Chapter 5: Archaeological Interpretation
Multiple Choice Questions
Weblinks
This chapter provides an introduction to the ideas underpinning the way archaeologists interpret their finds.
5.0 Transformation processes
A case study is outlined and illustrated at:
http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Research/rob/Afon%20Ystwyth.html
5.1 Taphonomy
Taphonomy is sometimes referred to solely in relation to bones and
sometimes used to describe the study of what happens to things once
they are buried. Explanations are at:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/shdbone/taphonomy.htm
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Taph/
Examples of taphonomic experiments using lithics are at:
http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/rogerg/research/EXP%20ARCH/pages/EA1.html
5.2 Making sense of the data
Most site-based websites will include some discussion of how data has been interpreted. In most cases analogies or analogs will have been used. The sources for these can include historical or ethnographic sources as well as experimental archaeology.
Butser Experimental Ancient Farm is at:
http://www.butser.org.uk/
Castel Henllys http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/castellhenllys/web/
Sometimes analogs are drawn from studies of animals, particularly
primates. A fascinating example from zoological research (armadillos)
is at:
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/origins/armadillo.html
5.3 Ethnographic accounts
Ethnographic analogies are drawn from the records of social anthropologists (or ethnographers) who have studied people in the last 100 years or so. Sometimes these analogies provide a set of general models (and categories) which are used by archaeologists to discuss the past and against which their findings are tested. A good example of the former is the way terms like band, chief and tribe have been used by archaeologists.
An interesting place to start is the Pitt Rivers Museum
http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/
5.4 Experimental archaeology
An excellent site on lithics and experimentation is at:
http://www.hf.uio.no/iakh/forskning/sarc/english/study/experimental_archaeology
5.5 Historical sources
Historical analogies are drawn either from the work of historians who have researched the documentary evidence from past societies or from accounts by people in the past describing aspects of their world. An example of this is where Roman accounts have been used to try and understand Iron Age Britain or travelogues from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been used in North America.
5.6 Ethnoarchaeology
Ethnoarchaeology involves the study of remains left by people today.
Its value is that the people can be either be observed or interviewed
to explain what they were doing and why they did it.
http://home1.gte.net/ericjw1/ethnoarchaeology.html
A branch of ethnoarchaeology is the study of waste produced by modern societies. This is termed garbology.
A start point for academic research is:
http://www.anthrosource.net/
5.7 Why do archaeologists offer different interpretations of the past?
As with all other disciplines, archaeologists disagree and offer rival interpretations. Archaeological debates range from entire systems of explanation (human origins for example) to what a particular artefact might be used for.