Cunningam2003-etnarh-procesualpluralism

8/7/2019 Cunningam2003-etnarh-procesualpluralism

1/22

Transcending the Obnoxious Spectator: a case

for processual pluralism in ethnoarchaeology

Jerimy J. Cunningham*

Department of Anthropology, McGill University, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Que., Canada H3A 2T7

Received 18 February 2003; revised 13 May 2003

Abstract

Several commentators have argued that ethnoarchaeology will only become a productive part of archaeological

research once both archaeology and ethnoarchaeology are unifiedby the axioms of a single theory of behavior. Through

an examination of the different roles that ethnoarchaeological research has adopted, I demonstrate that ethnoar-

chaeology is already theoretically unified by a general concern with analogy. I argue that the problems that many

commentators have recognized with ethnoarchaeologys apparent eclecticism arise from an over-reliance on core

universals by both processual and postprocessual researchers. Instead of implementing a single unified theory of

behavior, I suggest that ethnoarchaeologists should adopt a pluralistic orientation that is sensitive to the contextual

applicability of specific causal processes.

2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Ethnoarchaeology; Analogical reasoning; Pluralism; Causal process; Universals

Introduction

Perhaps more than any other branch of archaeology,

ethnoarchaeology is reaping the rewards of its own

ambiguity. While most archaeologists know that ethn-

oarchaeologists study modern cultural life in order to

develop interpretive frameworks specifically designed

for archaeology, ethnoarchaeologys methods, objectives

and governing theories remain generally misunderstood.Ethnoarchaeology developed as a response to a ten-

dency among ethnologists to ignore archaeological

questions in their research (Longacre, 1991a; Papousek,

1984; Watson, 1980; but see Pastron, 1974). Archaeol-

ogists have thus taken to the field to make their own

ethnographic observationsobservations that are di-

rected explicitly at an archaeological purpose

(Thompson, 1991, p. 231). In Binfords (1983, p. 24)

terms, ethnoarchaeology is a Rosetta Stone: a way of

translating the static, material. . .found on an archaeo-

logical site into the vibrant life of a group of people who

in fact left them there. Yet, despite frequent historical

reviews (Charlton, 1981; David and Kramer, 2001,

Chapter 1; Dillon, 1984; Trigger, 1978) and attempts to

re-conceptualize ethnoarchaeology by developing ty-

pologies of ethnoarchaeological research (e.g., Goulds,

1971 levels of ethnoarchaeology; see Kirch, 1978, p.109; and again David and Kramer, 2001, Chapter 1),

little consensus exists even among ethnoarchaeologists

as to the place ethnoarchaeology should have within the

larger discipline (see Longacre, 1978, p. 357 for an early

discussion; and then Stark, 1993).

In recent years, ethnoarchaeology has been forced

to weather internal and external critiques and re-

evaluations. Stahl (1993), for example, has taken both

archaeologists and ethnoarchaeologists to task for rein-

troducing elements of unilinear evolutionary thought to

archaeology. She argues that the preoccupation with

testing that was typical of the New Archaeology resulted

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22 (2003) 389410

www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa

*Fax: (519) 398-4758.

E-mail address: [email protected].

0278-4165/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/S0278-4165(03)00042-4
http://mail%20to:%[email protected]/http://mail%20to:%[email protected]/


2/22

in the use of boundary conditions for analogy that were

. . .historical continuities, and/or societies occupying

comparable environments pursuing similar subsistence

strategies, hence in comparable stages of evolutionary

development. . . (Stahl, 1993, p. 244, emphasis added).

Other commentators have pointed to the astounding

degree of variability that exists in ethnoarchaeologyscurrent research practices. P. Arnold (2000, p. 120) notes

that . . .it is time to call attention to the uncomfortable

hodgepodge of protocol and purpose subsumed within

the increasingly ambiguous arena of ceramic ethnoar-

chaeology. Likewise, MacEachern (1996) has shown

that African ethnoarchaeology includes detailed eth-

nographic field research in a single location and com-

parative studies, involves long term commitments to a

native population, occurs in controlled laboratory con-

ditions removed from any ethnographic subject, focuses

explicitly on the technicalities of archaeological research,

and examines human activities that are all but archaeo-logically invisible. Elsewhere, significant differences have

emerged in the theoretical perspectives that ethnoar-

chaeologists seem to hold regarding ethnographic anal-

ogy. Despite the central role often ascribed to analogy in

all archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research (see

David and Kramer, 2001, Chapter 2), a commentator has

made recently the bewildering claim that postprocessual

researchers do not make analogical inferences (Porr,

1999, pp. 78). Two of the most recent volumes on

ethnoarchaeology and ethnographic analogy (David and

Kramer, 2001; Owen and Porr, 1999a; see especially

Biehl, 1999, p. 172; David and Kramer, 2001, pp. 4350;

Owen and Porr, 1999b; Porr, 1999, p. 6; Roux, 1999, p.

154) demonstrate that processual and postprocessual

researchers rely on formal or structural similarities in

their analogical inferences rather than on the causal

regularities that20 years agoWylie (1982, 1985) noted

as the most desirable form of ethnographic analogy.

Perhaps the most memorable critique of ethnoar-

chaeologys eclecticism comes from Simms (1992)

characterization of contemporary ethnoarchaeological

work as little more than an Obnoxious Spectator and

a Trivial Pursuit. Like OConnell (1995), Simms has

suggested that the solution to ethnoarchaeologys ills lies

in a more nuanced consideration of high level theory. Inorder to become a productive area of research, both

authors have argued that archaeology and ethnoar-

chaeology must become integrated under a unified the-

oretical perspective, preferably one based in behavioral

ecology. After unification, Simms believes ethnoar-

chaeology can reach its true potential, becoming the key

to the Time Machine. The obvious response to

Simms and OConnells suggestion is to ask why ethn-

oarchaeology should be theoretically unified under be-

havioral ecology, especially since Hodder (1986) would

like material culture studies to unify ethnoarchaeo-

logical research. But the far more relevant question

would seem to be why the solution to ethnoarchaeol-

ogys problems will suddenly be found in a single high

level theory. The concern with general theorizing seems

antithetical to ethnoarchaeologys long association with

middle-range theorizingwith the attempt to develop

low level linking principles between archaeological data

and human behavior. Indeed, the independence of ethn-oarchaeologys middle-range propositions from general

theory has often been taken by archaeologists to mean

that these middle-range propositions could be used to

employ archaeological findings to test the accuracy and

reliability of broader propositions about human activi-

ties (Binford, 1978; see Raab and Goodyear, 1984;

Wylie, 1995, for discussions). For these researchers, the

eclecticism of ethnoarchaeologyits disinterest in broad

range problemsis perhaps its greatest contribution to

the discipline. The suggestion that ethnoarchaeology

should abandon its diverse, middle-range focus and in-

stead should cling tightly to the directives of a specifictheoretical paradigm is a significant development.

In what follows, I develop my own reanalysis of

ethnoarchaeologys eclecticism and the proposed solu-

tion that would see ethnoarchaeology unified by a single

theory of human behavior. There are, I would suggest,

two distinct facets to the senseless eclecticism we see

in current ethnoarchaeological research. First, I suggest

that at least some of the diversity in ethnoarchaeologys

methodological programs is a response to the episte-

mological requirements of analogical reasoning. To

make this point, I first present an overview of the dif-

ferent roles that ethnoarchaeology has adopted within

archaeology. I then review Wylies (1982, 1985, 1988)

treatment of analogy and focus on her suggestions that

ethnoarchaeologists should (1) combine an ever-ex-

panding knowledge of how causal processes operate in

ethnographic contexts with (2) explicit programs of

testing. I argue that the diverse methodological roles

that ethnoarchaeology has within archaeology reflect, at

least in part, these two suggestions. However, there is a

second facet to ethnoarchaeologys eclecticism that

crosscuts its existing methodological programs. More-

over, I would suggest that this aspect of ethnoarchae-

ologys diversity is responsible for many of the problems

and misconceptions the plague the field. Competingpartisan interests in archaeology have proposed distinct

and often mutually exclusive models of culture. As is the

case with behavioral ecology and material culture stud-

ies, most of these theories are considered by their pro-

ponents to be candidates for an emerging monismto be

the theory that will unify ethnoarchaeology and solve

ethnoarchaeologys eclecticism. At the heart of these

models are to what I refer as core universalscausal

processes that proponents of the different models in

ethnoarchaeology assume have a near universal affect on

behavioral, cultural and material patterning. Because of

their uniform causal affect, these processes should be the

390 J.J. Cunningham / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22 (2003) 389410


3/22

foundation on which analogical inferences are based.

