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Archaeological Theories 51

The changes in methodology and technology stimulated by New Archaeology

necessitated change in field methods and strategies. Interdisciplinary expertise in
archaeology increased as a result of ecological approaches in which past environments
and their relevant material evidence like faunal, floral and geological data were
encountered. Interests in subsistence behaviour, diet and formation processes have given
rise to other sub-disciplines like zoo-archaeology (the study of faunal remains);
bioarchaeology (the study of human remains), palaeobotany (the study of plant remains);
ethnoarchaeology (the study of living peoples who make materials today as the one found
in archaeological sites); experimental archaeology (the study of prehistoric material by
replicating prehistoric tools to understand the techniques and processes of their
formation) and geoarchaeology (the study of geomorphic processes as they pertain to
archaeology and palaeoenvironments).

Critics of New Archaeology

Several scholars reacted and severely criticised the New Archaeology. The critics felt that
New Archaeologists simply coined new vocabularies and created a jargon. They termed
their scientific aspirations as "scientistic" or "functionalist". They felt that it is nothing but
a refined form of processual archaeology in which much emphasis is given to functional
and ecological explanation. In the early phase, it reflected the functional-processual
phase and later it turned into a cognitive-processual phase wherein the cognitive aspects
of the early societies are given much importance.

Although the New Archaeology advocated in studying all aspects of cultural systems,
New Archaeologists merely concentrated on subsistence patterns, trade, and to a lesser
degree on social organisation. They pointed out that Binford's own research has been
largely concerned with technology and subsistence patterns as they all related to
ecological adaptations. Major aspects of human behaviour, such as religious beliefs,
aesthetics, and scientific knowledge, received little attention. Their scope could not
extend beyond ecological and settlement pattern. The New Archaeologists appear to
have erred in assuming that ecological constraints would exert same degree of influence
on all aspects of culture but failed to recognise other cultural factors. The growing
awareness of these weaknesses between 1970s and 1980s necessitated the
archaeologists to rethink over the application of this theory, which led to the formulation
of contextual archaeology or postprocessual archaeology or interpretative archaeology.

Archaeologists felt that the processual archaeology placed too many limitations on the
way data could be looked at. Particularly, the attempts to derive broad laws from the data
were seen to exclude the importance of the individual and of individual actions in the
past. A mass of detailed criticism of the processual methods was loosely brought
together under the umbrella of post-processual archaeology.

Post-processual approaches
In 1980s, a number of archaeologists became increasingly dissatisfied with the direction
of new archaeology. One such archaeologist is Ian Hodder. After testing all the
approaches like cultural process, structuralism, functionalism, system thinking and alike
in the field by using various computer stimulated spatial models he thought that New
Archaeology could not answer all the questions raised. His line of thinking was well
reflected in his work "Postprocessual Archaeology" published in Advances in
Archaeological Method and Theory (1985). He became the one of the principal
proponents of the post-processual archaeologists. The post-processual archaeologists
like Mark Leone and Michael Shanks (also known as interpretative archaeologists) see the
context of the material remains and the see the intention of the deposition of the material
in the ground, both in relation to each other and other elements of the site. They will see
the individual's role or action and the whole process involved in the deposition. The social
and ideology factors are now recognised as active forces of change. The mental structure
and belief systems that prevailed in a particular society guide cultural adaptations. The
various theoretical arguments were placed in interpreting the past and different schools of
thought were emerged. Among them, the neo-Marxist, the post-positivist, the
phenomenological approach and the hermeneutic (or interpretative) view are some of the
important school of thoughts.

The neo-Marxist school emphasises that the duty of the archaeologists is not only to
describe the past but to use such insights to change the present world. This approach is
contradictory to the objectivity approach of the processual archaeologists.

The post-positivist approach rejects the emphasis on the systematic procedures of

scientific method and they found it is capitalism, which exerts their hegemony. One could
see the clear political overtone in their approach.

The phenomenological approach lays stress on the personal experience of the individual
in the given material world. For instance in the landscape archaeology the human role in
shaping or modifying the landscape is stressed such as the forest clearance, formation of
tank, creation of monuments, etc.

The hermeneutic view rejects the attempts toward generalisation, instead, it emphasises
the uniqueness of each society and culture and to study the full context of each in all its
cultural diversity.

Contextual archaeology
Ian Hodder and his students made major role in the formulation of this post-processual
theory. The contextual approach is based on the conviction that archaeologists need to
examine all possible aspects of an archaeological material in order to understand the
significance of the each part of it. For instance, status, religion, beliefs or myth played a
significant role in the formation of burial customs. Therefore, the archaeological material
that found in a burial cannot be read in isolation. It has to be read in which these materials
are recovered. Therefore, Hodder stresses the importance of cultural traditions as factors
playing an active role in structuring cultural change. These traditions supply most of the
knowledge, beliefs and values that simultaneously influence economic and social change
and that are again reshaped by that change. They also can play a specific role in resisting
or promoting specific changes. Due to these concepts, archaeologists drew their
attention towards historical linguistics, oral traditions, historical ethnography and other
related factors to formulate holistic models of prehistoric cultures.

Fig. 4.2 The basic archaeological concepts of provenience, association and context are
illustrated by tomb of a Maya ruler from Tikal, Gutemala

On the whole, the above theories can be understood in the following manner: the culture-
historical archaeologist sees the neolithic tool as a mere archaeological evidence and
always try to place them in a chronological frame through classification. Whereas, the
processual archaeologist sees the same tool as an aid for clearing the forest for
expansion of the agriculture. On the other hand, the post-processual archaeologist
considers the same tool as they are carrying some ritual and symbolic value in addition to
chronological and utilitarian value. Therefore, the position or even the orientation of the
tool is so important to them.

