Michael Nalley
ATH 102 – Midterm
Essay:
Processual and Post-Processual Archaeology:
The basic and primary purpose of archaeology is to help us understand humans. To move toward that end, most archaeologists pursue three basic goals, each building on the other. As in all science, archaeology begins with the discovery of new information, which then must be described. Ultimately, archaeology seeks to contribute to the development of a comprehensive understanding of human behavior. At any step along the way, the information and understanding derived from archaeological work can be applied to the management and conservation of the past and to the education of the public in the past.
The first goal of archaeology is to generate basic information …show more content…
Describing material is a relatively simple procedure; understanding why things are the way they are a much greater challenge. To truly understand societies, one must understand how they operate, how they differ, how they change, and under what rules they do so.
Finally, archaeology seeks to contribute to the comprehensive understanding of human behavior. By understanding the past, we can better understand ourselves, and archaeology can help to foster an understanding of the global human experience over the span of human existence.
The two most important theoretical positions reflected in contemporary archaeology are processual and post-processual archaeology. Processual archaeology attempts to use the scientific method rigorously to deduce information about how items from the archaeological record were originally used. Post processual archaeology is largely a critique of the processual method, juxtaposing different methods of analysis, including feminist, cognitive, and contextual archaeology.
Processual archaeology is a popular way of doing archaeology in America and England in the 1960s and 1970s. It is coined as a scientific way of doing archaeology and is aimed to find general laws to explain cultural systems and …show more content…
It investigates male and female roles in society through ethnographic analogy and generally interprets the past to reclaim the role of women as subjects.
It can be defined as studying individual motivation, intentions and goals in terms of cultural and psychological structures and behaviors. It lends a critical analysis to influences of social, symbolic, and material structures, institutions, habituation and beliefs.
Post-processualism views symbols and their meanings as part of ritual behavior or religious processes. It takes a varied approach to interpreting leadership and the rise of political systems. It includes evidence such as material culture, architecture, and landscapes, as well as cosmos recreation. It is important for post-processualists to understand prehistoric ideas and cosmologies not just as social pressures but as actual archaeological astronomy.
It is different than processualism in that it is the archaeology of symbols and meanings. It was influenced by leaders such as Marx who reacted to the pervasive and dominant nature of capitalism by stressing that empirical, logical analysis was biased by scientists and their class-based
ATH 102 – Midterm
Essay:
Processual and Post-Processual Archaeology:
The basic and primary purpose of archaeology is to help us understand humans. To move toward that end, most archaeologists pursue three basic goals, each building on the other. As in all science, archaeology begins with the discovery of new information, which then must be described. Ultimately, archaeology seeks to contribute to the development of a comprehensive understanding of human behavior. At any step along the way, the information and understanding derived from archaeological work can be applied to the management and conservation of the past and to the education of the public in the past.
The first goal of archaeology is to generate basic information …show more content…
Describing material is a relatively simple procedure; understanding why things are the way they are a much greater challenge. To truly understand societies, one must understand how they operate, how they differ, how they change, and under what rules they do so.
Finally, archaeology seeks to contribute to the comprehensive understanding of human behavior. By understanding the past, we can better understand ourselves, and archaeology can help to foster an understanding of the global human experience over the span of human existence.
The two most important theoretical positions reflected in contemporary archaeology are processual and post-processual archaeology. Processual archaeology attempts to use the scientific method rigorously to deduce information about how items from the archaeological record were originally used. Post processual archaeology is largely a critique of the processual method, juxtaposing different methods of analysis, including feminist, cognitive, and contextual archaeology.
Processual archaeology is a popular way of doing archaeology in America and England in the 1960s and 1970s. It is coined as a scientific way of doing archaeology and is aimed to find general laws to explain cultural systems and …show more content…
It investigates male and female roles in society through ethnographic analogy and generally interprets the past to reclaim the role of women as subjects.
It can be defined as studying individual motivation, intentions and goals in terms of cultural and psychological structures and behaviors. It lends a critical analysis to influences of social, symbolic, and material structures, institutions, habituation and beliefs.
Post-processualism views symbols and their meanings as part of ritual behavior or religious processes. It takes a varied approach to interpreting leadership and the rise of political systems. It includes evidence such as material culture, architecture, and landscapes, as well as cosmos recreation. It is important for post-processualists to understand prehistoric ideas and cosmologies not just as social pressures but as actual archaeological astronomy.
It is different than processualism in that it is the archaeology of symbols and meanings. It was influenced by leaders such as Marx who reacted to the pervasive and dominant nature of capitalism by stressing that empirical, logical analysis was biased by scientists and their class-based