Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:48:27.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Archaeology as Anthropology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Lewis R. Binford
Lewis R. Binford*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is argued that archaeology has made few contributions to the general field of anthropology with regard to explaining cultural similarities and differences. One major factor contributing to this lack is asserted to be the tendency to treat artifacts as equal and comparable traits which can be explained within a single model of culture change and modification. It is suggested that “material culture” can and does represent the structure of the total cultural system, and that explanations of differences and similarities between certain classes of material culture are inappropriate and inadequate as explanations for such observations within other classes of items. Similarly, change in the total cultural system must be viewed in an adaptive context both social and environmental, not whimsically viewed as the result of “influences,” “stimuli,” or even “migrations” between and among geographically defined units.

Three major functional sub-classes of material culture are discussed: technomic, socio-technic, and ideo-technic, as well as stylistic formal properties which cross-cut these categories. In general terms these recognized classes of materials are discussed with regard to the processes of change within each class.

Using the above distinctions in what is termed a systemic approach, the problem of the appearance and changing utilization of native copper in eastern North America is discussed. Hypotheses resulting from the application of the systemic approach are: (1) the initial appearance of native copper implements is in the context of the production of socio-technic items; (2) the increased production of socio-technic items in the late Archaic period is related to an increase in population following the shift to the exploitation of aquatic resources roughly coincident with the Nipissing high water stage of the ancestral Great Lakes; (3) this correlation is explicable in the increased selective pressures favoring material means of status communication once populations had increased to the point that personal recognition was no longer a workable basis for differential role behavior; (4) the general shift in later periods from formally “utilitarian” items to the manufacture of formally “nonutilitarian” items of copper is explicable in the postulated shift from purely egalitarian to increasingly nonegalitarian means of status attainment.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , October 1962 , pp. 217 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1962

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beals, Ralph L. and Hoijer, Harry 1953 An Introduction to Anthropology. The Maemillan Company, New York.Google Scholar
Buettner-Janusch, John 1957 Boas and Mason: Particularism versus Generalization. American Anthropologist, Vol. 59, No. 2, pp. 318–24. Menasha.Google Scholar
Cushing, F. H. 1894 Primitive Copper Working: An Experimental Study. American Anthropologist, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 93–117. Washington.Google Scholar
Fried, Morton H. 1960 On the Evolution of Social Stratification and the State. In “Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, edited by Diamond, Stanley, pp. 713–31. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Griffin, James B. 1952 Culture Periods in Eastern United States Archaeology. In Archaeology of Eastern United States, edited by Griffin, James B., pp. 352–64. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Griffin, James B. 1960 Climatic Change: A Contributory Cause of the Growth and Decline of Northern Hopewellian Culture. Wisconsin Archeologist, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 21–33. Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Holmes, William H. 1901 Aboriginal Copper Mines of Isle Royale, Lake Superior. American Anthropologist, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 684–96. New York.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. 1953 Introduction. In: Anthropology Today, edited by Kroeber, A. L., pp. xiii–xv. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Martin, Paul S., Quimby, George I. and Collier, Donald 1947 Indians Before Columbus. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Ritchie, William A. 1955 Recent Suggestions Suggesting an Early Woodland Burial Cult in the Northeast. New York State Museum and Science Service, Circular No. 40. Rochester.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall D. 1958 Social Stratification in Polynesia. University of Washington Press, Seattle.Google Scholar
Spaulding, Albert C. 1946 Northeastern Archaeology and General Trends in the Northern Forest Zone. In “Man in Northeastern North America,” edited by Johnson, Frederick. Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, Vol. 3, pp. 143–67. Phillips Academy, Andover.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1955 Theory of Culture Change. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.Google Scholar
Thompson, Raymond H. 1958 Preface. In “Migrations in New World Culture History,” edited by Thompson, Raymond H., pp. v—vii. University of Arizona, Social Science Bulletin, No. 27. Tucson.Google Scholar
Waring, Antonio J. and Holder, Preston 1945 A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States. American Anthropologist, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 1–34. Menasha.Google Scholar
White, Leslie A. 1959 The Evolution of Culture. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.Google Scholar
Willey, Gordon R. and Phillips, Philip 1958 Method and Theory in Archaeology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Wittry, Warren L. 1951 A Preliminary Study of the Old Copper Complex. Wisconsin Archeologist, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 1–18. Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Wittry, Warren L. and Ritzenthaler, Robert E. 1956 The Old Copper Complex: An Archaic Manifestation in Wisconsin. American Antiquity, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 244–54. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar