Introduction to Archaeology

Anthro 304 / ARY 301 Spring 1998
Prof. Samuel M. Wilson
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas

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American Archaeology in the 20th Century

Early 20th Century issues of Classification and chronology


Filling in the Geochronological grid...

	Egypt	Levant	Mesopotamia	Indus	India	SE Asia	China
1000 B.C.
2000 B.C.
3000 B.C.
4000 B.C.

Early 20th Century American Archaeology and Ethnology

• relationships with Native Peoples
• interest in material culture and "assemblages"
• museum collections grouped into "culture areas"
• Franz Boas and early American Anthropology; particularism and the focus on individual groups and histories

Archaeology and its social context: WWII

• the impact of technology for ancient people
• the importance of a scientific approach

Multi-disciplinary studies

• lifeways and domestication: Jarmo, Robert Braidwood, et al.
• other foci - Virú valley, Gordon Willey and settlement patterns
• MacNeish, Tehuacán valley
• focus on trade, settlement, economy, domestication, sedentism

The New Archaeology of the 1960s and 1970s

• the social context of the academe in this period
• an emphasis on why things happened, not just that they happened
• Key issues --
  • why did food production begin
  • why did complex societies emerge in some places and not others

A few characteristics of the New Archaeology

• Scientific paradigm: forms of logic desgined to formulate law-like generalities
• Substantial borrowing from other disciplines
• "Systems Theory" borrowed from information sciences -- societies in the environment worked together like intricate machines
• The scientific paradigm reflected how technically sophisticated archaeology had become, for example now depending heavily on radiocarbon dating and other kinds of archaeometry.
• More multidisciplinary efforts
• More emphasis on quantitative methods
• "Problem Orientation"