The potential of analogy in post‐processual archaeologies: a case study from Basimane ward, Serowe, Botswana

Abstract

This article presents the results of an ethnoarchaeological study of Basimane ward in Serowe, Botswana. It is argued that African archaeology is currently at the forefront of the debate on theory-building in ethnoarchaeology and that this debate is exemplified in the argument about the use of the Central Cattle Pattern (CCP) model as a direct historical analogy to Iron Age settlement in southern Africa. My case study demonstrates that the continuities of settlement architecture that are evident for the past century in Basimane ward should not be interpreted as the persistence of the cultural forms that are described in the CCP. Rather, the persistence of elements of the physical form of the CCP to post-colonial settlement is a testimony to the interplay between structure and human agency, to the capacity of people constantly to renegotiate the rules -past and present, social and architectural -in order to make sense of the lives they live. The value of ethnoarchaeology to post-processual archaeology is not to provide a contemporary 'pattern' of material culture that may be compared to an ancient one in the form of a uniformitarian analogy, but rather to demonstrate that, according to the discursive nature of Giddens's duality of structure, archaeologists would be wrong to disengage structure and agency in order to 'find' them as separate archaeologically identifiable components.J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. (N.S.) , - © Royal Anthropological Institute  of Basimane, Serowe, cannot be understood in terms of agency alone or in terms of structure alone. It is important to address the debate about the CCP model because some of the most thought-provoking work on the potential role of ethnoarchaeology in the post-processual context has been generated as a result of it.In its original inception ethnoarchaeology was a product of the processual archaeology of the s. Binford (: ) had employed analogy in his work by means of Middle Range Theory, which involved the objective testing of hypotheses about the past in order to produce a quantitative proof that would lead to the production of law-like generalizations. Since the post-processual critique in archaeology in the s rejected processualism for its aspirations to objectivity and its reliance on the philosophy of science as a source of theoretical inspiration, ethnoarchaeology, in Britain especially, has been largely neglected as a methodology by virtue of its association with the 62 Kathryn J. Fewster J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. (N.S.) , -

Archaeological Ethnography: A Multitemporal Meeting Ground for Archaeology and Anthropology

“…This criticism focused on the epistemic problems with the use of analogy (e.g., Wylie 1985), the allochronization of contemporary people (Fabian 1983), and the ethically problematic, often implicit assumption that the primary archaeological function of contemporary communities is to act as proxies for the people in the past and sources of useful (for the archaeologist) interpretative information (Fewster 2001). Despite or perhaps because of this criticism, some strands of ethnoarchaeology have developed in a more critical and reflexive manner and have expanded the range of issues to be investigated and the analytical concepts used (see Fewster 2006; and for a more general review, David & Kramer 2001).…”

“…Archaeologists who engaged in ethnoarchaeological research with the initial aim to solve (with the help of local people) specific archaeological problems came progressively to valorize ethnographic research in its own right and often produced informative and powerful accounts of contemporary social practices that may or may not be of any direct archaeological use (see Fewster 2006;Forbes 2007Forbes , 2009Halstead 1998). In doing so, they also implicitly and perhaps unintentionally challenged the (modernist) epistemic foundations of archaeology, especially the rigid separation between past and present, or between prehistoric and historic periods.…”

Anthropology and History in the Southern African Iron Age

“…Life, of course, is messy (Fewster 2006). Some individuals are conservative and demand compliance with an ideal.…”

The Kgotla as a Spatial Mediator on South African University Campuses

“…(Source: Image adapted by author from Ravenscroft, n.d.) Various scholars have studied the physical attributes of the Kgotla. Fewster (2006) refers to the significance of the spatial relationships between the main entrance, the location of the residence of the head person, the cattle kraal and kraal gate. According to Sebitla (2018, p. 94), the physical environment of the Kgotla serves as a map for the societal roles of the community it serves.…”