While most archaeology texts begin with a definition of the discipline, the definitions vary. Some present archaeology as a study of the prehistoric past, with goals similar to those of history, that is, to construct an explanatory narrative, based on material remains rather than written records, about past events. Other definitions characterize archaeology as a branch of anthropology, which studies societies that are accessible only through their material remains. Most contemporary definitions emphasize the study of past cultural and social systems through their material remains rather than focusing on the materials themselves as the objects of study, but one group of contemporary archaeologists rejects the affiliation with anthropology in favor of an evolutionary biology model in which artifacts evolve through a process resembling natural selection. Even definitions that appear to be similar can differ in subtle ways, particularly with respect to the emphasis on science, the sorts of knowledge we can obtain from archaeological data, the importance of chronology, and on distinctions between stylistic and functional features of artifacts.
Nineteenth-century archaeologists worried mainly about how to classify antiquities in a systematic way. Archaeologists organized - often at their own expense - expeditions to collect materials from the great ancient civilizations and from places mentioned in the bible. Materials from Europe’s prehistoric past also received some serious attention. Archaeologists persuaded universities, governments, and private donors to build museums to house the collections. A major concern of archaeology - one could even say its defining characteristic - was to classify and arrange these collections in terms of chronological age and culture area. Thomsen, the first curator of the Danish National Museum, for example, invented the Three-Age System of stone, bronze, and iron as a basis for organizing prehistoric European artifacts. The flavor of the early classificatory schemes is still present in some museums. The archaeological museum of Florence (Italy), for example, consists of a series of rooms crowded with statues and other artifacts that are identified by period and provenance, but without further information. Today, most museums that can afford to do so have reorganized their collections to reflect contemporary archaeology’s concern for social relationships. The contrast between the old and new ways of handling collections is evident in the elegantly revamped Rosengarten Museum in Konstanz (Germany). One room is carefully preserved in the old style as a memorial to the donor of the original collections, while the other rooms have been arranged in the modern manner. The result is a striking testimony to a shift in understanding of the primary nature and goals of archaeology.
Although early museums organized their collections along antiquarian lines, archaeologists have always been interested in the people whose material remains offer our only access to their lives. When archaeology was new - and its birth as a discipline came in the early nineteenth century - scholars had not yet developed schemes for controlled excavation or modern dating techniques. Even to identify stone tools as the handiwork of ancient people rather than as fossils involved inferences questioned by Thomsen’s contemporaries.
Definitions of archaeology have shifted from a focus on the need for systematic classifications to a concern with how to understand the lives of past human societies in part because of the realization that meaningful systems of classification involve theorizing about the societies that produced the artifacts. While nineteenth-century archaeologists could only speculate about past social systems, advances in archaeological techniques have made genuine knowledge possible. With this increase in knowledge, archaeologists are better able to articulate what they have always found interesting about material culture.
Once archaeologists accept a definition of ‘archaeology’ that requires explaining and understanding the social and cultural aspects of the lives of people known through their material remains, the research goals of archaeologists change, and a new set of philosophical questions arises: What are the basic terms of the discipline and what do they mean? Can archaeology provide objective knowledge of the past? What are the standards of proof in archaeology? What are the features of a good archaeological explanation? What are the relationships between style and function in archaeological materials? How do we distinguish the one from the other? What moral constraints limit our studies of artifacts and human remains?
With respect to these philosophical questions, let us look first at attempts to define two of archaeology’s most important concepts: ‘site’ and ‘artifact’. Whereas dictionaries define ‘site’ as a spatial location, in archaeology ‘site’ has special significance because it structures archaeological investigation. For many with an amateur interest in archaeology, ‘site’ calls up grand scenes of Pompeii or King Tut’s tomb. Midtwentieth-century archaeologists, such as Paul Martin and Fred Plog, however, present a more inclusive characterization: ‘‘A site is any place formerly occupied or utilized by a prehistoric group.’’ This definition of ‘site’ is theoretical, which is to say that its purpose is to help to construct an archaeological theory by identifying the phenomena that are of interest to archaeological investigators. One role of this particular theoretical definition of ‘site’ is to broaden the traditional understanding so that archaeological investigation can be appropriately conducted on and archaeological protection extended to sites that are barely recognizable by nonarchaeologists. Many sites in Arizona, where the framers of this definition worked, are unimpressive surface scatters of lithic debris and sherds. Although these surface sites seem meager, a careful study of them can reveal much information about the prehistoric inhabitants of the region. Philosophers might criticize this definition of ‘site’ for being too broad because many places formerly occupied or used by a prehistoric group are devoid of all traces of their former occupation or use, and thus irrelevant to archaeology. Despite this defect, the philosophical importance of the definition is clear. Definitions are not merely a matter of words. They shape a particular vision of what archaeology is and how - or where - it should be done.
Archaeologists’ definitions of ‘artifact’ also have theoretical significance. While sites are the places of primary archaeological investigation, artifacts are the things that make sites interesting. The distinction between artifacts, which are marked in some way by humans, and natural objects, which have not undergone any intentional modification or selection, is fundamental. The latter are outside the scope of archaeology. ‘Artifact’ was employed as early as 1841, when Boucher de Perthes used it to refer to so-called ‘hand-axes’ that were found in association with bones of extinct animals in gravel deposits near the Somme River. Boucher de Perthes’s artifacts, and his account of their nature - that is, as stones modified by humans rather than natural fossils - were instrumental in building the case for the long period of human habitation of Earth, a striking and controversial idea in his time.
Modern archaeology requires a definition of ‘artifact’ that encompasses more than stone and bone tools. If the archaeologist wants to understand and explain past cultural behavior, the definition should ensure that the term ‘artifact’ would apply to all material remnants of what might be called ‘cultural activity’. Thus, a definition is needed that will apply the term ‘artifact’ to a stone that was selected and used for polishing pottery, even though it was not modified in any way. Similarly, the definition should make it clear that ‘artifact’ applies to deliberately constructed spatial relationships among objects, even though spatial relationships are not material things. When we realize that good definitions should avoid vagueness as well as being neither too broad nor too narrow, we can see that definition of key terms such as ‘site’ and ‘artifact’ is a challenging task.
The problem of definition is intimately related to the larger problem of typology, or how to classify archaeological materials. Most archaeologists are familiar with the mid-twentieth-century controversy about whether archaeological types are constructs imposed by archaeologists in order to organize the materials they study (J. A. Ford) or whether types are inherent in the materials and thus discovered by archaeologists rather than created by them (A. C. Spaulding). Contributions to this debate are reminiscent of the debates among medieval philosophers about the reality of universals, that is to say whether general concepts, such as ‘truth’ or ‘man’, existed independently, were concepts that existed in the minds of those who created and used them, or were mere names applied to particular things. The debates about the basis of classification filled the pages of archaeological journals throughout the 1950s. Similar debates have occurred among biologists about their own systems of classification, and typologies continue to engage archaeologists and philosophers as well. While sophisticated physical methods of dating materials now answer many chronological puzzles that older typologies were designed to solve, archaeological theory - like any scientific theory - is still intertwined with, and dependent on, systems of classification. The most comprehensive current work on classification argues that typologies are instruments created by archaeologists to solve particular problems. This instrumental view of classification allows for different ways of organizing material culture depending on what questions the archaeologist is asking. The emphasis has also shifted from an abstract treatment of typologies to practical aspects of creating and using systems of classification in archaeology as well as the importance of defining key terms so that archaeologists can successfully communicate the results of their work. Definition and typology are topics of perennial interest to archaeologists, and as the discipline grows and changes focus, new definitions and new systems of typology will be needed.
World History
