Killick Post Processual Archaeology

As stated in Killick’s article, the rapid growth of the field of archaeology comes with downfalls. Many aspects of processual archaeology is evident in Killick’s article. Such as his point that science is slowly intertwining itself with archaeology. Killick goes on to list issues in the field of archaeological studies, narrowing it down to a select handful that he believes needs to be corrected to delve deeper into the field.
The first issue is with reviewing the “Journal of Archaeological Science”, the journal provides a forum for archaeologists around the world to critique others, debate, and share their archaeological research. Due to the overwhelming increase of anthropological research over the years, archaeologists are asked to review papers on subfields that they are not an expertise on. Finding editors that are qualified and an expertise on certain …show more content…
As the author delves into great detail and highlights many examples of the “insensitivity” of archaeologists. Killick goes on to say that some archaeologists scientists have been accused of “abetting the looting of archaeological sites…by lending their analytical expertise to collectors, art museums, and auction houses” (Killick:246). That, including the idea that most post processual archaeologists believe that “our own interpretation of the past involves choices that depend less on an objective assessment of the data than on the feelings and opinions of the researchers and of the clients who they aim to please” (Thames and Hudson:32). An example being, in the Smithsonian Institution, it was nearly impossible to create an exhibit detailing the destruction of Hiroshima, without exciting the anger of ex-servicemen and of those who were respectful of the Japanese. Post-processual archaeologists believed that viewing only the data will almost always be theory-driven and that whatever a processual archaeologists study will always have a sense of