceptable variation from the mean is established, a range
outside of which a length cannot fall and still be significant, still count as "small." But what
is to mark out these limits of acceptable variation? Where shall the cutoff point be? In the
language of statistics, how wide a confidence interval is desired to specify the range of varia-
tion? If one Standard Deviation (1 sigma) be chosen, the length of a projectile point supposedly
conforming to a given template can be predicted to fall within a fairly narrow plus-or- minus
range around the mean length. But in opting for a narrow range (which simplifies identification)
the researcher diminishes the probability of a correct identification of the attribute in question
to 68%. If 1.96 sigma be chosen, the probability of a correct identification rises to 95%, but the
range of variation widens. 99% probability can be obtained if 2.58 sigma is used, but again the
range is still wider. This is to say that precision in the definition of attributes is inversely
proportionate to the confidence that can be placed in those definitions. It is as though a neurotic
radio-carbon lab were to return dates such as 1960 B.P. ± 1000: the probability of the true
date falling within the range of variation borders on certainty; but the returned date would not
be very useful to an archaeologist.
A taxonomic approach becomes still more complex when the temporal variable is added.
Given a large enough sample, one can lay out a series of projectile points which will represent
a continuum of minute variation ranging from, for example, the terminal Archaic Koens- Crispin
point through the Perkiomen, Susquehanna and Dry Brook styles to the Transitional period
Orient Fishtail point. Who can say precisely where one type evolves into another, and hence
when one idea is replaced by another? The unexpressed assumption underlying the normative
approach is that cultural ideas are shared identically by all members of a society. One has
only to observe any functioning culture to see that this is not the case. Any society has its
middle-of-the-roaders spread themselves out on a bell curve of rightists and leftists. As
Binford points out, "culture is not necessarily shared; it is participated in differentially."
(Binford 1965:205) The degree of participation is a function of the individual's position within
the social system and of the complexity of that system. A particular flint knapper may be only
marginally influenced by the society he lives in, and hence his products deviate from the so-
called norm. Another may be a die-hard reactionary and prefer the old way of doing things,

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 6

resisting the " new-fangled" ideas of his contemporaries. A potter may be trying to express
her own individuality in her modification of traditional design elements. In other words, the
hypothetical "average man'1 has no referent in reality. Holotypes exist within the minds of
modern classifiers, not necessarily in the minds of primitive artisans. Hence, even within a
given temporal period on a given site, the variation in a single artifact style is considerable.
If a normative template can be recognized at all, it is so vague as to be practically useless.
(Anyone who has ever tried to identify a single projectile point by consulting a typology has had
first hand experience of a similar sort. In order to identify a point, one must see the entire
range of variation of the type in question. But then the resulting judgment in intuitive and not
strictly scientific.)
A word should be added at this point with respect to the kind of deification of statistical
modes of analysis that is rampant in social science as a whole today. Granted, judgments
based on statistical methods are superior to those based on intuition alone, superior in the
sense that the probability of their being correct can be specified. But from the fact that para-
metric and non- parametric statistics use equations, rigid rules and procedures similar to those
of pure mathematics, it is all too easy to slip into the habit of attributing to statistical results
the same sort of absolute 'truth1 that accrues to results in pure mathematics. This is far from
the case for, unlike the pure mathematical disciplines, statistics is not a deduction from a set
of primitive ! clear and distinct ideas1 as Descartes would call them, ideas derived from the
nature of quantity- as- suc h and hence non- empirical, but from a set of assumptions vaguely
garnered from experience, imprecisely intuited. To make this clearer, let us take the 1.96
sigma confidence interval mentioned earlier, within which there is a .95 probability that the
true population mean will fall. Is this .95 probability itself a certainty or only a probability?
can the researcher be certain about his probability statements? or are they probable state-
ments as well? The answer can only be the latter, for the selection of this confidence interval
is ultimately grounded in the unverifiable, intuitive assumption that deviations of five or less
cases per hundred may legitimately be attributed to chance or sampling error. Granted, this
assumption is probable qua reasonable, but its probability can neither be demonstrated nor
specified. To quote
Admittedly, rules for setting a limit to the improbability of the chances which a scien-
tist might properly assume to have occurred, have been widely accepted among scientists.
But these rules have no other foundation than a vague feeling for what a scientist may
regard as unreasonable chances. The late Enrico Fermi is reported to have said that a
miracle is an event the chances of which are less than one in ten. The rule which Sir
Ronald Fisher has made widely current in his book, The Design of Experiments, is a
little more cautious; it rejects as illusory only patterns for which the odds of havin
formed by chance are less than one in twenty. But if anyone were to suggest that t
should be set at one in five or at one in two hundred, nothing more could be said ag
this than that it does not seem reasonable (Polanyi 1968:209-10).
Statistics is not, therefore, a tool capable of injecting the same degree of objectivity and
exactness into archaeological interpretations as is found in pure mathematics or even in mathe-
matical physics. No matter how stringent is the confidence level chosen, the chances of being
wrong are never zero.
A second critique may be aimed at the normative paradigm, one also intimately connected
with the employment of statistical analysis. The operational philosophy behind classification
entails an identification and selection of attributes to be compared in the collection, a selection
which can reflect the subjective bias of the researcher. It is entirely possible that the attri-
butes, the patterns we take to be significant enough to base taxonomies upon, were not signifi-
cant to the artifact maker, that in the example of the flint knapper, thinning techniques and haft-
ing procedure were the shared ideas, and small size and converging stem merely incidental
results. Any selection entails agreed-upon norms for selection, which norms can be the
expression of unrecognized preconceptions in the mind of the selector. In the language of the