My point here is notas has so often been done in the

processualpostprocessual debatesto advocate one

model over another, but to show how the very idea that

specific processes are immutable interferes with our

understanding of how causal processes interact and

combine in the creation of material patterns. I suggestthat rather than a single broad level theory of behavior,

ethnoarchaeology needs a more nuanced and pluralistic

understanding of how diverse causal influences create

material variation.

The roles of ethnoarchaeology

Four different roles have at one time or another been

proposed for ethnoarchaeology within the broader dis-

cipline. None of these roles is discrete, in that it reflects

an isolated research tradition or a distinct school ofthought. Indeed, elements of all four roles are almost

always combined in the research programs proposed by

specific individuals (Gould, 1971; Kirch, 1978; Long-

acre, 1978, p. 362; MacEachern, 1996, p. 248). The four

are: (1) ethnoarchaeology aimed at identifying law-like

translations of the archaeological record; (2) ethn-

oarchaeology that tests archaeologically derived propo-

sitions; (3) ethnoarchaeology as a form of interpretive

discovery; and (4) ethnoarchaeology aimed at raising

analogical consciousness.

Translating the archaeological record

The first role often assigned to/adopted by ethnoar-

chaeology is to research technical questions about the

processes that resulted in the creation of the archaeo-

logical record. Rejecting any form of a Pompeii pre-

mise, Schiffer (1976) has initiated a widespread analysis

of taphonomy. Likewise, Binford (1978, 1981) argued

that archaeology needed to develop middle-range theory

that explained how archaeological patterns related to

cultural life (see Trigger, 1989, pp. 359361). These ap-

proaches outline methodologies to identify law-like

generalizations that enable archaeologists to translate

human behavior from archaeological remains, takinginto account the natural processes that intervene be-

tween the past and present (also see Binford and Sabloff,

1982). Several lines of analysis have been thus con-

ducted, including taphonomic studies (e.g., Gifford,

1978; Gorecki, 1985), analyses of sampling (e.g., Gould,

1974, 1980; Skibo et al., 1989), usewear analyses (Hay-

den, 1977; Keeley, 1980; Odell and Odell-Vereecken,

1980; Tringham, 1978; Tringham et al., 1974), the ex-

amination of functional efficiency (Carneiro, 1979), and

analyses of ceramic use-life (e.g., David and Hennig,

1972; Longacre, 1985, 1991a; Mayor, 1994; Tani and

Longacre, 1999).

The propositions developed by ethnoarchaeology

often operate as middle-range propositions in the Bin-

fordian sense: as low-level bridging principles that can

be used by researchers following quite different theories

of behavior. If success is to be measured in the usability

of these propositions by different theories of cultural

behaviori.e., by widespread acceptancethen thesuccess of this research has been limited almost exclu-

sively to technical areas like usewear, stratigraphy,

dating, or taphonomy. Other researchers have optimis-

tically pursued similar law-like relations in a wider

spectrum of cultural behaviors (e.g., Arnold, 1985;

contributions to Carr and Neitzel, 1995; Graves, 1981,

1985, 1991; Rathje, 1978; Schiffer, 1978; Schiffer and

Skibo, 1997). For example, Schiffer and Skibo (1997)

seek to develop law-like relations between artifact pro-

duction systems and their use contexts. These relation-

ships create a correlative matrix in which specific

performance characteristics are related to specificphysical attributes. However, the conclusions reached

have often been quite contentious (Cunningham, 2003;

David and Kramer, 2001, pp. 141142), and many of

the critics have questioned how rigidly patterns in ma-

terial culture can reflect discrete elements of behavior

(also see DeBoer, 1984, 1991; Sullivan, 1978). Thus,

although there are active attempts to expand the list of

law-like translations uncovered by ethnoarchaeology,

they appear limited to specific, technical areas of

research.

Testing archaeologically derived propositions

Binford and Sabloff (1982, pp. 148151) note that

one major problem in trying to extend the number of

laws linking material culture to human behavior is that

the proposed relations can never be tested directly by

the archaeological record. Archaeological analogues

risk affirming the consequent (Binford, 1981; Wylie,

1982, pp. 389390) by proposing linkages between be-

havior and patterns of material culture, and then in-

terpreting the archaeological record as ifthe very same

linkages applied. Binford (1981, 1983, Binford and

Sabloff, 1982, p. 137) thus suggests that ethnoarchaeo-

logical research needs to evaluate deductively proposedlinkages between dynamics and statics. Archaeology

provides the context for formulating hypotheses re-

garding human behavior, and ethnoarchaeological re-

search offers a separate context for the evaluation of

those hypotheses (e.g., D. Arnold, 2000; Charlton,

1981, pp. 151152; Gosselain, 2000; Kramer, 1979, pp.

45; Stanislawski, 1978; Wiessner, 1983). At times, this

type of ethnoarchaeology can be narrowly defined and

highly operationalized, with the research directed to

target specific archaeological questions. Binford and

Sabloff (1982, p. 151), for example, state unequivocally

that . . .

we must learn to see the dynamics from a

J.J. Cunningham / Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22 (2003) 389410 391


4/22

perspective appropriate to the archaeological record.

Such a viewpoint should be (1) nonparticipating, (2)

outside, and (3) partitive. Thus, mentalist (Schiffer,

1978, pp. 234235) and/or fortuitous ethnoarchaeolo-

gies (Longacre, 1991a, p. 6) are rejected in favour of

formal programs of research directed at solving ar-

chaeological problems (e.g., Krause, 1985). Not infre-quently, such testing has recognized equifinality and

produced cautionary tales that show how many of

the material patterns in which archaeologists are inter-

ested can be created by entirely different sets of causal

processes.

Interpretive discovery

As Ascher (1961) noted long ago, one of the prime

roles of ethnoarchaeology is to develop analogies that

can be used in archaeological interpretation (also see

Kleindienst and Watson, 1956). The realization thatanalogies are used in all stages of research has prompted

Stanislawski (1974, p. 18) to define ethnoarchaeology as

the direct-observation field study of the forms, manu-

facture, distribution, meaning, and use of artifacts in

their institutional setting and social unit correlates

among living, non-industrial peoples for the purpose of

constructing better explanatory models to aid archaeo-

logical analogy and inference. The goal of this type of

ethnoarchaeology is to use ethnographic research as a

form of interpretive discovery (Charlton, 1981, p.

152); as a way of identifying cultural practices and/or

processes that might have affected artifact variability in

the past, yet be difficult to identify from only from ar-

chaeological research (Longacre, 1991b, p. 95). In con-

trast to the above perspective, ethnoarchaeology offers

the context for discovery, creating and expanding upon

the list of analogies that can be used to interpret the past

(e.g., Costin, 2000; Kramer, 1992; LaViolette, 1995;

Lees, 1979; Muntoni, 1999; Riley, 1984). In order to

avoid affirming the consequent, these analogies are often

used to predict the past (Gould, 1980, p. 35); to act as

hypotheses that are deductive tested against archaeo-

logical remains (Atherton, 1983, pp. 9697; Watson,

1980, p. 56).

Raising analogical consciousness

Ethnoarchaeology as interpretive discovery has a

second form that is not tightly bound to a program of

testing. The goal of this type of ethnoarchaeology is to

raise the analogical consciousness of their archaeo-

logical colleagues (after David, 1992). As Chang (1967,

p. 227) recognized over 35 years ago, the general an-

thropologist who has sufficient training in the four

fields of anthropology is a mythical hero. The rapid

expansion of the four subdisiplines makes it all but

impossible for researchers to stay abreast of major

developments outside their areas of specialization.

Consequently, most archaeologists now have only a

tenuous grasp of ethnographic methodology, the sorts of

data or processes in which social/cultural/postmodern

anthropologists are interested, or the complex proce-

dures by which ethnographic fieldwork becomes ethno-

graphic texts. Binford (1983, p. 14), for example, noteshis surprise at how few archaeologists working on

hunter-gatherer archaeology in Europe were even aware

of the relevant ethnographic literature. Likewise, Gould

(1974, p. 30) suggests that while archaeologists may

rigorously assess an interpretation of archaeological

data, there is a tendency to take ethnographic interpre-

tations as given. Archaeologists risk mistakenly applying

these analoguestreating, for example, the San Bush-

men as prototypical foragers without considering their

historical contexts (MacEachern, 1996, pp. 228229)

because they possess little ability to assess the validity of

ethnographic research.Ethnoarchaeology that aims to develop archaeologys

analogical consciousness tends to produce cautionary

tales, the goal of which is to alert archaeologists to the

complexity of ethnographic study. Gould (1978b, pp.

