Field survey methods in Central Italy (Etruria and Umbria)

Abstract

The existence of regional traditions, in terms of methods and practices, has been an accepted fact in social sciences with a longer history than archaeology. In disciplines like anthropology and archaeology, with their strong emphasis on the description of phenomena that are peculiar to a given regional context, the development of a set of methodologies common to scholars dealing with the same region (a methodological ‘local knowledge’) has long been regarded as a natural tendency. It was only as a result of the main thrust connected with the appearance of processual archaeology that the idea (or should we say the myth?) of a universal methodology, i. e. one applicable to all contexts and periods, was developed. Thus, between the 1960s and the early 1980s, in parallel with a very positive standardization and intensification of archaeological techniques, a great effort went into the quest for an ultimate and universal field methodology (Binford 1964). As a result, a very wide agreement was reached fairly soon in some areas; for instance, as far as excavation is concerned, a kind of common practice was established, thanks to figures like Ph. Barker (1977) and E. C. Harris (1979). For some reason field survey has experienced a far less unilinear evolution, with sharp debates arising ever since the earliest attempts at a definition of a modern methodology (see for example the entertaining Hope-Simpson versus Cherry controversy, or the even more amusing debate imagined in Flannery 1976, 131–136).

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