CLST 129 Chapter Notes -Cognitive Archaeology, Homo Sapiens, Neo-Marxism
24 Apr 2013
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Migrationist and diffusionist: explanations rely on rather simple ideas of the supposed migrations of peoples or the often ill defined spread of ideas. Processual: attempts to provide more general explanations (using for instance, evolutionary theory), sometimes using law-like formulations, and (more successfully) framing hypotheses and testing deductions from these against the data. Postprocessual or interpretive: emphasizes the specific context, drawing sometime on structrualist or neo-marxist ideas, stressing often the role (agency) of the individual and avoiding the generalizations of the processual approach. Cognitive archaeology is the study of the ways of though and structures of belief of past societies on the basis of their material remains. Key task of archaeology is to explain why things happened in past. Explanations in terms of the migrations of people or using the vague idea of the diffusion of culture used to be very popular: less popular today. The processual approach has consistently tried to see broader patters and general explanations.