256257) points out in an early paper that It is the

fundamental task of ethnoarchaeology to heighten the

archaeologists awareness of alternative human behav-

iors that could have occurred in order to explain the

pattern of archaeological facts. Often, cautionary tales

simply remind archaeologists that the material culture

they study was created by living, breathing people. As

David (1992, p. 352, emphasis in original) notes:

Ethnoarchaeologys primary service mission is still the

raising of the analogical consciousness of archaeologists,

many of whom prefer their culture dead, sensitizing them

to dimensions of variability and the richness of the rela-

tionship between humans and their artifacts, including

their own bodies. The audience for these cautionary

tales is, as often as not, other ethnoarchaeologists, spe-

cifically those who argue that ethnoarchaeology must be

non-participatory, outside and partitive:

Often, however, [archaeological] forays into ethnogra-

phy are limited in time and controlled in focus, cluttered

with specific questions to ask and measurements to be ta-ken. What I want to argue here is that there is something

to be said for a fuller ethnographic experience that in-

cludes moments to pause and to be edified by aspects

of those thousand kinds of life we could have lived

(Geertz, 1973, p. 45). (Kus, 1997, p. 200).

The critiques from this area of ethnoarchaeology

have struck both sides of the processual and postpro-

cessual divide. Stark (1993, pp. 9697; see also Kus,

1997) note that there is a paradox in postprocessual

research: these investigators examine symbolism,

meaning and power by, first, conducting relatively brief

field excursions and, second, by seeking to identify



5/22

broad cognitive frameworks that lie behind daily

practice. As Kus notes:

We need to wield carefully the vocabulary of la longue

dureee so it does not encompass the entirety of causality

or wield too cavalierly the authority of explanation. Per-

haps more importantly we also need to be careful of thevocabulary of la courte dureee. The midrange vocab-

ulary of power, belief, custom, and ideology,

for instance, is of a contentlessness and categorical ab-

straction so uncharacteristic of the science of the con-

crete (Leevi-Strauss, 1962, pp. 133) that it

underestimates and potentially simplifies other cultural

realities. To approach other cultural realities in terms

of sensuous human practice is evocative in a way that

meaning and symbol are not, because meaning and

symbol reflectively distance themselves from experience

and from the materiality of the senses and emotions.

(Kus, 1997, p. 211).

Kus

critique indicates that we should not fall intothe trap of seeing postprocessualism as the subject

friendly and people laden alternative to processual-

ismof taking Hodders word when he claims that In

so far as ethnoarchaeology limits itself to non-partici-

patory analysis from the outside, it is simply bad

anthropology from the postprocessual viewpoint

(Hodder, 1986, p. 95). Indeed, Kus demonstrates that, in

many ways, the ethnographic research enacted by

postprocessual archaeologists, offered under the rubric

of material culture studies, is as outside and as

nonparticipatory as the ethnoarchaeology it would

seek to replace (see below). Transporting specific ar-

chaeological questions to an ethnographic setting re-

moves ethnoarchaeologists from the complexities of

their research settings, regardless of whether their focus

is ecology or power and ideology. These cautionary tales

are not simply warnings about equifinality but a re-

minder to archaeologists that the causal frameworks in

which material culture is created and used are complex

and often quite fleeting.

While some researchers see the ethnoarchaeology of

cautionary tales as little more than an obnoxious spec-

tator (to borrow Simms vocabulary), other researchers

have found cautionary tales to have an important role in

the development of analogical explanations. As an ele-ment of discovery, Charlton (1981, p. 150) argues that

cautionary tales increase the amount of basic, factual

knowledge archaeologists can use to develop analogies.

Hole (1978, p. 129) likewise suggests that cautionary tales

aid in the development of general theory that can allow

archaeologists to develop increasingly accurate inter-

pretations of archaeological patterns. The key for eth-

nography aimed at raising an analogical consciousness is

not to do ethnography with a specific archaeological

problem in mind, but to seek a better understanding

of the diverse ways material culture operates in living

societies.

Analogy

No archaeologist is worth his salt, it can almost be said,

unless he [sic] makes an analogy or two in every mono-

graph he writes (Chang, 1967, p. 229).

At first blush, the diverse roles outlined above forethnoarchaeology appear haphazard and eclectic with

little evidence of an underlying unity. Yet they are linked

by a common concern with analogy. Wylie defines

analogy as:

the selective transposition of information from source to

subject on the basis of a comparison that, fully devel-

oped, specifies how the terms (elements) compared

are similar (positive components), different (negative

components) or of unknown likeness (neutral compo-

nents). . . An argument by analogy, proper, involves the

claim that given the similarities and differences specified

in the premises, some specific aspects of the neutral

analogy may also be assumed to be similar or, to com-

prise further points of positive analogy. . . (Wylie, 1985,

pp. 9394).

One of the reasons that analogys role in ethnoar-

chaeology has remained obscured is because archaeol-

ogists have been cautious about analogical forms of

reasoning, and particularly fearful of speciously af-

firming the consequent. Analogies were originally used

in accordance with unilinear evolutionary models of

culture that treated traditional societies as relics of

earlier stages of cultural evolution (Ascher, 1961;

Orme, 1981; Stahl, 1993; Trigger, 1989; Wylie, 1985).

The evolutionary stage formed the uniformitarianist

principle that linked the present to the past, often re-

sulting in the unwarranted and uncritical mapping

of modern behaviors directly onto archaeological data.

Wylie (1985) argues that the rejection of unilinear

evolution resulted in a comparable rejection of analogy

and other forms of uniformitarianism. The outcome

was on the one hand to pursue research that avoided

any interpretation beyond archaeological remains

(culturalhistorical archaeology, artifact physics) and,

on the other, an attempt to develop and employ non-

analogical (non-inductive) forms of inference (Wylie,

1985, 1988, p. 141). Rather than making inductivelybased interpretations of archaeological remains, ar-

chaeologists were entreated to rigorously and deduc-

tively test hypotheses (Wylie, 1985, pp. 8493). Under

a program of testing, analogy was replaced by

model or hypothesis, marking the supposed

shift from a pre-scientific (inductive) to a scientific

(deductive) study of the past (see especially Schiffer,

1978, pp. 233234).

The distinction between inductive and deductive

forms of argument, however, has proven more rhetor-

ical than real, and analogical inferencesblatantly

stated or veneered in scientific termsare now generally



6/22

recognized as an inescapable part of archaeological

research (Gould and Watson, 1982, p. 360; Charlton,

1981; Wylie, 1982, p. 399). Rigid frameworks of testing

meant to counter an affirmation of the consequent when

interpretive hypotheses (analogies) are transferred from

present to past are misplaced because, being inductive,

archaeological interpretations always affirm the conse-quent (see Graves, 1981, p. 86; Wylie, 1982, pp. 390

391). This is not to demote archaeological inference to

mere speculation. As Ebert (1979, p. 60) reminds us,

. . .analogy is, in itself, no more precarious or dan-

gerous than any other inductive procedure. If the pure

certainty of the sort sought through deductive testing is

out of reach, archaeologists are still quite capable of

identifying different degrees of plausibility in their in-

terpretations (Charlton, 1981; Ebert, 1979; Wylie, 1982,

1985, 1988). Wylie (1982, 1985) has identified two

techniques archaeologists can use to assess analogies

and her suggestions hint at how archaeologists can,over time, build increasingly secure claims about the

past. First, while analogies can be, and have been,

based on formal relations or on constant conjunctions,

in order to escape the problem of simple analogy that

underwrote unilinear evolution, archaeologists and

ethnoarchaeologists should focus their research on the

causal relations behind observable patterns. As Ebert,

1979, pp. 6061; emphasis added) notes, analogies can

be validated . . .if it can be argued that the process in

operation on both sides is similar or in some way bear

upon another. . .it must be shown that certain processes

are in operation or determinant in the living case; these

processes are then applied to the archaeological case.

