On Evolutionary Ecology, Selectionist Archaeology, and Behavioral Archaeology

1999 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack M. Broughton ◽  
James F. O'Connell
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Evolutionary Archaeology ◽  
Behavioral Evolution ◽  
American Archaeology ◽  
Behavioral Archaeology ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
Scientific Approach

To promote a dialogue between competing but potentially compatible approaches in American archaeology, Schiffer (1996) examined the relationships between two distinct research programs: "behavioral" archaeology and evolutionary archaeology. An approach grounded in evolutionary ecology was not included in that analysis. In this paper, we reply to Schiffer's call for dialogue by outlining the relationships, as we see them, between evolutionary ecology, selectionist archaeology, and behavioral archaeology. We conclude that evolutionary ecology holds the greatest promise as a scientific approach for the investigation of important problems in human behavioral evolution.

When data become people: archaeological ethics, reburial, and the past as public heritage

1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
LJ Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Archaeology ◽  
Archaeological Ethics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Ethics Code

In the United States, consideration of archaeological ethics has been relatively recent and concerned primarily with defining professionalism. By declaring that the past is a public heritage, claiming that archaeologists should be its stewards, and moving toward a positivist scientific approach, American archaeology has alienated its public. Prompted by pressure from Native Americans on the reburial issue, the Society for American Archaeology has attempted to address the problems by proposing an ethics code, but outsiders are likely to see the contradictions between stated principles and practice. These issues are examined from the perspective of the reburial issues, offering the possibility that an ethnocritical archaeology might provide mechanisms that will allow archaeologists to be more truly accountable and, in the long term, better stewards of the past.

A Conflict of Values in American Archaeology

1971 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. King
Keyword(s):  
Long Range ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Interdisciplinary Team ◽  
The Self ◽  
North Coast ◽  
Regional Research ◽  
American Archaeology ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
The North ◽  
Strategic Conflict

AbstractAs contract salvage programs have come to support more and more archaeological fieldwork and analysis, and as archaeologists have become increasingly concerned with the relevance of their sub-discipline to the larger explanatory goals of anthropology, a strategic conflict has arisen that threatens to severely limit the potential of American archaeology for long-range explanatory research. It is contended that this conflict has arisen because salvage-support agencies have been led to organize their contract procedures along lines amenable to inductive, laissez-faire research. These procedures have become canonized while archaeology has begun to drift toward deductive, interdisciplinary team methods. Proposed salvage programs in the North Coast Ranges of California are used to illustrate the self-defeating nature of present procedures, and reorganization is suggested to permit increased theoretical input and the integration of salvage operations into large-scale regional research programs.

Setting Theoretical Egos Aside: Issues and Theory in North American Archaeology

2003 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Hegmon
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
North American ◽  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
American Archaeology ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
North American Archaeology ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives

Theory in North American archaeology is characterized in terms of foci and approaches manifested in research issues, rather than in explicit or oppositional theoretical positions. While there are some clear-cut theoretical perspectives—evolutionary ecology, behavioral archaeology, and Darwinian archaeology—a large majority of North American archaeology fits a broad category here called “processual-plus.” Among the major themes that crosscut many or all of the approaches are interests in gender, agency/practice, symbols and meaning, material culture, and native perspectives. Gender archaeology is paradigmatic of processual-plus archaeology, in that it draws on a diversity of theoretical approaches to address a common issue. Emphasis on agency and practice is an important development, though conceptions of agency are too often linked to Western ideas of individuals and motivation. The vast majority of North American archaeology, including postprocessual approaches, is modern, not postmodern, in orientation. The relative dearth of theoretical argument positively contributes to diversity and dialogue, but it also may cause North American theory to receive inadequate attention and unfortunate misunderstandings of postmodernism.

scholarly journals Basic Incompatibilities between Evolutionary and Behavioral Archaeology

1998 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. O'Brien ◽  
R. Lee Lyman ◽  
Robert D. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Mechanisms Of Change ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Evolutionary Archaeology ◽  
Behavioral Archaeology ◽  
Past Behavior ◽  
Fundamental Reason

Schiffer (1996) recently proposed that, despite some incompatibilities, considerable common ground exists between behavioral archaeology and evolutionary, or selectionist, archaeology. He concludes that there is no fundamental reason why the two approaches cannot work in concert to explain human behavioral change. There are, however, several important reasons why the two programs, at least as currently conceived, cannot work together in any thoroughly integrated fashion. Although both programs employ inference, behavioral archaeology conflates the distinct roles of configurational and immanent properties, searches for nomothetic answers to questions about human behavior, overlooks historical contingency when inferring and explaining the nature of past behavior, and in some cases seems to fall back on vitalism as the mechanism of change. Evolutionary archaeology employs immanent properties inferentially, explicitly acknowledges the importance of the historical contingencies of configurational properties, explains human behavior as being time- and spacebound, and calls upon selection and drift (transmission) as the mechanisms of change. Any attempt to integrate the two approaches must begin by addressing these basic differences.

The Scientific Approach to Will Power

1973 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 632-634
Author(s):  
ISAAC M. MARKS
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Will Power
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