Dunne 82

The Harvey Lecture Series. Science, Social Science, and Common Sense: TheAgonizing Dilemma of Modern Archaeology

Robert C. Dunnell

Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 38, No. 1. (Spring, 1982), pp. 1-25.

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JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH

VOLUME 38 NUMBER 1 SPRING 1982

The Harvey Lecture Series*

SCIENCE, SOCIAL SCIENCE, AND COMMON SENSE: THE AGONIZING DILEMMA OF MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY'

Robert C. Dunnell Department of Anthropology, DH-05, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195

For twenty years, American archaeology has been engaged in an effort to change the nature of the discipline. Prominent among the goals has been the creation of a "scientific" archaeology. While archaeology has changed greatly in many respects during this period, progress toward a scientific discipline has been decidedly limited. I t is the contention of this paper that failure to consider critical metaphysical issues lies at the heart of this failure, and that little progress toward the initial goal can be realized until these issues are resolved. A t the same time, clearer specification of the nature of the goal may call into question the reasonableness of a truly scientific archaeology.

FOR NEARLY TWENTY YEARS, American archaeology has struggled fitfully and noisily to rescue itself from what many perceived to be a narrow, intellectually stul-tifying, descriptive phase. In recent years, most of the acrimonious debate that characterized the initial phases of the struggle has abated. This has led many advo-cates to claim the campaign a success. A closer look at contemporary archaeology suggests that this assessment is premature. The systematic body of knowledge-archaeology in the substantive sense-is still largely the product of the traditional approach. There is less coherence and agreement on the nature, goals, and even techniques of analysis in archaeology today than was true twenty years ago.

Although archaeology is now considerably more rigorous, explicit, and in some senses much more "sophisticated," it does not seem any nearer the goal of becoming a scientific discipline than it was when the changes were initiated. Since even tra-ditional archaeology thought of itself as "scientific" in some general sense, it is reasonable to assume that the model of science which inspired the upheaval was one of a natural or physical science. In this paper, I explore the reasons for archaeology's failure to become science in this restricted sense; the principal cause is identified as the lack of archaeological theory (cf. Binford 1977). This seems to be a consequence of a lack of precision and completeness in the initial notion of science. Various scientific elements, mostly concepts and procedures, were borrowed without being integrated or appreciated as a particular mode of understanding and explanation. To the extent that becoming a scientific discipline is a reasonable and widely held

2 JOURNAL O F ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH

goal, a better notion of what science is and what it might look like in an archaeological context will allow us better to direct further development and to realize the potential of recent technical advances.

THE PROBLEM

When the idea of archaeology as a nomothetic science first appeared as an explicit goal, its advocates were few in number. In the intervening years only one thing-the number of advocates-has really changed. Even this modest change cannot be attributed to the intellectual power of the approach or its substantive success in creating a new understanding of the archaeological record. Schiffer (1979a) has argued that the change is largely demographic. Archaeology is dominated numerically by young PhDs, trained since the advent of the "new archaeology." I have argued that if one considers archaeological practice instead of methodological rhetoric, a second factor has played an even larger role in the apparent acceptance of the new archaeology-the rise of cultural resource management (Dunnell 1979). To the extent that CRM has made it possible for archaeologists to make mistakes rather than simply disagree, to the extent that CRM legal requirements have demanded a measure of precision in archaeological work, and to the extent that CRhl projects demand efficient fieldwork with explicit rationales, it set the stage for the adoption of some of the key elements of the new archaeology. The shift to regional-scale investigations and the use of probabilistic sampling designs are prime examples. These are, however, pragmatic changes. They were adopted because they represented solutions to problems posed by the CRM context, and not because archaeologists had generally come to embrace the intellectual rationales that had generated these concepts. That demographic and pragmatic reasons underlie the changes in archaeological discourse and practice is clearly evident in the formulaic application and uncritical use of new concepts (e.g., Grayson 1978). Although greatly improving data acquisition, the acceptance of such ideas should not be mistaken for evidence of fundamental acceptance or even understanding of the premises of the scientific approach proposed in the 1960s.

Lack of substantive accomplishment is, at a gut level at least, widely recognized (e.g., Schiffer 1978). There is growing agitation to get on with "doing" archaeology. The literature of the past twenty years has been one of technical innovation, model and concept borrowing, and programmatic assertion (Binford 19 77; Dunnell 19 79; Meltzer 1979). Empirical research is comprised of a growing series of isolated "case studies," in which some new or borrowed notion is applied to a particular body of data (cf. Service 1969). Precise parallels, though twenty years earlier, characterize the efforts of social sciences to become "scientific" (e.g., Dunnette 1966). In a few areas, spatial analyses and lithic studies being the best examples, significant bodies of literature have developed around analytic methods. While the interests represented by these fields and the analytic protocols developed to effect them are different, and in some sense advances over traditional archaeology, they tend toward self- contained fields of scholarship, whose impact upon and integration with archaeology as a whole is rather feebly developed (e.g., Schiffer 1979b). Economic, ecolo@cal, and evolutionary approaches, though more broadly gauged and less coherent than fields like lithic studies, similarly represent expansions of interest and even ex-pansions of the field of relevant data, but they tend to be oriented toward specific concepts uncritically adopted from other fields (e.g., Hardesty 1980). In not a few

3 DILEMMA O F MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY

cases, the borrowing has also ignored contemporary literature in the parent fields, which renders the borrowed concepts obsolete or debatable (e.g., P. Gould 1970; Rhoades 1978).

Much has been made of the quantitative revolution, but since archaeological -data are readily counted or otherwise represented numerically, little comfort can be taken from this activity. As in the case of concept borrowing, quantification in the absence of developed theory and understanding of process has proved quite fruitless in other fields (eg.,P. Gould 1970; S. Gould 1980; Hayek 1978; Willer and Willer 1974). Indeed, it seems quite clear even to the practitioners of the basic disciplines that quantification and quantitative methods are incapable of leading to theoretical development (e.g., Henkel 1976: 7).

The same might be said of the archaeological fascination with the philosophy of science in a ~rescriptive role. Although the philosophy of science may have been initiated as an effort to identify a distinctive scientific explanatory structure and logic, it has not been successful in this endeavor, nor is this one of its primary contemporary goals. Argument format, as helpful as such analysis may be to practitioners of particular sciences, does not determine correctness or empirical accuracy (cf. LeBlanc 1973; Watson, LeBlanc, and Redman 1971). The philosophy of science is an attempt to account for existing science, in which the satisfactoriness of explanations has been independently determined. Even in recent years, when the philosophy of science has turned its attention outside the field of physical science, the thrust of its efforts has been to account for a priori satisfactory explanations (e.g., Meehan 1968; Salmon 1971; Salmon and Salmon 1979).

The pattern of concept borrowing, the equation of quantification (an important tool of science) with science, and the use of the philosophy of science in a justi- ficatory role, all accomplished in an ad hoc and piecemeal fashion, provide strong evidence that a faulty notion of science, or no notion at all, lies at the root of our inability to become a nomothetic scientific discipline.

The new archaeology has not been very introspective on its own account, a condition that follows almost directly from the superficial borrowing of some of the forms of science. Disembedded concepts must be taken as articles of faith, because the bases for critical evaluation of their application, relevance, and meaning in the archaeological context are lost in the borrowing process. The bulk of modern debate centers on technical issues, Thomas's critiques of quantitative methods being a prominent example (1972, 1976:457-68, 1978, 1980).

To be sure, there are some major exceptions to this general pattern. Schiffer's (1972, 1976) concern with site formation processes is clearly an attempt to correct what he perceives as an important flaw in the new archaeology. R. Gould's (1978, 1980) concern with the weaknesses of analogic argument is another. But in these and other cases of introspection, there is a disturbing pattern. The basic tack is to "refine" the approach, to strengthen or qualify methods and concepts. They are not examinations of the basic tenets of the new archaeology. They do not treat theoretical issues, but rather see their efforts as preliminary to the development of theory. Above all, they do not develop a notion of science for archaeology. It is almost as if we are afraid to look deeply at what we do, for fear that we will learn that we cannot achieve the lofty goals that initiated the new archaeology.

4 JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Critics from without ( e . ~ . , Bayard 1969 ;Hawkes 1968; Hole 1980; Trigger 19 i 0 ) are generally dismissed out of hand. Perhaps this response is preordained in the recent history of archae~lo~gy, because these individuals are perceived as advocates of a humanistic, more intuitive culture-historical approach. Any call to return to the "good old days" has been debunked in the polemic that established the new archaeology. This kind of solution provides emotional, if not intellectual grounds for rejecting their criticisms. This is unfortunate, because many of the

critics have raised important issues which are either flaws in the new archaeology or which, if addressed by the new archaeology, would have initiated an examination of current practice and ideas at a most fundamental level. For ~vhatever reason, the new archaeologj-seems to have settled into a period of quiet innovation and development, within the confines of a paradigm that has been named but never adequately delin- eated.

Even greater cause for alarm is supplied by another change. Slowly but surely there seems to have been a general, careftilly concealed retreat from the initial goals. Concealment is afforded by using the same words-the concern for laws and theory is still loudly sounded by many-but the meaning of the words has acquired a less ambitious ring. Initially the desire to be scientific was modeled on "hard" science. By the early 1970s, social science was included in the package. .\lore recently we seem to have settled for social science almost exclusively. LVe are now becoming scientific by changing the definition of science rather than the nature of archaeology.