More importantly, in order to develop greater security

in our analogical inferences, source-side ethnoarchaeo-

logical research should be expanded as fully as possible

to identify valid relations between material, cultural,

and behavioral patterns and their underlying causal

mechanisms (Wylie, 1985, p. 101; 1988, p. 146). As

Wylie explains (1985, p. 101), . . .[analogical] in-

quiry. . .must be specifically designed to determine what

causal connections hold between the material and cul-

tural or behavioral variables of interest, and under

what conditions these connections may or may not be

expected to hold. Second, the degree of similarity anddifference between the processual frameworks operating

in the two contexts needs to be established by testing.

In the case of an ethnographic analogue applied to an

archaeological context: This would [a] amount to a

specification of what (else) ought to be in the record as

a consequence of the postulated past processes and

conditions if they did in fact exist and operate as hy-

pothesized or, [b] more powerfully, if conditions were

different than postulated (Wylie, 1982, pp. 396398,

note 6). The goal of the testing is, in the case ofa, to

seek additional similarities in the material record that

would be expected if the same causal processes operated

in source and subject contexts, or b, to identify material

patterns that could indicate that an alternate suite of

causal processes created the pattern for which the

analogy was originally made. Once again, the key to

testing the inference is to know from source-side eth-

noarchaeological research the affect different causal

mechanisms have on material, cultural, and behavioralpatterns. With this sort of knowledge, it becomes pos-

sible to reconfigure processes to explain behavior that

may differ substantially from any modern situation

(Wylie, 1985, 1988).

Discussion

Wylies description of analogy provides us with a way

to see how the different roles adopted by ethnoarchae-

ology relate to analogical reasoning. There are two

components to the program outlined above. The first

requisite is to develop knowledge about causal processesand their affects on material variability in ethnographic

contexts, and the second is to enact testing procedures

that assess the validity of transferring analogical prop-

ositions between source and subject side contexts. The

different roles that ethnoarchaeology has adopted in

archaeology anticipate these two requirements.

The ethnoarchaeology focused on interpretive dis-

coveries and on the raising of analogical conscious-

ness are most specifically tied to developing our

understanding of how causal processes relate to material

and cultural patterns in ethnographic contexts. While

one element of this research is the quest to identify

previously unknown causal forces, much of the work

done by both these roles aims at developing a better

understanding of how previously identified processes

relate to their boundary conditions. Boundary condi-

tions are other factors in the causal environment that

have a direct bearing on the causal affects of the process

under investigation. Typically, boundary conditions are

other causal processes or structural conditions created

from the operation of past casual processes that facili-

tate, amplify or interfere with the operation of the pro-

cess being studied. Bowsers (2000) study of decorative

variation on Conambo ceramics is perhaps the best re-

cent work that fits under the heading of ethnoarchae-ology as interpretive discovery. Her study introduces

archaeologists to an entirely new relation between ma-

terial variation and cultural process. She demonstrates

that ceramic decoration is causally related to womens

political factions within the village of Conambo rather

than to the discrete ethnic units that are present. In

addition to identifying this process, Bowser (2000, p.

244) is also careful to outline its boundary conditions for

archaeologists: . . .it is precisely in small-scale societies,

where politics are consensus-driven, pottery is made in

the domestic contexts for domestic use, and there is

relatively little separation between public and domestic



7/22

contexts, that we should expect to find evidence of sig-

nification of political identity in domestic pottery style.

It is worthwhile noting that in outlining relations be-

tween political factions and decorative variability,

Bowser simultaneously adds to our understanding of

one of the boundary conditions for ethnic symbolism.

She reports that potters ethnic identities were recog-nizable in the ceramic variation, but that political fac-

tions were identified with more accuracy by women in

the village (Bowser, 2000, p. 238). The point is not that

ethnic symbolism fails to exert a causal affect on

variability, but seemingly that its effect is supplanted by

effects that engaged political factions exert on decorative

variability. In future cases where archaeologists suspect

that decorative variation is caused by ethnic symbolism,

they will need now to consider whether political factions

are also present and act as a limiting factor.

Although it is more rarely concerned directly

with causal process, an ethnoarchaeology that raisesanalogical consciousness likewise broadens our un-

derstandings of the causal influences operating in ethno-

graphic contexts. Rather than focusing on specific

processes, this approach to ethnoarchaeology tends to

reference the general ethnographic experiences of its

practitioners and the existing critical ethnographic lit-

erature. Here ethnoarchaeologists aim to tell their peers,

especially those archaeologists who advocate perspec-

tives reliant on cultures simplicity and uniformity, of the

fluidity and complexity of their own experiences in eth-

nographic settings. It would be easy to dismiss these

critiques as simply the tropes of postmodern exuberance.

But, if we read process into them, we can see that they

are warnings to archaeologists that the processual ma-

trix that creates material variation is incredibly complex

and much of it remains unknown. These critiques are

not simply the provenance of ethnoarchaeologists. Stahl

(1993), for example, has pointed out that the New Ar-

chaeologys focus on testing meant that many re-

searchers ceased to ask whether the propositions they

were testing in archaeological contexts had any ethno-

graphic validity. She echoes many ethnoarchaeological

critiques that target archaeological models which define

a priori structures of causal process. For example, the

quick jump to testing in the New Archaeology waspossible because Binfords (1962) tri-part model of cul-

ture was widely believed to identify the basic structure of

the causal influences on material variability. In contrast,

ethnoarchaeology that aims at raising analogical con-

sciousness argues that even the basic structures of the

casual influences on material, cultural and behavioral

patterns have yet to be defined. Hence, fortuitous

ethnoarchaeology or ethnoarchaeology for ethnoar-

chaeologys sake is not a trivial pastime, but, as

Charlton (1981), Hole (1978), and Kus (1997) note, an

important step toward understanding how processes

articulate in ethnographic contexts and create material

variation. In this regard, both interpretive discovery

ethnoarchaeology and the ethnoarchaeology aimed at

raising analogical consciousness elaborate source-side

research in the way that Wylie (1985, 1988) sees as

crucial to the development of analogical inferences.

The second element of the analogical program re-

quires less explanation. Analogical inferences are validwhen archaeologists can assume that the causal pro-

cesses they are investigating operate on both sides of an

analogical relationshipa validation that requires them

to demonstrate either that similar assemblages of sup-

porting processes (boundary conditions) also operate in

source and subject contexts, or that, while the sup-

porting processes vary, there is no significant change in

the causal effect of the specific processes in which they

are interested. For example, once an archaeological

pattern is attributed to specific causal processes, the

analogy is tested by looking for further patterning that

would be expected if the causal processes were operat-ing as hypothesized. Testing of this sort is most often

found in the daily work of normal, hypothesis-driven

archaeology that seeks to establish independent lines of

evidence, or horizontal independence (Wylie, 2000, p.

232), for a given interpretation. However, the same,

basic procedures are followed in the ethnoarchaeologi-

cal testing of archaeological propositions. A well

known example is Polly Wiessners (1983) assessment of

the archaeologically derived hypothesis that symbolic

information should be encoded in the non-functional

elements of San projectile points. Wiessner tested this

hypothesis by asking San Bushman to tell her about the

sorts of information they could identify from attributes

on iron points. She discovered that social information

was communicated through point attributes that were

clearly utilitarian, nullifying the initial hypothesis.

Notably, both archaeological and ethnoarchaeological

testing are best considered always to be part of ongoing

programs of research. In contrast to the hypothetico-

deductive models that were originally associated with

processual testing programs, testing never deductively

confirms our propositions in a way that finalizes our

knowledge of a causal relation. More elaborate pro-

grams of testing and more innovative source-side

research will always be needed. As Bowsers andWiessners works demonstrate, archaeological testing

and ethnoarchaeological source-side research continues

to fine-tune our understanding of the causal relations

that tie ethnicity to material variability (also see

Cunningham, 2001). At its most basic, testing assesses

the validity of transferring information from one con-

text to another. Thus, testing reflects a key methodo-

logical element in archaeologys epistemology that,

when combined with source-side research conducted by

the roles outlined previously, creates all the elements

necessary to advance archaeologys ongoing investiga-

tion of the past.



8/22

I have not yet discussed one of the four roles for

ethnoarchaeology identified above, namely, the quest by

Binford, Schiffer and others to identify law-like relations

that translate directly the archaeological record. This

role for ethnoarchaeology is unique. In contrast to those

already described above, it is not tied to the general

requirements of analogical reasoning so much as it is tothe monistic aspiration of the processual cultural model

and a very particularistic notion of middle-range theory.

