“New” or “processual” archaeology fired the imaginations of American archaeology students in the 1960s. Ostensibly, followers of this enlightened path would eschew culture-historical narratives and instead pursue law-like, value-free generalizations about human behavior. The new practice would discover past sociocultural systems, which, according to its most vocal polemicist, were all in the ground to be discovered, if we would only approach the practice in an explicitly scientific manner.
More nuanced versions were soon put forward, methodological refinements were made, and some of the original enthusiasm was tempered in the light of critical reaction. Nevertheless, by the middle 1970s, successful research proposals were expected to include hypothesis testing. This carried over into the burgeoning field of cultural resource management (CRM) and still figures prominently therein today.
A counter movement arose mostly in Europe, where archaeology had not been taught as a branch of anthropology, but instead as a historical discipline, albeit one assisted by quantitative methods and supplementary scientific data. Varied strands of “post-processual” critique advocated interpretation over explanation and an epistemology of consistency and plausibility over one of confirmation through external logic. The most radical of the critiques argued flatly that nothing whatsoever could be definitively known and that everything archaeologists write is simply conjecture.
If we set aside deductive validity as the only appropriate standard for evaluating archaeological discourse, can we specify conditions with which to evaluate archaeological narratives? Artifacts, soil stains, and standing ruins do not speak for themselves—or, as Chapman and Wylie put it, “material evidence is inescapably an interpretive construct” (p. 6)—yet archaeologists somehow produce insights about the past by examining such taciturn traces. In chapter 1, the authors concede that deductive certainty is impossible, but they equally reject the radical alternative that all archaeological interpretation is necessarily speculative. Instead, they espouse a pragmatic standard of objectivity in which archaeological insights are warranted by background information and established experience-based knowledge that is itself subject to periodic reevaluation and revision. This inferential “scaffolding” can facilitate the addressing of specific questions while supporting and reinforcing evidential arguments.
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 treat the topics of archaeological field practice, reevaluation of old evidence, and multidisciplinary collaboration, respectively. Within each chapter, case studies exemplify the kinds of data archaeologists collect, the scaffolding that reinforces the plausibility of the analytical results, and how both interpretations and their supporting structures emerge in the process.
Chapter 2 addresses how archaeologists “learn to see,” that is, to develop the scaffolding that includes technical skills, norms of practice, and ways of communicating. A contrast is drawn between excavating to address a specific problem versus recording archaeological data in detail while avoiding personal biases and theoretical interests. The latter theory-neutral approach characterizes much of CRM archaeology as practiced today in England, according to the authors.
In chapter 3, the authors turn to the use of old evidence and show how, with some effort, legacy data can be reinterpreted and supplemented, leading to different interpretations, as well as refinements in the scaffolding that support them. Thus, different questions asked of the same data can lead to different conclusions but also promote productive continuing discourse about the warranting background assumptions that reinforce them.
Chapter 4 addresses the potential advantages and possible pitfalls of archaeologists’ reliance on techniques generated by other disciplines. Radiocarbon dating is given as one example, lead isotope analysis as another. In both cases, practice of the methods led to contradictions and consternation, which led to refinements in data collection strategies by archaeologists and adjustments by the physicists. Far from indicating failure of archaeological practice, however, the process of iterative correction and improvement on the part of both sets of practitioners is seen as a successful process of shoring up the scaffolding that leads to more satisfying interpretations. A brief concluding chapter reiterates the book's main points.
This is a well-informed and well-written book that will interest anyone who practices or teaches archaeology. It is supported by informative archaeological case studies and relevant references to the philosophy of science. I would like to have seen more acknowledgment of the political-economic contexts in which the various ways of archaeological knowing have developed, and more discussion of the value of in-the-field interaction by interdisciplinary teams. But these are small quibbles that do not detract from the overall value of the book. It will serve equally well as a reference work on the nature of archaeological evidence and as a textbook or supplementary reading for courses in archaeological theory.
