"Archaeology is the subfield of anthropology that is concerned with past human behavior. Nearly everything we know about the lives of people who lived and died before the invention of writing comes from archaeological research. Archaeologists seek to understand the processes of culture change by studying the material remains of past societies. This course is a survey meant to introduce students to the techniques, methods, and theories employed by modern archaeologists in their attempt to reconstruct past lifeways and understand cultural adaptation to various environments." (Class description from Syllabus)
I feel particularly proud of discussion 3 because it really made me understand the meaning and differences of Traditional, Processual and Post-processual archaeology. In previous classes I didn't really understand it all that much but after completing this assignment and discussing it with the class I feel like I understand it much better.
Discussion 3
From previous classes I have taken in anthropology, there are many approaches that anthropologists can use in their work. These approaches are not just unique to archaeology; other disciplines use them as well.
Early anthropologists used an approach called traditional archaeology, also known as Cultural History. The main objective was to categorize and decide which ethnic group an artifact belonged in. Traditional archaeology did not explain how societies transformed through time but instead focused on artifact classification. While traditional archeology was able to group artifact evidence together, it lacked scientific reasoning to prove how culture has changed over time. Anthropologists found a new approach called Processual archaeology. It has less to do with the history and more to do with the process of change within the community backed up by scientific evidence.
The changing of culture is “Process,” and that’s where Processual got its name. The main feature of processual archaeology is trying to understand how cultures change in different cultural settings and environments. Before this approach, the main focus of archaeology was from a traditional approach by categorizing with little or no emphasis on the people. With a processual approach, attention could be given to explaining change with scientific methods and theories. However, they had a hard time linking their evidence to cultures, and that’s where Post-processual comes in.
Post-Processual archaeology came about when anthropologists argued that societies and cultures should not be considered as a whole unit because there are differences between individuals. Instead of having their ideology being based on a single viewpoint, it is composed of a variety of viewpoints from a variety of different people. This approach reminds the anthropologists not to get caught up in their individual biases and instead focus as a group on the big picture. Post-processual archaeology brings together many different fields and includes the public. Post-processual archaeology allows for a more diverse opinion of the archaeological evidence.
Ian Hodder approached the Çatalhöyük from mainly the post-processual approach; however, he also approached it from the processual approach as well because he was building upon what previous archaeologists had already done in the past. It is essential to start an excavation with a theoretical hypothesis. Otherwise, you don’t know what to look for, and Ian Hodder already knew a little about what he should be looking for because of previous excavations from earlier anthropologists. Ian Hodder used a lot of different people on the site with different skills to study the archeological evidence, and I thought that to be very cool, and I liked how they provided all of their findings to the public and uploaded it onto their website for the whole world.
A processual anthropologist, however, would not have the multi-people approach in their work because they would have been studying the evidence as a whole unit and from only one perspective of the anthropologist who was doing the research. They would have also focused all of their research on figuring out how the culture changed.
I think that all of the approaches are essential because they seem to build upon each other. Perspective lets us classify an artifact and Interpretation enables us to understand the why and how of the archaeological evidence. A perspective view allows us to sort archeological evidence and put it in order, and an interpretation view lets us understand how a society is organized and how it operates in a social system. I believe that you need to have an understanding of the scientific methods and that you also need the diversity from multiple perspectives to get a much broader view of the artifacts you are observing.
Here is the website for the Çatalhöyük research: http://www.catalhoyuk.com/project/history
and I found that this speech that Ian Hodder presented at Stanford University about the Çatalhöyük was fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmFKBf5OVoI
Early anthropologists used an approach called traditional archaeology, also known as Cultural History. The main objective was to categorize and decide which ethnic group an artifact belonged in. Traditional archaeology did not explain how societies transformed through time but instead focused on artifact classification. While traditional archeology was able to group artifact evidence together, it lacked scientific reasoning to prove how culture has changed over time. Anthropologists found a new approach called Processual archaeology. It has less to do with the history and more to do with the process of change within the community backed up by scientific evidence.
The changing of culture is “Process,” and that’s where Processual got its name. The main feature of processual archaeology is trying to understand how cultures change in different cultural settings and environments. Before this approach, the main focus of archaeology was from a traditional approach by categorizing with little or no emphasis on the people. With a processual approach, attention could be given to explaining change with scientific methods and theories. However, they had a hard time linking their evidence to cultures, and that’s where Post-processual comes in.
Post-Processual archaeology came about when anthropologists argued that societies and cultures should not be considered as a whole unit because there are differences between individuals. Instead of having their ideology being based on a single viewpoint, it is composed of a variety of viewpoints from a variety of different people. This approach reminds the anthropologists not to get caught up in their individual biases and instead focus as a group on the big picture. Post-processual archaeology brings together many different fields and includes the public. Post-processual archaeology allows for a more diverse opinion of the archaeological evidence.
Ian Hodder approached the Çatalhöyük from mainly the post-processual approach; however, he also approached it from the processual approach as well because he was building upon what previous archaeologists had already done in the past. It is essential to start an excavation with a theoretical hypothesis. Otherwise, you don’t know what to look for, and Ian Hodder already knew a little about what he should be looking for because of previous excavations from earlier anthropologists. Ian Hodder used a lot of different people on the site with different skills to study the archeological evidence, and I thought that to be very cool, and I liked how they provided all of their findings to the public and uploaded it onto their website for the whole world.
A processual anthropologist, however, would not have the multi-people approach in their work because they would have been studying the evidence as a whole unit and from only one perspective of the anthropologist who was doing the research. They would have also focused all of their research on figuring out how the culture changed.
I think that all of the approaches are essential because they seem to build upon each other. Perspective lets us classify an artifact and Interpretation enables us to understand the why and how of the archaeological evidence. A perspective view allows us to sort archeological evidence and put it in order, and an interpretation view lets us understand how a society is organized and how it operates in a social system. I believe that you need to have an understanding of the scientific methods and that you also need the diversity from multiple perspectives to get a much broader view of the artifacts you are observing.
Here is the website for the Çatalhöyük research: http://www.catalhoyuk.com/project/history
and I found that this speech that Ian Hodder presented at Stanford University about the Çatalhöyük was fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmFKBf5OVoI
This class helped me understand how all the different sub-fields in anthropology work together.