A dialogue on the meaning and use of analogy in ethnoarchaeological reasoning

Gould, Richard A.; Watson, Patty Jo

doi:10.1016/0278-4165(82)90002-2

Cited by 165 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Gould and Watson, 1982;Cameron, 1993). Archaeologists tend to rely on ethnographic analogy over explicit modeling in order to create inferences of prehistoric behavior (but see below).…”

Section: Middle Range Theory: Landscape Behavioral Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Referential reasoning identifies linkages between human behavioral variability within cultural systems and resulting patterns of material remains. These analogies tend to be broad generalizations about how human behavior produces material culture (Gould and Watson, 1982). Wylie (1980) suggests that the strength of such analogical argumentation is increased the more frequently it occurs, in the specificity of its occurrence, and the range of occurrences across time and space.…”

Section: Middle Range Theory: Landscape Behavioral Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

Schoville

2016

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

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This study explores how early modern humans used stone tool technology to adapt to changing climates and coastlines in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. The MSA is associated with the earliest fossil evidence for modern humans and complex cultural behaviors during a time period of dramatic climate change. Human culture allows for the creation, use, and transmission of technological knowledge that can evolve with changing environmental conditions. Understanding the interactions between technology and the environment is essential to illuminating the role of culture during the origin of our species. This study is focused on understanding ancient tool use from the study of lithic edge damage patterns at archaeological assemblages in southern Africa by using image-based quantitative methods for analyzing stone tools. An extensive experimental program using replicated stone tools provides the comparative linkages between the archaeological artifacts and the tasks for which they were used. MSA foragers structured their tool use and discard behaviors on the landscape in several ways -by using and discarding hunting tools more frequently in the field rather than in caves/rockshelters, but similarly in coastal and interior contexts. This study provides evidence that during a significant microlithic technological shift seen in southern Africa at ~75,000 years ago, new technologies were developed alongside rather than replacing existing technologies. These results are compared with aspects of the European archaeological record at this time to identify features of early human technological behavior that may be unique to the evolutionary history of our species.ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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“…Gould and Watson, 1982;Cameron, 1993). Archaeologists tend to rely on ethnographic analogy over explicit modeling in order to create inferences of prehistoric behavior (but see below).…”

Section: Middle Range Theory: Landscape Behavioral Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Middle Range Theory: Landscape Behavioral Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

Schoville

2016

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

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“…Nos referimos, por su troncalidad con el funcionalismo, a las que más han impactado entre nosotros con los nombres de arqueología espacial (Willey, 1953;Hodder y Orton, 1976;Clarke, 1977;Hietala, 1984;AA.VV. en Burillo, ed., 1984;; arqueología antropológica (Willey y Phillips, 1958;Binford, 1962;Harris, 1968;Sahlins, 1977;Yellen, 1977;Gumerman y Phillips, 1978;Gould y Watson, 1982;Gibbon, 1984; entre otros); arqueología social (Renfrew, 1973a;Gjessing, 1975;Moberg, 1980;Bintliff, 1984); arqueología econó-mica (Higgs y Vita-Finzi, 1972;Higgs, 1975;Sheridan y Bailey, 1980;Dennell, 1985); arqueología demográfica (Boserup, 1965;Zubrow, 1975;Hassan, 1974;Barker, 1984); arqueología de la muerte (Ucko, 1969;Brown, 1971;Chapman, Kinnes y Randsborg, 1981).…”

Section: Spal 1 (1992)unclassified

“…No hay que olvidar que por otra parte se vienen promoviendo, como hemos dicho antes, distintas alternativas que se contraponen como derivadas del estructuralismo, en las distintas versiones de la arqueología contextual (Chang, 1967;Trigger, 1968a-b;Schiffer, 1972;1982-84;Renfrew, 1973a;Redman, 1978;Gumerman y Phillips, 1978;Gould y Watson, 1982;Butzer, 1982;Hodder, 1982;Shanks y Tilley, 1987;Criado, 1988).…”