The effects of such a position on the development of archaeology are profound. Early in the process it lvas recopized that traditional archaeology lacked substantive theory; gradually almost any statement that is not strictly iconographic description seems to qualify for the appellation. Only a few argue that archaeology is atheoreti- cal (e.g., Binford 1977; Clarke 1968; Dunnell 1978; Read and LeBlanc 1978). .\mong these, many see theory acquisition as the result of a linear, inductive research s t r a t e n , lending the impression that theory \\;ill somehow arise from the pursuit of the current course of development. Few indeed are those who recognize the role of theory in creating observations, facts, and measurements. Yet there is one unassail- able fact: Systematic archaeological knowledge, world prehistory if you will, is still the product of traditional archaeology, hardly touched by the intellectual component of the new uchaeology. There is even an effort to disguise this b!! defining the product as the acquisition of laws or methods, rather than the crcatio~z of knourledgc. Without denigrating the importance of the former, they are properly tools in the service of the creation of knowledge.

Modern archaeology thus seems dichotomized in a way that differs from the condition of the traditional approach. On the one hand, there is the "theoretical" literature of the new archaeology, largely comprised of programmatic assertion, discussions of concepts, methods, and techniques, and on occasion, applications to isolated bodies of data. On the other hand, and comprising the activities of the bulk of practicing American archaeologists, there are empirical studies that represent the growth of knowledge, addressing essentially the same questions and expecting the same kinds o f answers as was the case decades ago. The format, analytic rigor, and range of data considered by such studies has often been touched by the "theoretical" literature, but the effects have largely been cosmetic. The two are not at


all systematically integrated, certainly not to the extent that was true before the new archaeology.

In the end, although my characterization is perhaps unduly harsh, it does seem that we have not achieved the initial goals of the new archaeology. In spite of this, we have become comfortable with the way things are. Perhaps Schiffer's demographic processes are at work here as well. The basic problem seems to be a nebulous notion of the nature of science. In the 1960s, science was good. In embarking on this course, it seems that most of us assumed that science was a collection of techniques and methods, of care and quantification, and of explicit discourse and rigor. All, of course, are part of the package, but the metaphysical basis, the role of theory, in short, science as a kind of understanding, were overlooked in the rush to produce a product that would establish the virtue of the new approach.

It is both a consolation and a disappointment to realize that the same pattern can be uncovered throughout the social sciences. Yet it is premature to conclude, as is sometimes argued, that sociocultural phenomena are intractable to science, or that science is, on this basis, an inappropriate kind of understanding. We have yet t o try it seriously. As the convergence of the histories of divergent disciplines on this particular point suggests, there is something intrinsically difficult about becoming a science for the first time, something significantly more difficult than the transitions from one paradigm to another that Kuhn (1962) has described for established sciences. It is my view that theory plays the key role here. Theory in the sense of explicit units and laws governing their interactions universally is a hallmark of science; but is it a consequence of science or its cause? Archaeology has for the most part, along with many other disciplines, decided the question in favor of the first position. I suspect the decision is by default. Not only did traditional archaeology lack theory, but there were no explicit models that could be directly borrowed. No one was really sure where theory came from or what role it played in the enterprise, so it was assumed that it was a product rather than an integral part. We simply did not realize the enormity of the goal we set for ourselves, or the ease with which we could become derailed.

SYSTEMS O F UNDERSTANDING: SCIENCE, COMMON SENSE, AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Three sense-making systems are pertinent to archaeology's efforts to become scientific-science, social science, and common sense. Though as general research strategies the differences among the three are stark enough, these differences are commonly understated. h'Iost professionals operate within a single system, and then often only within a single, restricted, traditional expression of that system. Further, the public prestige of science provides pressure to construe all more or less systematic studies as science. In the 1960s, archaeologists, as neophytes in such matters, under- standably but erroneously assumed that becoming scientific was a straightforward, albeit demanding process, and that everybody knew what science was. Science

To the extent that science can be distinguished from other kinds of understandings, two elements seem to be characteristic: (1)the manner in which sciences establish the correctness of conclusions; and (2) the integration of those conclusions into a systematic body of knowledge, such that any particular conclusion has direct entailments for all other conclusions.


Science uses many kinds of judgments in assessing the satisfactoriness of conclusions (e.g., symmetry, logical coherence, parsimony, etc.); however, the ultimate arbitrator is comprised by what I have termed "performance criteria," i.e., how well a proposition works in an empirical context (Dunnell 1978). Hesse (1978), in a social science context and using different terms, has come to a similar conclusion. The convention of using a single mode of settling issues of correctness contributes, of course, t o systematic integration of those conclusions, and is responsible for the empirical value of scientific conclusions. Presumably, it is this latter feature that archaeology hoped to capture in becoming scientific. The use of performance criteria permits definitive experiment and definitive empirical testing (cf. Platt 1964). Scientific propositions must have definitive empirical consequences.* In this statement "definitive" is just as important as "empirical"; it precludes the loose use of "deduction" which characterizes many disciplines aspiring to be scientific, as well as not a small amount of bad science itself (Platt 1964). Deduction identifies logical arguments which ultimately derive their meaning from a set of primitive definitions, and thus always results in true ~ t a t e r n e n t s . ~ It should also be noted that empirical correctness is always conditional; while proof can be obtained in logical matters, such is not the case in empirical ones. From Sir Francis Bacon (1960) to Karl Pop- per (1959), there is substantial agreement that empirical propositions are established by default, by the inability to disprove them. Of course, not all scientists behave this way, but attempts to "prove" or "confirm" empirical propositions are taken to mark bad science (e.g., Platt 1964). Confirmation is an entirely legitimate way of establishing conclusions, essentially establishing their plausibility (e.g., Polya 1954), but it is not the method used by science in producing its distinctively empirically valuable conclusions.