As a result, I will examine this role in more detail later in

the following section.

Core universals and ethnoarchaeology

The above roles for ethnoarchaeology can be un-

derstood as components of archaeological epistemol-

ogy. As such, the roles possess a degree of theoretical

unity and, at least in this sense, they are free fromcharges of eclecticism. However, ethnoarchaeology is

painfully eclectic in another area. Furthermore, this

eclecticism has stunted significantly the potential of the

methodological program outlined above. Much of the

present work in ethnoarchaeology rests on the idea that

only a limited range of processes have enough cross-

cultural uniformity to be used in analogy. I refer to

these processes as core universals because they are

generally assumed to have a universal or quasi-uni-

versal causal influence over material variability. Core

universals are used in analogy in two related forms:

sometimes they are the foundation of complete models

of culture that define a priori a structure of processes

and, at other times, they are low-level bridging princi-

ples that often rest on certain methodological givens.

Different partisan interests in archaeology, specifically

those found in the processualpostprocessual opposi-

tion, have championed entirely different processes as

core universals. Admittedly, significant variation

does exist within the processual and postprocessual

schools, yet each school shares the belief that specific

families of process primarily drive culture.1 For

example, ecological/adaptive/evolutionary processes

typical of their common materialist orientation are of

primary importance in most processual applications of

analogy, while the cultural/historical processes are fore

fronted in postprocessual analogues. The presence of

core universals at the heart of these different partisan

interests has splintered ethnoarchaeological researchin a way that limits its ability to illuminate how causal

processes combine in the creation of material patterns.

To make this point, in the following discussion I will

first outline how core universals have been used in

processual and postprocessual ethnoarchaeology, and

then I will examine the key problems that have been

created by the reliance on core universals.

Processual ethnoarchaeology

The new New Archaeology and its rival siblings,

behavioral and evolutionary archaeology, are commit-ted to the idea that universal principles of culture exist in

how humans meet the material requirements of their

existence. For the New Archaeology, similar environ-

mental settings created similar cultural responses, thus

comparable environments were identified as the most

important condition for the application of analogy.

Aschers original definition of the New Analogy,

which predates but became an important element of the

New Archaeology (Binford, 1967), states quite ex-

plicitly that In summary, then, the canon is: seek

analogies in cultures which manipulate similar environ-

ments in similar ways (Ascher, 1961, p. 319; also seeAtherton, 1983).2

The ethnoarchaeological work of Gould (1971, 1974,

1978a, 1978b, 1980; Gould and Watson, 1982) is the

most explicit and fully developed attempt to outline how

uniformities in meeting material requirements can be

used to develop analogical inferences. When compared

to other processualists, Gould is also quite moderateif

inconsistentin his commitment to materialism. In

keeping with the scientism of the New Archaeology,

Gould explicitly avoids referring to analogy except to

dismiss it as a useful methodology. Instead, he suggests

1 I have elsewhere (Cunningham, n.d.) used Gross and

Levitts (1994) driven versus influenced distinction to talk

about the processualpostprocessual debate. For example, most

processualists and postprocessualists would recognise that

culture exhibits traits typical of both materialist and ideal-

ist cultural ontologies (see Cunningham, 2003 on this point).

The key difference lies in the relative importance assigned to

eachwhether cultural behavior is driven by adaptive strives

or evolutionary requirements and influenced by ideology or

whether it is driven by ideological process (negotiation of

power, constitution of meaning) and influenced by material

constraints/opportunities. Despite the diversity within proces-

sual and postprocessual schools of thought, they each share a

common understanding of what processes drive behavior.

2 Aschers suggestion seems to emphasize relationships

between human behavior and ecology. In a footnote, for

example, Ascher (1961, p. 318) identifies a third category of

analogy based on properties common to all men which seem

to refer to biophysical continuities held across the entire species

regardless of their ecological context. He finds this, however,

generally uninteresting because they do not factor in the

particular patterns of a prehistoric people in carrying out. . .ac-

tivities. Interestingly, both biological and ecological of conti-

nuities are used by Binford to justify the paradigmatic

independence of middle-range theory (Wylie, 1995, p. 23; e.g.,

see Wallaert-P^eetre

s, 1999 work on handedness among potters).



9/22

that certain behaviors are analogous in the past and

present because they are determined by uniform opera-

tion of covering laws (see Gould, 1978b, 1980, pp. 37

38). These covering laws are not general, but are found

in low-level eco-utilitarian kinds of explanations

(Gould and Watson, 1982, p. 367; see also Gould,

1978a,b, 1980). As he explains:

. . .many principles developed in evolutionary biology

and ecology can safely be assumed to have operated uni-

formly in the past as they do in the present, and they can

usefully be applied to the study of the human species

providing one accepts the notion that human traditions

may expand the total ecosystem to include social and

symbolic components. So those aspects of human behav-

ior that are most closely related to the physical and bio-

logical processes are also those that most reliably lend

themselves to the uniformitarianist assumption (Gould,

1980, p. 50).

. . .one must look first at the eco-utilitarian relationshipsthat occur in the situation one observes and see to what

extent variation in the observed behavior can be ac-

counted for by these immediate circumstances. If one

has exhausted this level of explanation without totally

satisfactory results, then one is entitled to go on to the

next higher level of explanation, namely the ideational

realm of shared traditions (Gould and Watson, 1982,

p. 367).

While these quotes may be read as a belief that all

culture is adaptive, Gould (1980, p. 43) is careful to

distance himself from this position, which he associates

with Binfords statement that culture is mans extra-

somatic means of adaptation (Binford, 1962, p. 218).3

Instead, he argues that some behaviors may be largely

independent of eco-utilitarian concerns and that these

behaviors may also have an affect on archaeological

variability. The problem of identifying these non-utili-

tarian, non-uniform residues is solved by first identi-

fying ethnographically the covering laws that

determine eco-utilitarian regularities and then, when

the archaeological findings deviate from these laws, to

move on to more normative and particularistic expla-

nations. He deems this approach the argument by

anomaly:

. . .there emerges a clear and convincing alternative to the

argument by analogynamely, the argument by anom-

aly. . . Only by looking for and recognizing anomalies

to general patterns of conformity to utilitarian expecta-

tions in human behavior can we reliably infer when

and under what conditions symbolic and ideational fac-

tors make a difference in the ways people actually behave(Gould, 1980, p. xi; emphasis in original).

Goulds critics have pointed out that the argument

by anomaly is as analogical as any other form of

ethnoarchaeology (Gould and Watson, 1982; Watson,

1980, p. 57; 1982, p. 446; Wylie, 1982, 1985; Charlton,

1981, p. 151). However, it is not Goulds analogy/

anomaly distinction that is most interesting. Rather, it is

how Gould uses the distinction between analogy/

anomaly to assign differing degrees of security to

different analogical inferences according to which cul-

tural processes they reference. With an important ca-

veat, the result is largely a rewording of the newarchaeologys existing model of culture (Binford, 1962,

1965). Gould and Binford both share the assumptions

that (1) ecological processes are the foundation upon

which all cultural behavior rests and (2) that cultural

historical processes (Goulds ideational factors) hold a

secondary (epiphenomenal) position in culture.

Eco-utilitarian processesresponding directly to the

ecological constraints/opportunities of the environ-

mentoperate as core universals that should be

unaffected by changes in non-ecological processes.

Culturalhistorical processes are thus largely emergent

from eco-utilitarian processes. The implication in terms

of analogy is that law-like relations between ecological

contexts and eco-utilitarian behavior validate uniform-

itarianist assumptions and facilitate archaeological in-

vestigation. In the terminology of analogy, the similar

causal influences emanating from similar ecological

contexts are the only boundary conditions necessary for

analogical inference.

However, Goulds preoccupation with anomaly

suggests an interesting addition to the Binfordian model

of culture. Under the Binfordian model, cultural/his-

torical processes are not boundary conditions for eco-

utilitarian processes. While cultural/historical processes

may exist in the form of style, they have no influenceover adaptive processes, which are a direct and unme-

diated response to environmental potentials. However,

Gould insists that anomalies can occur when idea-

tional factors (culturalhistorical processes) interfere

with a societys direct response to an environmental

situation. The implication is that, under certain condi-

tions, a societys response to an environment is not

unmediated (not at all law-like), but instead is depen-

dent on specific contextual factors; notably, the opera-

tion of other processes, including those typically

assigned to the realm of ideology. This is a significant

revision of the a priori structure of processes typically

3 Gould uses culture in a very restricted fashion. Culture

refers specifically to norms which he distinguishes from the

animal-like eco-utilitarian concerns that generate uniformities.

