History of Archaeology Scientific Method Research strategy o Repeatable Make observations Create a question Hypothesis Test Analyze and conclude o Repeat the steps Theory Systems of ideas intended to explain something Why is theory important o Determines interpretations of the past o How archaeology is used Paradigm shift o Shift in basic assumptions Theories develop through change Necessary to better understand the past Driven by constant change Origins of Archaeology Nabonidus Babylon o City of Ur King Thutmose IV Egypt o Sphinx Reverence not exploration of past Renaissance Europe o First evidence of excavation to recover and explore Greek Roman and Celtic emphasis o Sir Francis Bacon Scientific method Not yet part of archaeology 18th century More sophisticated techniques in archaeology Happening elsewhere o James Hutton Uniformitarianism same process at work in present happened in past Same processes at work Ridiculed Early 19th Century Recovering artifacts BUT o Human made vs Natural processes o Thunderstones arrowheads Interactions with cultures o Expanding empires o Changes views 19th Century Happening at the same time o Jean Baptiste Lamarck physical traits Inheritance of acquired traits o Charles Lyell revisited Uniformitarianism o Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species Two major developments in archaeology o Three age system Christian Thomsen Cataloging artifacts into time periods Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age Classification based on material used Assumptions Tools were not used at the same time Get better as you go on o Determination of age depth in antiquity Directly linked to the age of the earth New hominin discoveries Humans and their early ancestors Discovered in Germany and Java Uniformitarianism Evolution All changing scientist s perspectives Convincing the Community Jaques Boucher de Perthes o Book on tools and animals o Lyell is convinced John Lubbock o Closer look at stone age o Differences in appearance Divides into Neolithic Paleolithic 20th Century Development of method and theory o ID Native American cultural groups in archaeological record Early 20th century excavation for WPA project o Often ignore culture o Want artifacts Paradigm shift V Gordon Childe o Patterns and mapping across Europe Emphasis on cultural history Nature of prehistory Connecting between artifacts and social and economic relations o Two revolutions Neolithic appearance of settled villages Urban appearance of cities and complex Archaeology as a science governments Shift opens door to look at much more Incorporate statistics o A C Spaulding Cluster attributes to see changes over time Apply to social aspects New archaeology 1960s Processual Archaeology Based on scientific method and supported by development of theory Lewis Binford o Archaeology is either science or nothing Rooted in 1960s social environment Not good enough to interpret artifacts o Must ask the right questions Induction inferences based on artifacts Deduction inferences based on laws and models Systems theory o View culture as systems that produces steady state Can see rapid change Archaeology and Federal Legislation Around the same time National Historic Preservation Act NHPA o Section 106 take into account effects of building on historic or prehistoric sites o Anything with federal funding Cultural Resources Management o Identify sites minimize avoid adverse effects on historic or prehistoric sited Postprocessual Archaeology 1980s Too scientific too removed Archaeology should understand past from perspective of Etic approach and understand of culture from outside Emic culture can only be understood from inside o Ian Hodder people who lived it processual perspective o Context of artifacts Do not emphasis hypothesis o Rather interpretations on Contextual data o Interpretations are ongoing Competing views Processual separate past from present Post processual embraces present and the view it brings to interpreting the past NEED TO KNOW Know people and contributions Know broad time periods and what happened in them o 18th 19th centuries