Integration of empirical conclusions is accomplished by the set of definitions and the propositions deduced from them. These two elements, taken together and explicitly rendered, constitute theory. Theory supplies the substantive meaning, the units of observation, the means of asking and answering questions, and the means to bring the entire process under the control of the investigator so that it can be examined, challenged, and evaluated. With the exception of control, all of these functions may be performed without the use of theory; it is in this last sense that "all observation is theory laden" (Hanson 1958). Observation requires units and the means of linking observations made in those units. Simplistically rendered, science recognizes the necessity of these decisions and their profound influence on the nature of conclusions, and brings them under control by explicit formulation. Theory is thus a substitute, explicitly compounded and expressly limited in applica- bility, for indigenous, covert rules and units used in understanding. The history of science is rather much a history of theory development in this sense, the s l o ~ but systematic elimination of unanalyzed, implicit rules for making sense and units of observation (e.g., Dunnell 1973a). Because of the constraints placed by theory 011

asking questions, making observations, and assembling linking statements, empirical conclusions are linked into internally coherent bodies of knowledge. Scientific knowledge is not simply an ad hoc or even a catalogued assemblage of empirically true statements.

Science is thus a dualistic enterprise, involving both induction and deduction in the strict senses. Performance criteria compel an inductive component; theory


requires the deductive element. In fact, some (e.g., Willer and Willer 1974) have argued that science may be distinctive among systems of understanding on these grounds alone. Often the dualistic aspect of science is not apparent. Theory, since it is a substitute for common sense, is often taken as a given in established science, lending the impression that science is dominated by empirical concerns. Kuhn (1962) has neatly captured this in his notion of "normal science." It has also contributed to the comparative lack of concern for theory generation in many accounts of science (e.g., Meehan's 1968 comments on the Hempel-Oppenheim model of scientific explanation). It is precisely for this reason that I have argued for a phenomenological/ ideational distinction in formulating a scientific archaeology (Dunnell 197 1).

These seemingly contradictory elements pose significant problems in the con-struction of a science. Lewontin (1974a) has explicitly discussed this process from the point of view of a scientist who has participated in such a development. He has identified three critical parameters: (1) dynamic sufficiency; (2) empirical sufficiency; and (3) tolerance limits. Dynamic sufficiency refers to the completeness of theory-does the theory contain the requisite number of pieces of the right kind to generate scientifically acceptable explanations? Empirical sufficiency complicates this criterion by requiring that the units of theory also be directly measurable in the phenomenological world (cf. Meehan 1968). Logically sound theory is rendered useless if the units employed are not measurable; if this criterion is not met, definitive empirical testing is not possible. Similarly, if measurability is the exclusive concern, conclusions are deprived of nontautological meaning and cannot be systematically integ-rated. The result is isolated "facts." Tolerance limits, the third of Lewontin's criteria, recognizes the basic contradiction inherent in the dualistic nature of science. Scientific accounts are always models at variance with any actual description. Thus it is necessary to establish independently how close is close enough. In the most developed sciences, these limits may be established by our technology for measuring differences. In others, where mistakes have measurable costs, pragmatic determina- tions are possible. For still others, we must be satisfied with continuing efforts to decrease the variance between account and case. Lewontin's (1974a:8) summary is an elegant statement of the process:

I t is not always appreciated that the problem of theory building is a constant interaction between constructing laws and finding an appropriate set of descriptive state variables [units] such that laws can be constructed. We cannot go out and describe the world in any old way we please and then sit back and demand that an explanatory and predictive theory be built on that description . . . That is not t o say that there is an insoluable contradiction. Rather there is a process of trial and synthesis going on . . . in which both state descriptions and laws are being fitted together.

It is significant that Lewontin takes no note of "discovery," "confirmation," formal properties of explanations, methods and techniques, or any of the other things that have loomed large in the recent history of archaeology. Rather two inventive elements, laws and units, are the focus of his account. Note, too, that the linear sequence-observation, hypothesis, testing, confirmation, theory-that is implied by the "inductive" accounts of theory construction, and that is the typical perception during periods of normal science, is conspicuous1y absent. Instead, prominently displayed is a circular, back-and-forth process, a series of successive approximations that produce a set of units for observation and measurement for which laws can be written.

