A Model of Regional Archaeological Structure

Abstract

The recognition by archaeologists over the last fifteen years or so that even a discipline as down to earth as prehistory requires a theoretical basis has led to a diversity of research objectives. Essentially this has been a move away from the delineation of chronology and culture narrative towards an understanding of the behaviour of prehistoric man, requiring the development of theories relating to his ecological adaptation, his social organization, and his cognitive behaviour. The reassessment of archaeology has largely been at an explanatory or interpretative level. To some extent this has of course been paralleled by the increasingly sophisticated scientific and analytical techniques that are now available to aid in the interpretation of archaeological data. However, whilst archaeologists are more rigorous than ever before, and have developed a whole range of concepts for tackling the problems of prehistory, the actual data base employed by archaeologists has remained remarkably static. Field theory and methodology is essentially that of the earliest archaeologists. As Clarke (1973, 10) has commented, ‘harnessing powerful new methodological horses to rickety old conceptual carts has proved to be a powerful but drastic way of improving archaeological constructs by elimination’. Equally, though, the gleaming, streamlined conceptual chariots of the 1980s will go no further nor faster unless some attempt is made to update the roads over which they are expected to travel. What is necessary is a reassessment of what archaeological field data represent, i.e. how is the archaeological record formed?

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