In behavioural archaeology, one sees, how this tool is moved to a particular

archaeological context. Further, they see the various processes involved like depositional
process, reclamation process, re-use process and disturbance process.

Archaeology and Gender

One of the most current and popular themes in archaeological studies is that of gender.
This interest has become widespread since early 1980s. Growing interest in gender issues
in other disciplines has paralleled the rise of an explicit interest in archaeology. It has also
gone hand-in-hand with the growth of Feminist movement. The edited volume by Joan
Gero and Margaret Conkey (1991) entitled Engendering Archaeology: Women and
Prehistory provides a broad perspective on gender in archaeology.

The archaeology of gender comprises several themes like a correction of male bias in
archaeology. It started with the critique androcentric assumptions. Androcentrism is the
belief that men man are at the centre of things, either making up society exclusively or
with women on the margins. Feminists argue that it is important to isolate such
androcentric assumptions. Many have argued that the contribution of women to
archaeological thought has been systematically minimised by historians of archaeology.
So feminist archaeologists look the past in different angle and to see how the society
evolved.

Archaeology today

It has been long recognised that the archaeological record normally contains a far from
complete sample of the material remains of the past. John Myres (1923) observed that
archaeology consisted of discard material left by man through the years. Grahame Clark
(1939) commented in his work Archaeology and Society that various factors that influence
the preservation factors. New Archaeologists assume that if the archaeological record is
adequately interpreted, it can offer a relatively complete and undistorted picture of the
societies. However, the people like Robert Asher, Hodder and David Clark again
questioned this. These archacologists felt that artefacts were made, used and frequently
discarded in different contexts and not all of them were equally represented in the
archaeological record. Archaeological sites were distorted or destroyed by subsequent
activities both by human and natural agencies. By understanding the whole depositional
processes in stage, any archaeologist can reconstruct the past. David Clarke took first
step in this direction in 1973 in a paper 'Archaeology: the loss of innocence'. He argued
that archaeology would remain 'an irresponsible art form' unless a body of theory was
systematised that related archaeological remains to human behaviour. Clarke's
memorable comment was that "the discipline with the theory and practice for the
recovery of unobservable hominid behaviour patterns from indirect traces in bad
samples', According to him, archaeologists have access only to the sample of associated
material remains that in turn have been deposited in the archaeological record, survived
to be recovered, and actually been recovered. He formulated five bodies of theory to
understand the archaeological findings namely, pre- depositional, depositional, retrieval,
analytical and interpretative. Pre-depositional and depositional theory in which one should
analyses the various factors like environmental, ecological, human and natural processes
like digging, plundering, building, erosion, decay, etc., that involved in the deposition
which reaches today to us as an archaeological site. The retrieval theory deals with what
survived in the archaeological record and what is recovered. The analytical theory deals
with the classification, modelling, testing and other experimental studies. Interpretative
deals with processes involved in the whole human activities. Therefore, Clarke felt that
integration of social, biological and other physical sciences in the background of
metaphysical, epistemological and logical inferences alone could give a better idea on the
human past. This made the archaeology as a scientific discipline, Michael Schiffer (1976)
tried to understand the behavioural pattern of the material based on the discarded
material, which he named it as "behavioural archaeology'. He studied the 'cultural
formation processes (what popularly known C-transforms)' involved in the discarded
material. It stimulated an increasing amount of ethnoarchaeological research, which
encouraged a flawed approach to archaeological interpretation. The emergence of various
theories and its subsequent transformation clearly indicates that archaeological remains
should be understood on its own terms by using common sense.

In India, the culture-historical approach is extensively followed and it is still being used in
most of the archaeological investigations. This approach may be due to the historical gap
that existed in Indian history. Further, the availability of the service of the Laboratories and
specialists in different fields like palaeontology, palaeobotany, ethnoarchaeology
palaeozoology to archaeology is so limited. Therefore, the archaeology could not move
beyond certain level of interpretation in India.

Main References Björn Anderson (2002)

Imperial Legacies, Local Identities: References to Achaemenid Persian Iconography on

Crenelated Nabataean Tombs: Source: Ars Orientalis, Vol. 32, Medes and Persians:
Reflections on Elusive Empires pp. 163-207 Published by: Freer Gallery of Art, The
Smithsonian Institution and Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan

David Fleming (1989)

Source Eggshell Ware Pottery in Achaemenid Mesopotamia: Iraq, Vol 51, pp. 165-185
Published by: British Institute for the Study of Iraq

Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre(Jan.., 1999)

Satrapal Sardis: Achaemenid Bowls in an Achaemenid Capital: Soure American Journal

of Archaeology, Vol. 103, No, pp. 73-102 Published by Archaeological Institute of America

G. D. Summers(1993),

Archaeological Evidence for the Achaemenid Period in Eastem Turkey: Source: Anatolian
Studies, Vol. 43 pp. 85-108 Published by British Institute at Ankara

Nicholas Cahill(1988)

Taş Kule: A Persian-Period Tomb near Phokaia: Source: American Journal of

Archaeology, Vol. 92, No. 4, pp. 481-501 Published by Archaeological Institute of America

Karamian Gholamreza (2006)

Contemporary Indian and Ancient Iranian bracelet (kada): Comparison Indian

archaeological society