8 JOURNAL OF AN'THROPOLO(;ICAL RESEARCH

If this simple account of the nature of science Tvere adequate, we would already have grave misgivings about the course of the nelv archaeology in beconling scientific. Unfortunately, science is not a unitary kind of understanding. There are tbvo kinds of science, in the sense just presented, so different in their metaphysical bases as to affect even such fundamental concepts as explanation (e.g., Alayr 1961; Sober 1980). .Aspiring to be scientific is anlbiguous if there is more than one kind of science; these differences are often glossed over, because physics is frequently employed as an archetype of science, relating to other sciences along a continuum of "maturity" or "exactness." Only since the development of biologl- as a robust science has it been possible to relate some long-remarked variability in science to a coherent source (e.g. Lelvontin 1974b; AIayr 1959; Sober 1980).

Crudely, the contrast is between historical and ahistorical science. Differences are commonly expressed in terms of tertiary effects: "how" versus "why" questions; functional versus evolutionary or historical explanations; and proximate versus ultimate causation (e.g., Baker 1938; Dunnell 1980; S. Gould 1980; hlayr 1961). Pianka (1978:15-16) frames the contrast around notions of ecological and evolutionary time. These distinctions can be integrated by positing tavo underlying views of the nature of reality, spcrce-like and tirne-like frames. Entailed are notions of existence and limitations on how observations, constrained by the conditions of human physical existence, can be related to one another.

In the view designated space-like, reality is assumed to be a unified, locall\- heterogeneous, universally homogeneous s)istcm. Quantity is thus a critical isstre. In this framework entities are assumed to exist 21s bounded phenomena. Seeing the world as comprised by "things" is a serviceable ontological position. Time is an elapsed interval measure. Similarly, space is rendered as distance. Since a single set of entities is presumed to be phenomenological at the scale of inquiry, relations between units are properly formulated without reference to age or location: they are timeless, universally true statements. Change is limited to local, conditionalll. reversible transformation. It is a reality without direction. The basic questions addressed are "how does it work?" rather than "why does it exist?" although the illusion of addressing "why" questions can be affected by changing scales (i.e., "holv" understandings at a given scale cdn be offered as "why" understandings of phenomena at a larger scale). Cause is proximate; explanation is functional. Labeling this view as space-like is, in one sense, a misnomer. Space and time are accorded identical treatment; indeed, they merge when large distances are involveti, as in astronomy. On the other hand, the terminology does reflect a prilgmatic difference. The limitations of our physical existence permit gathering information rather easily in space, but make it more difficult t o do the same over significant amounts of time. The universal homogeneity assumption, however, means that local heterogeneity need only be examined in one dimension, so one need not concern oneself with temporal sampling.4

The conception of reality designated time-like does not assume that reality is a unified system, but rather that reality has direction. In such a view, phenomena cannot exist as bounded, a priori entities, but are always in the process of becoming. Thus, quality as well as quantity are critical concerns. Time is a ratio measure rendered as an age or date; space is location. Relations between observations are constrained by both time and place. Relations cannot be rendered as timeless,


universally true statements among entities, because there is no constant set of entities. The absence of a periodic table in such sciences is not a function of disciplinary youth; it is a function of their ontological position. The basic questions are of the "why does it exist?" sort. Cause is ultimate; explanation is historical. Again, labeling this position as time-like is somewhat misleading, as time and space are treated identically. Pragmatically, these sciences must gather information from widely separated temporal loci, and it is this feature that produces the contrasts evident in research strategies.

The absence of discrete, bounded, empirically meaningful entities in one view, and their presence in the other, have a ~ r o f o u n d influence on all aspects of science. The notion of nomothetic science is clearly founded in a space-like conception of reality, and physics is the prime example of such a science. I t is not at all so obvious what it means to be nomothetic within a time-like framework. To be universally true, classical laws require units that are independent of time and space. Clearly, laws of this sort cannot exist at the same level in time-like sciences ( e . ~ . ,Popper 1963). Attempts to generate such statements result in empirical generalizations which can be shown to be false a priori, and obscure the variability that the time-like conception is designed to make accessible. This is not to say that laws are impossible in time-like frames, or that time-like sciences cannot be nomothetic, only that the substantive terms must be different, and that efforts to construct laws strictly on models derived from physics are wasted. Only one grand theory of this sort exists- Darwinian evolution. Here, "laws" attend how things change, not how they interact. It could be n o other way.

hluch has been made of the dichotomy between "essentialism" and "materialist" metaphysical positions (e.g., Dunnell 1980; Lewontin 1974b; Rlayr 1959; Sober 1980). Essentialism, or "typological thinking," is seen as generally antithetical to science by some writers (e.g., Popper 1972; Quine 1960), while others regard this position as characteristic of science (e.g., Kripke 1972). It does not seem possible to characterize all science one way or the other. The periodic table and paradigms of elementary particles are elegant testimony to the effectiveness of essentialism in space-like sciences, because it is reasonable to presume the existence of discrete entities. On the other hand, essentialism is clearly antithetical t o time-like frames (Hull 1965; Lewontin 1974b; hlayr 1959; Sober 1980), where the presumption of discrete entities is not serviceable. As Lewontin (1974b) shows, Darwin's principal contribution was the materialistic metaphysic; this allowed time-like frames to produce scientific results for the first time.5 klayr (1959) is entirely correct when he observes that evolutionary theory is not simply a different theory and evolutionary biology a different science, they are different kinds of theory and science.

The role of prediction in science is similarly illuminated by this contrast. In space-like frames, prediction, in the rigorous sense of forecasting future outcomes, is possible because the laws and units are independent of timelspace constraints. In time-like frames, prediction in this strict sense is impossible, because the applicable laws do not contain timelspace-free terms. Comparable prediction requires independent knowledge of future units and relations. Empirical testing in this frame is thus constrained to the past (cf. Mayr 1961), where such information is potentially available. The term prediction is sometimes applied to such testing (e.g., Watson, LeBlanc, and Redman 1971), although it is clearly a different process. Pragmatically acceptable


approximations may, of course, be derived in time-like frames by simply presuming that the future will be identical t o the present. If rates of change are small and the forecast limited to the near future, the error may be acceptably small.

The effects of the space-likeltime-like dichotomy are not limited to high-level considerations like the nature o f laws and prediction. I t also has profound effects on methods and techniques. For example, inferential statistics are powerful analytic tools in space-like frames, where discreteness is reasonable and the assumptions underlying the methods are congruent with the view of reality ~ o s i t e d . Their meaning and utility in time-like frames, however, is entirely problematic. You cannot infer your foot from your nose, nor a hydrogen bomb from a trilobite. Statistical inference is simply inoperative when variables change in quality rather than in value.

While many of the apparent disagreements and contradictions about the nature of science are resolved by positing two views of the nature of reality that are com- patible with science, this also raises an additional question. Under what conditions are the two different views appropriate? The choice hinges on the utility of each, as measured by its ability to generate accounts that meet the performance criterion. This, as hlayr suggests (1961), is largely a matter of scale. In the spatial dimension, scale is a matter of size relative to human beings; in the temporal dimension it is a matter of duration relative to human lifetimes (e.g., Hammel 1979). At any given scale both conceptions are possible, though not equally useful. At any particular instant in time the phenomenological world is well approximated by the space-like frame (Figure 1). Its utility in a scientific sense depends strictly upon the difference between successive instants, i.e., rate of change. If , from the perspective of our own size and duration, the difference is negligible, the space-like frame produces scientifically acceptable results. Conversely, if the rate of change is such that phenomena change, the space-like frame is increasingly unable to produce results that meet the performance criterion of acceptability; a time-like frame is required. For example, at the minute scale of subatomic particles, the universe has been comprised of the same stuff from about three minutes after the "big bang" (Weinberg 1977). .4 space-like conception of the nature of reality is thus appropriate and functional at this scale.

Traditionally archaeology has asked "why" questions, and seen the explanation of cultural change as a major goal. If this orientation remains the primary goal of the discipline, a time-like framework is clearly requisite. '4sking these time-like questions while employing research strategies, methods, and techniques developed in and for space-like approaches appears to be one of the major confusions within the new archaeology. Athens's (1977) critique of Flannery's (1972) explanations of complex society constitutes a perfect case in point. Although it is unreasonable to characterize space-like approaches as "nonexplanatory" as Athens does, he has clearly hit upon the critical contrast between the two. Flannery cannot answer questions of origins and change with devices that are designed to explain how a system of finite parts functions. (See Figure 1.)

Just as important as the recognition that there are two kinds of science at the most fundamental level is acknowledgment that neither is right or wrong in absolute terms. Two distinct sciences may be compounded about the same subject phenomena (e.g., ecology and evolutionary biology). While such sciences interact through specific concepts common to both frames-"adaptation" for example-interaction should

DILEMMA O F MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY

Figure 1. Empirical Discreteness in Continuous Phenomena

The vertical axis represents time. The horizontal axes represent form, much in the manner of a scattergram of similarity distances. In space-like frames, such as represented by the two planes passed through the phenomena, phenomena always appear to be discontinuous or clumped, quite independently of whether the phenomena are continuous or not. Thus, biological taxonomy is entirely reasonable at any given point in time, but fails to provide adequate units for evolutionary accounts. Continuous models of "reality" are appropriate whenever the form of phenomena is transmitted through time. Whether a punctuated model, i.e., periodic constrictions in the diameter of the various branches, or a more uniform model as depicted here is appropriate, is an empirical, not a metaphysical issue.