Section: Spal 1 (1992)unclassified

Tribalización, jerarquización y estado en el territorio de El Argar

Matute¹

1992

SPAL

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TRIBALIZACION, JERARQUIZACION Y ESTADO EN EL TERRITORIO DE EL ARGARpor OSWALDO ARTEAGA RESUMEN Desde la perspectiva epistemológica y teórica del materialismo crítico y dialéctico, y desde la estrategia metodológica de una Arqueología Social al servicio de la HISTORIA: exponemos nuestros puntos de vista acerca del proceso que se desarrolla en el Sudeste de la Península Ibérica desde el Neolítico Final y la Epoca del Cobre, hasta la Epoca del Bronce. Argumentamos que este proceso histórico comienza con la tribalización segmentaria del territorio (Cultura de Almería), y que pasando por una jerarquización socio-política del mismo (Cultura de Los Millares) acaba en la formación de un Estado centralizado (Cultura de El Argar).ABSTRACT Using the epistemological and theoretical perspective of critical dialectic materialism, and the methodological strategy of social Archaeology, in the service of HISTORY, we expound our points of view about the process developed in the Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula from the Late Neolithic and the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. It is argued here that this historical process starts by the segmentary tribalising of the territory (Culture of Almería), and that, passing through a social-political hierarchization of the territory (Culture of Los Millares), it results in the formation of a centralized State (Culture of El Argar). INTRODUCCIONLa llamada "Cultura de El Argar" es una de las manifestaciones prehistóricas más relevantes de cuantas se puedan referir a la Epoca del Bronce en el Occidente de Europa. El estudio arqueológico de la misma fue iniciado desde un punto de vista sistemático por los hermanos Enrique y Luis Siret, ingenieros belgas que trabajaron en las explotaciones mineras de la Sierra Almagrera y se afincaron en Cuevas del. Almanzora (Almería), donde Don Luis fallecería el día 7 de Junio de 1934; después de una prolongada vida investigadora (Pellicer, 1986). SPAL 1 (1992): 179-208

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“…Analogy refers to the use of relevant observable behaviours as a proxy for unobservable behaviours and has been the subject of much discussion in archaeological and anthropological literature (Anderson 1969;Ascher 1961a;Binford 1967;Charlton 1981;Freeman 1968;Gould 1980;Gould and Watson 1982;Hiscock 2008;Hodder 1982;Orme 1974;Stahl 1993;Thompson 1956;Wylie 1985;. While analogy allows an association to be made between two different phenomena, uniformitarianism can extrapolate this link into the past.…”

Section: Experimentation As Middle-range Theory Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of experimental knapping in empirically testing key themes in the evolution of lithic technology: reduction intensity, efficiency and behavioural complexity

Muller¹

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Experimental knapping has complimented and stimulated lithic analyses for over a century.Throughout this period, the discipline has witnessed an increase in the scientific rigour and theoretical grounding with which these studies are conducted. This thesis charts these key trends and in doing so establishes a best-practice model of experimental knapping, the veracity of which is in turn tested using four new lithic experiments. These case-studies employ experimental knapping to advance our understanding of flake platform measurement, reduction intensity, technological efficiency, and behavioural complexity.The first case-study, Chapter 3, offers a more accurate and precise calliper-based method of flake platform measurement that relies on simple geometric approximations of platform shape rather than the inflexible and unreliable existing method of multiplying platform width by thickness. In Chapter 4, a new reduction intensity metric for backed blades, a hitherto overlooked tool-type, is developed and tested on the backed blades from an early Neolithic site in Turkey. This new metric allows a reconstruction of the raw material consumption patterns at the site, finding that the backed blades These four case-studies, coupled with a consideration of existing knapping experiments, allow an understanding of how experimental knapping is embedded in the broader archaeological research process, and ultimately tests the efficacy of a best-practice model of experimental knapping. This model identifies the initial scope, methodological control, and breadth of interpretations as the key variables dictating the validity of an experiment. While knapping experiments may differ markedly in their scope and control, they do not necessarily vary in their validity. Instead, it is the interplay of these variables that dictates the validity of experimentation. Within this best-practice model, lithic experiments are most robust when the scale of the initial scope, methodological control and ensuing interpretations are congruent, and when they involve explicit and falsifiable hypothesis testing.iii

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A dialogue on the meaning and use of analogy in ethnoarchaeological reasoning

Cited by 165 publications

References 29 publications

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

Tribalización, jerarquización y estado en el territorio de El Argar

The role of experimental knapping in empirically testing key themes in the evolution of lithic technology: reduction intensity, efficiency and behavioural complexity

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