Processual Archaeology and the Radical Critique [and Comments and Reply]

Tying Up Loose Ends: Visions and Revisions of Stanley South's Archaeology

“…This prompted Mary Beaudry and others (1996:273-274) to lament: Paynter (1984) has noted that positivist epistemology has been largely discredited by prehistorians and others (cf. Hodder 1986;Leone et al 1987;Shanks and Tilley 1987;Wylie 1989; but also see Earle and Preucel 1987), yet far too many historical archaeologists seem to be operating within a paradigm that others have forsaken. Only the most extreme and reductionist of pattern-seekers could find any merit in the bizarre lengths to which South's pattern analysis (1977a, 1978) and Miller's economic scaling (Miller 1980) have been taken.…”

A Brief Overview of the Evolution of Historical Archaeology in Argentina

“…This perspective had a strong antihistorical component (Earle and Preucel, 1987;Feinman, 1997;Patterson, 1990;Trigger, 1989). Hence, any study of historical archaeology in Argentina was viewed as particularist and related to certain historical events, which were the sole concern of history as a discipline (for a more detailed discussion on the subject, see Pedrotta and Gómez Romero, 1998).…”

Paradigms in science and archaeology

“…Arguing from both relativist and realist perspectives, critical theorists have claimed (1) that processual archaeology has been a failure, in that it has not improved understanding or generated new knowledge of the past that is more secure inferentially than that produced by traditional, pre-1970 archaeology; (2) that processual archaeology is mostly unconscious of its own biases, especially with regard to the limitations of functionalism and its derivatives that underlie its grounding theories; (3) that logical positivism has been misinterpreted as antiempiricist and is not, in any case, an appropriate philosophical base for a "human science" (whatever that is); (4) that positivism is a product of the industrialized, capitalist West, and other (and by implication, better) paradigms are available (especially the various forms of Marxism); (5) that science cannot be extracted from its broader social context and will always be influenced by prevailing social, political, and economic biases; (6) that processualists believe that the past is directly accessible and is something that exists independently from our perceptions of it (i.e., it is "objectified"); (7) that the processualists accept the existence of a permanent frame of reference (that of natural science) in order to determine the nature of an objectified reality; (8) that they employ a model of economic rationality derived from western capitalism; (9) that they subscribe to adaptationist biases grounded in biosocial evolution; (10) that processual archaeology is not, in fact, "processual" (i.e., it does a poor job of confronting process questions both in the past and in the present); and (11) that, with its emphasis on cultural materialism, the ideational realm is ignored or deemphasized (and consequently discarded as unattainable) Tilley, 1987, 1988;Bell, 1987;Binford, 1987;Hodder, 1985Hodder, , 1986Hodder, , 1987Earle and Preucel, 1987;.…”