12 JOURNAL O F . iNTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH

not blind us to their fundamental differences. Such dyads seek different kinds of explanations for phenomena conceived in different fashions. As noted before, the relative robustness of such pairs is dependent, in part, upon scale and upon access to the temporally dispersed obseivations essential to time-like approaches. The pragmatic value of space-like approaches is always the most evident, for "ho~v" questions are those of contemporary interest. Time-like approaches, divorced as they are from common experience, are typically less valuable pragmatically, and are assimilated by the public at large only with considerable difficulty.

Such paired sciences can and should have major substantive impacts on each other. The space-like sciences hare the potential for contributing much about mechanisms (cf. S. Gould 1980), while the time-like sciences can identify significance, a problem often quite intractable with space-like approaches. It is difficult to predict the Pleistocene (or a future ice age) from yesterday's weather report. hlagni- tude of variation alone is quite insufficient to mark significance. Common Sensc

Science, for all of its widely touted virtues, is not the most powerful sense-making system. This honor rnust be accorded common sense, the sense-making system that each of us carries unanalyzed and largely unanalyzable in our heads, for it solves a- .

far greater range of problems more effectively than any other sense-making system. Our simple existence is ample proof of its power. Anthropologists are well aware that common sense is a cultural phenomenon, that there are as many common senses as there are sets of people living and solving the problems of living. In one way, common sense is culture-it determines the kinds of obsen~ations, the rules for assembling those observations into sense, and even what constitutes sense. As a sense-making system, common sense is functionally equivalent to theory in the sciences.

As a research strategy, common sense has a number of distinct liabilities. First it is necessarily ethnocentric; the field ~vithin which it operates and by which it is transmitted is a particular culture. Common senses have many analogous features as a consequence of the constraints of the physical world and their interaction ~v i th the physical characteristics of Homo s u p k n s , but there are also many differences, enough to have occupied anthropologists for generations. Important among the commonalities is the general structure of common senses imposed by the mechanisms by which they are propagated, most importantly natural selection. No common sense could persist if it routinely led to incorrect solutions that affect reproduction. No common sense can persist in the face of competition with a more powerful common sense. As a product of selection, common sense is adapted to the framework experienced by living people; it is the height of presentism. Common sense changes, largely unmarked, to meet changed conditions. It does not itself embody a developed notion of time; in fact, even the notion o f qualitatively different time is a relatively modern notion in Western cultures, and is in large part linked to the development of science (Toulmin and Goodfield 1965). It is easy enough to appreciate why common sense is incapable o f embodying a serial notion of time, beyond a rather nebulous sense of history. Selection places no onp r e m i ~ ~ n ~longevit).-longevity thwarts change. In that future conditions are unknown, they cannot be anticipated by common sense. To incorporate a past would be anachronistic and maladaptive.


A common sense that "averaged" large amounts of time would, because of change, be a poor adaptation at any given time. Thus, common sense is space-like and essentialist.

No less significant is the fact that common sense is not explicit, and it is in this that it differs most dramatically from theory. Users of common sense do not learn it overtly as a system. It is reasonably assumed to be incomplete and contradictory. All that is required for common sense to function is that the incompleteness and contradictory elements do not surface in the solution of specific problems (Wallace 1965). We cannot know it explicitly, cannot examine its premises, and are unable to control its change. It is a system of connotation as well as denotation. The need for science derives from posing questions that are not permissable within common sense, and thereby not answerable within it. For these new questions, a substitute system must be manufactured explicitly, if the system is to be manufactured at all.

These characteristics of common sense are important in at least two ways. First, in a functional sense, it competes with any other mode of explanation for the minds of people, and it does so in a virtually invisible way, since we are not generally aware of its presence. To illustrate this, we need look no further than culture history. Culture history makes sense, except for the extraction of time, with common sense. The extraction of temporal information, culture history's primary intellectual achievement, is analytically developed by culture history because common sense does not embody a usable notion of time. To do any kind of archaeology requires this invention. Thus, culture history first obtains the temporal/spatial coordinates of its data points. But to "explain" these data, they must then be converted from rocks and bones and sticks and stones into units that are tractile within common sense, usually English nouns. Further, because of common sense's space-like qualities, the sequential time information must be suppressed. This is accomplished by periodization, which creates a set of internally homogeneous units that can be described, interpreted, and explained exactly as we describe, interpret, and explain the world around us. Differences among such units are treated like differences among contemporaneous units; the only difference is terminological. Differences between units of various ages are called "change"; those between contemporaneous units are called "difference." In effect, all of the "change" is squeezed out, and must be assumed to be lodged in the lines that separate periods on timelspace charts (Plog 1974). The pernicious effects of common sense on archaeology are only now beginning to be frankly realized (e.g., Clarke 1973; Dincauze 1978), although tertiary expressions occasioned notice early in the new archaeo~ogy.~