It is also worth noting that the differences between Binford and

Gould are not nearly as marked as Gould would believe.

Binford likewise makes room for non-adaptive behaviors under

the definition of stylistic variation (see Cunningham, 2003). The

key difference between them is that Gould argues cultural

historical factors do not simply emerge from ecological

constraints/opportunities, but in rare cases may actually influ-

ence the final character of ecological adaptation.



10/22

asserted in processual orientations, and it would seem to

undermine the tight causal relationship between

environment and culture that Gould relies upon for

archaeological inferences. Indeed, rather than environ-

mental similarities, it would seem that other contextual

factors, including the operation of culturalhistorical

processes, would need to be considered to validate anyeco-utilitarian analogy.

Goulds advocacy for nomological, eco-utilitarian

universalsand his reluctance to give them true uni-

versal statusbrings into focus an important distinc-

tion. Although process has always been present in

the literature, archaeologists concerned with spuriously

affirming the consequent have argued quite strenuously

that archaeological inferences must be based on uni-

versal causal forces rather than watered down causal

regularities like process (e.g., Schiffer, 1978). Both

Schiffer (1978, p. 240) and Gould (1978b, p. 251), for

example, recognize processes as the temporal andspatial manifestations of causal laws, and then state

that it is more important to identify the underlying

law-like operations.4 For them, process is always

identified through reference to laws, which are found

in a small number of ecological givens. As Schiffer

explains (1978, p. 240, emphasis in original), the laws

he seeks are a better basis for unifomitarianism than

are processes:

A statement of this doctrine which seems particularly

useful is that the laws of nature are constant. Thus, when-

ever or wherever the same process is operating, it is sub-

ject to the same law or laws. This approach differs fromthe view that the process found operating today also

operated in the past in ways that make it better suited

for anthropological research. Quite clearly, the process

of urbanization and state formation observable today

were not in operation 10,000 years ago; whenever and

wherever they are found, however, some laws will apply

(laws that specify in their boundary conditions that cer-

tain processes, like urbanization, must be present). Our

notions of uniformitarianism must take into account

the fact that not all processes are distributed uniformly

among all sociocultural systems.

Likewise, Ebert (1979) and Krause (1985) have ex-

plicitly argued that causal processes should be the uni-

form cultural elements behind analogical inferences; but

at least for Krause (1985), processes are narrowly

identified with the material influences in ceramic pro-

duction. The causal regularities that are appropriate to

archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research arethus restricted to only those that are thought to have a

widespread cross-cultural application because they are

unaffected by the causal forces affecting other areas of

culture. Gould himself seems to follow this general ad-

vocacy for eco-utilitarian universals. His concept of

anomaly, however, would seem to argue for a more

nuanced and process-based understanding of causal

regularities.

Postprocessual ethnoarchaeology

In contrast to processual research, postprocessualresearchers have selected an entirely different set of

uniformities that they believe to hold in the past and

present contexts. Postprocessualists have diligently

worked to challenge claims that the causal relation-

ships between material circumstances and human be-

havior can generate secure propositions useful for

archaeological interpretations. DeBoer (1984), for ex-

ample, undermines the use of least effort principle in

ceramic studies by suggesting that the ultimate least

effort strategy. . .would be to make no pottery at all!

(p. 540). Similarly, Gosselain (1994, p. 106) has also

noted the flexibility of the material constraints acting

on artifact production systems, and concluded that

technological systems are completely embedded in

culture in much the same way as decorative motifs,

religious beliefs or kinship systems. At the heart of

the postprocessual models is the assumed universality

of a hermeneutic involvement in the world, under

which power, hegemony and resistance replace

the processual reliance on adaptationist and Darwin-

ian approaches (Hodder, 1982a,b, 1985). Indeed,

postprocessual researchers have largely inverted the

model proposed by processual archaeology, placing

processes related to ideology and symbolism in the

foundational role in culture as core universals, andrelegating ecological concerns to a secondary and

non-deterministic position (see Cunningham, 2003 for

a discussion; e.g., Shanks and Tilley, 1982, 1987,

1992).

This shift is often described as the move from

ethnoarchaeology, which is usually defined as a

commitment to materialism, toward material culture

studies, which focus on the investigation of how

people construct their material worlds (Appadurai,

1986; Conkey, 1989; Hodder, 1986; Miller, 1983, 1985).

Rather than an adaptive response, culture and

material culture are understood in relation to meaning.

4 Gould is on record as stating that process should also be a

focus in research: . . .the archaeologist is faced not only with

discovering laws that determine certain aspects of human

behavior. . . but, more importantly, with discovering the

processes of manipulation that allow people to adapt laws to

their purposes (Gould, 1978b, p. 251). Elsewhere (Gould,

1980, p. 42) he has advocated that we focus on propositions

rather than laws, with propositions closely resembling other

definitions of process. However, a close reading of his work

shows that process is defined according to his overall model of

anomaly, which maintains the law-like influence of ecological

stimuli (see text).



11/22

In Conkeys terms (Conkey, 1989, p. 20; 1990),

culture is primarily a constitutive process. Hodder

explains:

Ethnoarchaeology, characteristically confined to the ar-

chaeological , material dimension, has little to offer those

who wish to explore the relationships between cultureand material practices, between structured belief and ac-

tion. Even though. . .discussion of the material necessar-

ily employs assumptions about cultural meanings, the

latter are not brought to the surface and critically exam-

ined within a narrow ethnoarchaeology (Hodder, 1986,

p. 97).

Ultimately a reformulated ethnoarchaeology will con-

tribute to material culture studies since. . .the meanings

of material items can only be adequately understood

by placing them more and more fully into a cultural

and historical context (Hodder, 1986, p. 97).

Two main tendencies have emerged in material

culture studies. As mentioned above, the first is an

adherence to a form of idealism that forefronts his-

torically based cognitive processes. This often appears

in a concern with meaning (Conkey, 1989; Hodder,

1982a, 1986), information flows/decision making (van

der Leeuw, 1984), symbolic messaging (Biehl, 1999),

and the flexibility in technological choices (van der

Leeuw and Papousek, 1992). The second element is a

focus on cultural processes that influence behavior in

the short term. Long-term culture change, such as

longue dureee shifts in subsistence or social organization,

are far less important to most postprocessualists than

understanding how individuals negotiate their place

within daily contexts. One of the important implica-

tions to follow from this line of reasoning is that ma-

terial cultureas a part of the constitutive processis

not necessarily a direct reflection of social realities.

Instead, material culture can be used actively in the

assertion of political and social power, and/or personal

identity (Shanks and Tilley, 1982, 1992). The active

role of material culture in these political strategies

suggests that archaeological patterns may indicate

imagined or even inverted versions of social reality

(Hodder, 1982a,b). The two elements together havedrawn material culture studies to Bourdieus (1977; also

see 1998) notion of practice. Practice theory is often

put forward as a solution to the major problems

in ethnoarchaeology, material culture studies and

indeedsocial theory. Both Conkey (1989, p. 22) and

Porr (1999, pp. 810), for example, have suggested

that Bourdieus notion of practice solves the material-

istidealist dichotomy, allowing for the eventual

dissolution of ethnoarchaeology within material culture

studies.