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ARCHAEOLOGY OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

philosophy of science, such observation is not genuinely objective. It is theory-laden, biased

and subjective, and hence not strictly scientific. This is not to infer that absolute objectivity is
possible in observation or selection. If we have learned anything from Einstein, it is the fact
that utterly objective, "privileged11 observers do not exist, that observation is always relative
to the spatio-temporal (in this case, cultural) position of the observer. If Heisenberg has
taught us anything, it is that the technique of observation- in this case, the rules governing
what attributes should be considered significant- modifies what is observed. The archaeolo-
gist's escape from his version of the Relativity and Uncertainty principles is an explicit recog-
nition, formulation and justification of the bias governing the selections upon which he bases his
taxonomies, a procedure which at least opens the door to scientific objectivity. As Polanyi
sums up the issue,

" . . . the mathematical analysis of observed deviations from a theoretical equation can do
no more than partially to formalize the process of identifying significant shapes. . . .
Mathematics only inserts a formalized link in a procedure which starts with the intuitive
surmise of a significant shape [the selection of attributes], and ends with an equally
informal decision to reject or accept it as truly significant by considering the computed
numerical probability of its being accidental [the selection of a confidence level]. "
(Polanyi 1968:210)
A third problem inherent in the normative approach is the fact that the normative
archaeologist, in his attempt to account for template change- change in the cultural " mentality1 f -
is forced to fall back on explanations appealing to phenomena such as culture diffusion, migra-
tion, culture borrowing, historical accident and the like. Such explanations are unverifiable
precisely because they deal with past events which de facto are unobservable in the present. In
Binford1 s language, normative archaeology is really a species of paleo-psychology, a field for
which the archaeologist is poorly trained. (Binford 1965:205) It must be noted, in all fairness,
that the criticisms levelled against the normative paradigm are not intended to demonstrate it
as useless or non-productive. They merely show that it is not appropriate as a scientific
paradigm unless its shortcomings are recognized and remedied.
From a philosophical point of view, however, the normative approach can be classified as
a throwback to Aristotelianism, as undergirded by the philosophical assumption that the many
facets of a reality are independent of each other. In concrete terms, this approach to culture
fails to see that ideas do not exist in regal isolation within a human mind. They are organically
interwoven, inter- related and interacting with each other and with the changing external envi-
ronment. Culture is not an agglomeration of ideas held in common by a group of individuals
who happen to be in a particular environment. It derives from the interplay of ideas in a mind,
of individuals in a group, and between group behavior and the external environment. Culture is
an organism, none of whose elements can be torn from the others without the misinterpretation
of all resulting. In the words of John Donne, MNo man is an island," and neither are human
ideas nor human cultures.
An alternative paradigm that has gained much strength in recent years is that spawn
cybernetics and adopted by the processual school in American archaeology- the system
Succinctly, a system is a complex network of mutually influencing factors- feedbacks, rei
forcers, inhibitors, etc.- that can be mapped and displayed in mathematical models. A
complex can be viewed as an intricate, multi- dimensional system, the "extra- somatic a
system . . . employed in the integration of a society with its environment and with other
cultural systems." (Binford 1965: ibid.) As a system, it is a mesh of interwoven subsy
belief systems, technology, language, law, trade, subsistence, art, etc. -and itself a fun
part of the macro- system composed of the habitat, biome and neighboring cultural system
cultural- geographic region is looked upon as though it were a massive organism attemptin
maintain itself in equilibrium despite changes introduced by one or more of its included su
systems. In any organism change in one part is matched with compensating changes in oth
parts, to preserve the balance of the whole. In the ecological relation of a primitive cul

