Artefact analysis

Abstract

Historically, artefact analysis has focused on classifications and typologies. In fact, the typological approach may be considered as a particular cognitive step in the evolution of Archaeology. In this text more ambitious actual approaches of artefact analysis are described, relying on obtaining more cognitive information from artefacts. The applicable quantitative methods, which have been developed and tested to solve classical and modern archaeological problems, are detailed. Finally, a general methodology, founded on recent results in semiology, mathematical modelling and neuroscience, may be considered as a contribution to a renewed role of artefact analysis in archaeological reasoning. Perhaps our proposition is just a formalisation of evidence or common sense which archaeologists know well. But unfortunately, the history of archaeology provides us with thousands of examples of deceptive appearance of artefacts such as natural origin, geological alteration, manufacturing waste, random association with other artefacts, misinterpreted spatial structure, etc. History of artefacts in archaeology is also the history of diagnostic errors. With a methodological perspective, artefact analysis is a fundamental method in archaeology, with special needs to refer to semiology, taxonomy, systemic analysis, and finally cognitive science. At any level of archaeological reconstitution, artefact analysis is directly connected with the question of artefact knowledge. 3. A brief history of the concept of the artefact The history of the concept of the artefact in archaeology is strongly associated with the history of theoretical approaches in archaeology since the very beginning of this science. At first artefacts were merely "unknown things" and for that reason, they were collected and stored worldwide in "curiosity cabinets" of the upper classes.