While the potential for rapprochement may exist

within practice theory, recent applications indicate

that the wish to dissolve ethnoarchaeology into

material culture studies is largely rhetorical. Closer

readings of Bourdieu (see contributions to Jarker et

al., 1990) suggest at least implicitly that much of his

work does not so much synthesize materialism and

idealism as it alternates between the two depending on

the specific cultural practice being analyzed (as isfound, for example, in Bourdieus [1984] opposition

between the necessity driven existence of the French

lower classes and aesthetic life of the elites; see

Gelbert, 1999 for an archaeological parallel). Collage-

building of this sort does little to solve the nuances of

the materialistidealist and structure-agency dichoto-

mies in modern social theory (see Stern, 2003 for an

overview of the divisions in contemporary practice

theory). Moreover, despite several claims to the effect

that both ecological and culturalhistorical processes

affect material culture (see Gosselain, 1994; Hodder,

1982a; but see David and Kramer, 2001), most post-processual approaches that use practice theory remain

uninterested in exploring relations between ecological

processes and behavioral patterns (Ortner, 1984 notes

a similar tendency in how practice theory in used

cultural anthropology). Advocates of practice theory

like Hodder (e.g., 1982b, 1985) have tended to restrict

their analyses to the symbolic structures lying behind

experience and the reconstitution of these structures in

daily discourses of social power. Ethnoarchaeologi-

cally, these structures are found in analyses of style

grammars (e.g., Greenberg, 1975; for sources and an

overview, see Hardin, 1979, 1983, 1984). Hodder

(1991) notes that among the Ilchamus, calabashes in-

stead of grain pots are decorated because cattle pas-

toralism and milk have more symbolic import than

does grain and agriculture. While the calabashes are

decorated according to notions of identity and beauty

(1991, pp. 8082), he argues that these decorations

also reflect a mental structure that oppose male to

female, red to white, and blood to milk. These op-

positions are then played out in daily practice and

mobilized in discourses about modernization and what

it means to be a good wife. Other studies, such as

van der Leeuw and Papouseks work in northern

Mexico (1992; also see Miller, 1985), use similartechniques to look at morphological attributes on

ceramics.

Postprocessualism, then, is a substantial inversion of

the material assumptions that govern most processual

analyses. However, the two camps are remarkably

similar in their tendency to rely upon a limited number

of secure causal processes that they believe can be

used to develop analogical inferences that will hold

across cultural contexts. Despite postprocessualist re-

luctance to frame their analysis in terms of causes,

Wylie (1995, p. 22) has noted that the normative ori-

entation advocated by postprocessualism can be as



12/22

explanatory as the processual model if, in fact, human

behavior is structured by conformity norms. Hodders

consistency in referencing structural oppositions in his

analyses of stylistic behavior (e.g., 1982a, 1990a,b,

1991) indicates that he does seem to believe these

structures to have a causal effect on behavior and

material variation. When combined with other state-ments claiming that all culture is stylistic (e.g., the

economy is as much stylistic as the decoration on a

potsherd [Hodder, 1985, p. 10]), the binary mental

structure and its reconstitution in daily life through

negotiations of power becomes both the primary causal

mechanism that impacts behavior and the cultural

continuity that enables inferences about the archaeo-

logical record (e.g., Hodder, 1991). In much the same

way that Gould relied upon eco-utilitarian universals,

Hodder and other postprocessualists rely on causal

regularities located in ideology to act as core

universals.

Middle-range theory and low-level givens

In addition to differences in their respective foun-

dational processes, processual and postprocessual ar-

chaeologies are occasionally thought to adhere to

entirely different epistemologies. Processual ethnoar-

chaeology has long been identified with middle-range

theory, whereas postprocessual research has been de-

fined in terms of a hermeneutic approach (Kosso,

1991; Raab and Goodyear, 1984). Under processual-

ism, middle-range theory was aimed at developing

low-level, inductively based nomological propositions

often about site formation processesthat translated

statics to dynamics (Binford, 1978, 1983; see Stark,

1993, pp. 9495; Schiffer, 1976, 1978). Because this

theory was built up from ethnographic observations, it

was considered to be independent of governing ar-

chaeological theory, and thus could be used to test

broad range premises about cultural behavior (Wylie,

1995).

Processual archaeology has thus initiated a number

of studies that are explicitly middle-range in the

sense that they attempt to identify low-level universals

that can be used to test broad range theory (afterWylie, 1988, p. 143). Artifacts are treated as con-

gealed behavior (Conkey, 1989, p. 19; following

Fenton, 1974, pp. 2324) in a way that allows for the

investigation of law-like regularities in the production,

use, discard and postdepositional alterations of arti-

facts. The methodological basis of such studies has

meant that they remain generally unconcerned with

overarching questions about total cultural systems and

instead focus on low-level regularities. Uniformities

operating as law-like regularities below the level

cultural have been sought in a number of more

recent studies of artifact production systems (e.g.,

contributions to van der Leeuw and Pritchard, 1984;

see especially Krause, 1985; Pritchard and van der

Leeuw, 1984, p. 10; Schiffer and Skibo, 1997; Vidale et

al., 1992). Roux (1999, p. 155) for example, attempts

to identify universals of processes which: relate to

mechanisms or laws that explain physical, cultural or

biological regularities. They relate to principles thathave been established by higher level explanations in

other disciplines. As she explains: Searching for

transcultural regularities presupposes uniformitarian

principles. These are more specifically congruent with

a technological approach where both the constraints

and resources of the raw material and technical

practices are analyzed. . . (Roux, 1999, p. 157). These

low-level technological factors include production se-

quences and the use of natural resources, which Roux

believes allows her to . . .assess the technical part,

which does not vary between the past and the present

(p. 165).As Raab and Goodyear (1984) have pointed out,

however, the preoccupation in archaeology with

middle-range theory as a methodological problem re-

lated to the translation of statics to dynamics is different

from the more hermeneutical way middle-range theory

was first defined in sociology (Raab and Goodyear,

1984, p. 262):

[Social science] theorists advanced the [middle range]

concept, not as a substantive theory of any particular

phenomenon, but rather as middle-range theorizing.

The essential point was to develop a strategy for inte-

grating research problems and data into cumulative bo-dies of scientific knowledge in which theories of limited

scope, arrayed at different levels of generality, could be

subsumed under domains of increasingly general princi-

ples (Raab and Goodyear, 1984, p. 225, emphasis in ori-

ginal).

In this sense, middle-range theory is not independent

of high-level theory, but is intrinsically involved in

making vertical linkages between non-testable, high-le-

vel propositions about culture and low-level empirical

investigations. The movement up and down the theo-

retical ladder is both inductive (from data to middle-

range theory to high-level theory), and deductive (fromhigh-level theory to middle-range theory to data) (Raab

and Goodyear, 1984, p. 257; Trigger, 1989, Chapter 1).

The notion that middle-range theorizing is both circular

and bidirectional (from data to theory and theory to

data), is shared by the hermeneutic orientations found in

postprocessual archaeology. As a result, postprocessu-

alists like Hodder (1986, p. 95) and others (Raab and

Goodyear, 1984, p. 262 following Price, 1982 and

Goodyear, 1977) have rejected the supposed indepen-

dence postulated by Binfords version of middle-range

theory despite the fact that some ethnoarchaeologists

continue to reference Binfords original definition



13/22

(Stark, 1993).5 Current low-level methodological work

in archaeology is generally described in the literature as

intrinsically related to propositions found in higher

levels of theory and recently the very distinction between

middle-range theory and hermeneutics has been dis-

missed as a matter of terminology rather than real

substance (Kosso, 1991; Tschauner, 1996; VanPool andVanPool, 1999).

However, despite the rhetoric of hermeneutics, both

processual and postprocessual archaeologists rely on

the methodological independence of their low-level

propositions in a way that validates core universals.

Processual and postprocessual archaeology have each

outlined models of culture that define a hierarchy of

process: the first emphasizing material constraints and

the second cognitive operations. Following from this, a

suite of low-level, empirical investigations have tended

to operate as givens that are largely independent from

broader theoretical concerns. In processual research,one primary given is the important distinction be-

tween function and style (e.g., Dunnell, 1978; Hurt and

Rakita, 2001; Sackett, 1977), while for postprocessual-

ists, givens are found in the ubiquitous structural

oppositions imbedded in style (see Tschauner, 1996, pp.

1518). Missing in both cases are the mid-level theoret-

ical linkages that make plain how cultural models relate

to these givens.6 In the processual stream, the absence

of such theoretical ties works to support claims that the

patterns uncovered by the low-level empirical research

relate to independent, and (often law-like) universal

phenomena. Therefore, a researcher may work on

methodological questions related to the style-function

distinction without buying into, or even recognizing,that notions of style and function are dependent on

overarching, broad range propositions about culture

(Cunningham, 2003). It is worth noting that, notwith-

standing the overtly hermeneutic orientation, the

disjointedness in postprocessualism serves the same

purpose: structuralism and the analysis of style gram-

mars have an independent, methodological status often

quite similar to the original middle-range propositions

offered by processual researchers. Thus, researchers may

find themselves treating style grammars as a purely

methodological issue, without recognizing that the entire

notion of style grammars is dependent on a set of sus-pect theoretical propositions about the relationship be-

tween language and cognition (see Hardin, 1983).7 Even

if the cultural models from which they are drawn appear

to many as idealized or more hypothetical than

real, the independent and insulated character of these

low-level givens supports the continued belief that the

processes upon which they are based are core univer-

sals.