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 8

nature, it is usually
flora and fauna) th
bring about modifi
If this ecological s
its sub- systems, w
ought to be statist
single variable as i
variable against which ceramic variation is plotted), multivariate analysis is possible, in which
variation in one cultural aspect can be shown to be a function of a number of interacting vari-
ables. For an archaeologist adopting this paradigm, an artifact is no longer viewed as an iso-
lated trait but as a functioning element in an organic whole, influencing and influenced by the
cultural totality, some of which has survived in the ground, some of which has perished but in
many cases can be inferred from what has survived. Likewise, a single site cannot be inter-
preted in isolation from other sites in a given region. Settlement patterns themselves are
systemic- functionally different sites characterized by different artifact assemblages exist
within a geographic region, sites whose inter- relationships must be explored if the culture is to
be seen in its totality. Again, within a given site, functionally different yet inter- related areas
exist- food preparation areas, the living areas of each extended family unit, workshop areas,
middens, etc., each with its characteristic artifact assemblages- all of which reveal the many-
sidedness of the culture.
Furthermore, as has been mentioned earlier, the cultural subsistence- settlement system
is itself a part of the regional ecosystem, occupying an ecological niche within it and varying in
response to environmental changes. With respect to the changing environment, the archaeologist
has at his disposal the explosion of new knowledge that has occurred in climatology, geology,
topography, palynology, biology and related sciences. At least one element in the macro-
system- the natural environment- can be delineated with a fair amount of precision. Endemic
to processual archaeology is an interdisciplinary approach. A team of specialists has as
important a function on an excavation as a crew of trained diggers.
It is obvious that the systems paradigm is pregnant with exciting promise for the future
of scientific archaeology. The question is, can that promise be fulfilled? Will archaeology by
able to develop hypotheses concerning culture change and verify them in the field? Can models
of prehistoric lifeways be drawn up and tested? More crucially, can human behavior be com-
pressed in mathematical models?1 Is the scientific notion of explanation rigorously applicable
in archaeology? Is it merely coincidence that Binford, the most vocal exponent of the new
archaeology, has yet to publish a major report based on the ideology he preaches? Or does
that fact reveal something about the practicability of the processual approach?
Perhaps only the future can answer these questions. Archaeology itself is in process,
and* can only vaguely envision the directions it can and ought to take. The new archaeology
itself is a hypothesis, a research design for investigating the Mold things," one which must
itself be tested by the field work of time.

That it can be is obvious from the success demonstrated by sociology and behavioral science. But does
the mathematical model, which by its very nature is mechanistic, express the totality of human behavior
or only the quantifiable aspects of it? To assent to the former alternative leaves one necessarily enmeshed
in the sort of behavioral determinism preached by B. F. Skinner, in which the human animal is reduced to a
machine whose responses are programmed by his environment and whose autonomy, spontaneity and cre-
ativity are assiduously denied. Only if the quantifiable aspects of human behavior are seen as just that-
i.e., aspects and not the totality, can an interpretation of man avoid being driven to negate the vision of the
humanity of man that has been the leit motif of Western culture. For a full treatment of this problem as it
relates to behavioral science, see my article individual and Society: A Whiteheadian Critique of B. F.
Skinner" in Person and Community: A Philosophical Exploration ,ed. Robert J. Roth, S.J. New York:
Fordham University Press, 1975).

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ARCHAEOLOGY OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

Bibliography

Binford, Lewis R.
1965 Archaeological Systematics and the Study of Culture Process. American
Antiquity 31:203-210.
Kuhn, Thomas S.
1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago and London, the University of
Chicago Press.
Leone, Mark P., ed.
1972 Contemporary Archaeology. Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press.
Polanyi, Michael
1968 Experience and the Perception of Pattern, in The Modeling of Mind: Computers
and Intelligence. Kenneth M. Sayre and Frederick J. Crosson eds. Rockville
Center, Ν. Υ., Simon and Schuster.
Ritchie, William A.
1969 The Archaeology of New York State, revised edition. Garden City, The Natural
History Press.
Taylor, Walter W.
1948 A Study of Archaeology. Menasha, Memoirs of the American Anthropological
Association No. 69.
1968 Foreword, in A Study of Archaeology. Carbondale, Southern Illinois U
Press.
Willey, Gordon R., and Phillips, Philip
1958 Method and Theory in American Archaeology. Chicago, The University of
Chicago Press.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE

Don W. Dragoo

Much has been written in recent years concerning what the archaeologist should or should
not be doing, how he is doing it, and why he is doing it. The archaeological camp often has
become divided into two groups supposedly supporting either the "Old Archaeology11 or the "New
Archaeology" with resulting animosities and misunderstandings. Seldom has either side in the
argument taken time to reflect upon the factors and events that have influenced the development
of American archaeology. As practicing students of prehistory we should look at our own his-
torical development if we are to understand why we as individual archaeologists think as we do
and act as we do in the field. The methods and theories that have influenced the growth of
American archaeology govern our actions and mold our viewpoints whether they are explicitly
or implicitly stated in our results.
Prior to 1950 archaeologists were generally content to seek patterned cultural relation-
ships pursued through descriptive taxonomy combined with temporal and spatial distribution
studies. Beginning in the late 1940fs with Walter W. Taylor's A Study of Archaeology and con-
tinuing into the 1950s a number of archaeologists began to question seriously the theoretical
foundations of archaeology and the role of the archaeologist as an anthropologist. Phillips and
Willey (1953:615) adequately expressed the growing discontent with the status quo thusly:

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