ANTH 145 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Archaeological Theory, Trans-Cultural Diffusion, Human Behavior

• School: University of Oregon
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 145
• Professor: Fitzpatrick

Document Summary

Applied to a speci c explanation of a particular past phenomenon. An investigator"s fundamental assumptions about the nature of human societies and culture. A series or basic premises, postulates, or assumptions that specify certain fundamental entities. processes. or mechanisms, often implicating phenomena that themselves are unobservable (at the time of the theory formulation) How could/would archeologists explain: structures, artifacts, ecofacts, human remains. Theories are linked to the empirical world by low-level principles, sometimes called experimental laws. Cultural transmission: vertical (parents, oblique (elders, horizontal (peers) Linked to the empirical world by low-level principles, sometimes called experimental laws. Introduced into archaeology by raab and goodyear (1978) The entire suite of principles that archaeologists employ to tranform the static facts of the archaeological record into statements about the dynamics of past sociocultural systems. Binfords middle-range theory consists of four components: 1. Documentation of casual relations between relevant dynamics and observable statics: 2. Recognition of signature patterns in static remains: 3.