Historical analogy

By way of contrast, it is worth perhaps considering

briefly one type of analogy that has not relied on core

universals. Historical analogy often is thought to be a

distinct form of analogical inference because it relies

on historical continuities between source and subject

5 A number of low-level propositions about behavior have a

universal-like application in archaeology, but they are best not

considered universals in the sense that their influence on

variability is the same regardless of other contextual factors.

For example, whether culture is defined in processual (least

effort principles, adaptive strives) or postprocessual terms

(power, structuralism), the actual trace generated by a chert

tool rubbing across a hide will be the same. But, changes in the

force applied, the hardness of lithic and/or worked material, the

duration of use, or the amount of grit in any context can

significantly change the character of a scraping residue. The

widespread acceptance of research tools like usewear analyses

comes from the fact that the theories central to usewear studies

are often independent from the governing propositions that

drive any one program of research. In other words, the

processes central to usewear studies are not derivatives of the

processes central in the processual or postprocessual models of

culture. As Wylie (1985, 2000, pp. 231232) and Tschauner

(1996) have noted, this sort of independence allows alternate

models of culture to be tested against such low-level proposi-

tions. However, identifying propositions with this universal-

like application in archaeologythat can be middle range in

the Binfordian senserequires knowledge of how specific

processes relate to their boundary conditions in both the low-

level propositions and in the higher-level processes that are

being tested.

6 The recent rise of technological and/or la chaiine opeeratoire

approaches probably best illustrates this point. Research on

technical systems is often thought to produce low-level

uniformities that are independent of specific cultural models.

However, postprocessualists have tended to draw from Lemo-

nnier (1986, 1992) in fore fronting the flexibility and cultural

dependency of all technological systems (e.g., Gosselain, 1994)

while Schiffer and Skibos (1997) largely parallel research

examines the material constraints that limit exactly this sort

of flexibility (see Schiffer, 1994 for an illuminating discussion).

In both cases, the approaches taken to technological systems

(i.e., the causal processes that are referenced to explain

technological choices) are largely consistent with the cultural

models preferred by each analyst.7 Interestingly, at the very point where Hardin (1983) was

beginning to question whether style grammars were analogous

to language and could be used to define cultural entities (in the

cognitive sense), the postprocessualists adopted the approach to

stimulate their research into prehistoric cognition, emphasizing

both its holistic character and its linguistic qualities.



14/22

contexts. Both Ascher (1961) and Chang (1967), for

example, draw a distinction between the folk-culture or

direct historical approaches and the general comparative

or new analogy approaches. Gould (1974, 1980, pp.

3435) has identified discontinuous and continues

analogies, while Watson (1979) emphasis a distinction

between homologies and analogies (also see Trigger,1989, 1998).

Archaeological research going back into the 19th

Century has relied on the use of both types of analogy

(see Charlton, 1981, pp. 133134). However, historical

analogies are now receiving increased attention in ar-

chaeology because they are assumed to allow for a closer

and more nuanced reading of archaeological materials

(Agorsah, 1990; Kehoe, 1999; Trigger, 1998). In recent

years, archaeologists have also begun to work with de-

scendent communities that would like to see archaeology

become more historically sensitive. As a result, archae-

ologists are beginning to revisit the Direct HistoricalApproach (Baerreis, 1961; Steward, 1942) which was

such an important part of the original work in archae-

ology, but then lost prominence under the New Ar-

chaeology and postprocessualism (Longacre, 1991a,b, p.

2; Trigger, 1989). In many cases, the use of historical

analogues is advocated as a way of rectifying the erro-

neous frames of reference perpetuated by the ethno-

archaeological use of general analogy (Gordon, 1992;

Wilmsen, 1989; see discussion in MacEachern, 1996, pp.

246247).8

Watson (1980, 1982; Gould and Watson, 1982) has

noted that historical and general analogues are not re-

markably different. Citing Wylie, she claims that they

are logically the same when the materials are prior to

the memory of living informants (Watson, 1982, p. 445;

also see Watson, 1980, p. 56):

Wylie. . .asserts that the strength of an analogical argu-

ment is indeed increased the more fully it meets criteria

ofnumber and detailed nature of similarities in form,

and range of occurrences across a variety of archaeolog-

ical and ethnographic contexts. . . This means that an ar-

chaeologist working in a geographic area where cultural

continuity is marked has an advantage in acquiring test-

able and a priori strong analogies to use in final interpre-

tations over the archaeologists who must rely solely ongeneral comparative analogy. This is true because de-

scription of the physical and cultural activities, institu-

tions, and materials of the descendents of the people

whose remains are being excavated are more likely to

be analogous to past activities, institutions and materials

in multiple (often linked) ways than are analogies

derived from anywhere else. Nevertheless, although [his-

torical analogies] may possess some higher degree of

prior probability than general comparative analogies,

the two kinds of analogy are on the same logical footing

as testable hypotheses; they are acceptable interpreta-

tions only after they have been confirmed (Gould and

Watson, 1982, p. 359, emphasis in original).

If we update Watsons quote to figure in Wylies

later emphasis on causal relations, we see that the

number, nature, and range of formal similarities indicate

the operation of a similar causal mechanism. What

historical continuity offers, then, is an increase in the

likelihood that the same structure of causal processes

bridge modern and archaeological contexts. Watsons

assertion that general and historical analogues are on

the same logical footing underscores the fact that his-

torical and general analogues are simply differences in

degree of similarity one can presuppose from the outset

in an analogical operation. However, because continu-ity in the operation of specific processes cannot be

guaranteedbecause the relevant boundary conditions

may have changed in the interimboth historical and

general analogues must be validated by the same level

of empirical testing. As Watson (Gould and Watson,

1982, p. 360) explains: In fact, a case can be made that

one must be especially cautious of direct historical

analogues because the temptation is so great to accept

the contemporary populations as living prehistoric

peoples. . .9

Notably, historical analogy escapes the dependence

on core universals despite the fact that it is logically

similar to general analogy. The transfer of information

between source and subject contexts in historical anal-

ogy is validated by a homological relationship in the

causal structure. The actual configuration of specific

processes in this structurewhether ecological or cul-

tural/historical processes are more or less uniformis

not an overriding concern. Historical analogy thus un-

dermines those perspectives that would see core uni-

versals as a necessary condition for analogy.

8 Stewards original definition of the Direct Historical

Approach seems to have had much the same goal in mind,

being specifically formulated to redress a narrowly biological or

natural science view of artifact variation (see discussion in

Steward, 1942).

9 Ethnoarchaeologists have continued to apply direct his-

torical approaches in their interpretations despite classroom

shifts in archaeological theory (Kepecs, 1997, pp. 194195;

also see Tschauner, 1994). For example, in areas like Franco-

phone West Africa, ethnographic research beginning with

Griaule and running to current logicistic orientations have

always integrated archaeological, historic and ethnographic

approaches (David, 1992; MacEachern, 1996; and Clifford,

1988, for discussions). Recent logicist approaches (e.g., Gallay,

1992; Gallay et al., 1992; Gallay and Huysecom, 1989;

Huysecom, 1992) have even combined a concern with historical

analogy with rigid (almost inflexible) testing strategies and the

highly technical analyses of production systems.



15/22

Discussion

The reliance on core universals creates a number of

problems for ethnoarchaeology. Wylie (1982, 1985) has

cautioned for two reasons against making strong dis-

tinctions between secure analogueslike those based on

core universalsand other seemingly tenuous ana-logical propositions. First, even so-called secure propo-

sitions are analogous, inductive, and include a degree of

uncertainty.10 Hence, the assumption that specific pro-

cesses are universal may prematurely restrict source-

side investigation of the scope and those processes have

on material variability. Furthermore, during testing the

same assumption may leave researchers in a poor posi-

tion to recognize when the variation in the causal

frameworks between source and subject contexts nullifies

the analogy (Wylie, 1982, pp. 393, 399; e.g., Holes, 1978

discussion of pastoralism). Second, the identification of

secure propositions directs research toward only thosehypotheses that appear amenable to a high degree of

certainty. In the processual case, research is directed to-

Date post:	08-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	fungus
View:	215 times
Download:	0 times

Cunningam2003-etnarh-procesualpluralism

Documents