Once data are converted into a form that is tractile in common sense, explanation is virtually self-evident and almost unchallengeable. A classic case is provided by Sabloff and Willey's (1967) account of the collapse of the lowland Maya, and Bin- ford's (1968a) objections to that account. If it could be established that an invasion took place, then it seems self-evident why the Maya system collapsed, sufficiently self-evident that no amount of argument and no general propositions were presented to make the connection. Rather, the real effort was devoted to converting various observations into an "invasion." But to someone interested in the role of theory in scientific explanation, the only important element, the means by which the invasion/ collapse linkage is made, is strangely absent, and the conclusion thus by no means


evident. No amount of clarification, n o increase in the rigor or explicitness of the "inductive" processes involved can resolve the issue. Two different sense-making systems are involved.

Realizing that common sense competes with scientific explanation where the two overlap in subject matter, and that science must initially be forged out of common sense, may explain many of the gross features of the history and development of modern science. It is probably not accidental that the first sciences to develop, and those which have enjoyed the greatest success, are those in which an essentialist framework is workable, and the subject matter at a very different scale than that attended to by common sense. The former feature requires the least amount of change, while the latter insures modest competition. Sciences that attend to phenomena at similar scales and require a materialist framework are the least well developed, the last to appear, and have been won at the price of accepting a man/ nature dichotomy (Toulmin and Goodfield 1965).

The history of science is really one of the development of theory as a substitute for common sense, and a constant battle against the incursions of comnlon sense. -When explicit theory fails or is incomplete, the space is not left vacant-common sense will fill it. '4s I once argued with a culture historian (Bayard 1973; Dunnell 1973a, b), fire, air, earth, and water constitute a rational, tangible classification of the material world, one that is entirely consistent with my whole experience. It did not, however,lead to the development of physics or chemistry. For that, the periodic table, full of such nonsense as rubidium, oxygen, and silicon, things I have never experienced and can never experience, played a key role. 'The periodic table is not a "refinement" of fire, air, earth, and water, but is based on a ~vholly different conception of kind (Seaborg 1980). Nor was there a science of p e d o l o n , so long as soil was conceived alternatively as a pathological condition of the earth's crust (and thereby explicable in terms of geological theory) or as the stuff provided by God to hold plants upright. Soil processes and the units upon ~vhich they operate had to

be i~zventedfor pedology to produce scientific results. Archaeologists, social scientists, and nearly everybody else have been quick to

try to use Kuhn's (1962) notions to analyze their own discipline's history. The Kuhnian model is not so broadly applicable. It was invented to account for change within cstablkhed scicvzces, and its utility and insight depend very much upon the common characteristics of science. To create a science in the first place is a far more difficult task, made so by the unanalyzable character of the competing system. The problem of theory substitution, important as it is, is relatively simple, almost snper- ficial, once theory-any theory-and its role are established in a field of inquiry. Not only did archaeologists embark upon making archaeology a science ~vi thout a clear notion of what science was or tvhat kind of science we should have, but they also grossly underestimated the intellectual difficulty in the first step. Social Science

This brings us to the last of the major sense-making systems, the social sciences. This sytem is relevant only because archaeology chose to model itself, at least in a general way, on one social science, sociocultural anthropo1og)l. M'iller and Il'iller (1974) provide a lucid account of the structure and origin of the modern social sciences, albeit in a not very charitable tone. Laying aside their polemic, the basic

15 DILEMMA OF MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY

outline they provide is really incontestable. Certainly not all instances of social science conform to "systematic empiricism" in their terms, no more than all chemistry, physics, or botany is science, but their caricature has genuine insight for the field as a whole.

The crux of their historical argument is that John Stuart Mill, the father of modern social science, made an explicit attempt to devise a scientific study of human phenomena, but that his understanding of science was defective. Although Willer and Willer (1974) do not recognize the limitations imposed by contemporary intellectual conditions, it is possible to see Mill's effort as a genuine attempt to construct a human science. Prior efforts at explaining human behavior were, in academic circles, philosophical in nature (Toulmin and Goodfield 1965). The obvious contrast between philosophy and science is the latter's empirical concerns. Just as many modern scholars assume that quantification equals science, because of the prominent role of quantification in science, Mill assumed that empiricism equaled science. He neglected the role of theory, the kind of reasoning that is common to both philosophy and science. Mill mistook the careful concern for empirical sufficiency of theoretical concepts for an exclusive concern with the empirical. Thus "cow" and "gravity" are equivalent notions. At the most fundamental level, science was for Mill a matter of discovery, not a matter of invention. The importance accorded "regularities" and "similarities," and their confusion with logical statements dates from this formulation.

hlill's approach was not rigorously quantitative, and so it fell to Karl Pearson, Galton's student, to invent a method by which Mill's general strategy could be effected in a quantitative manner, by methods of relation. Pearson flatly rejected the notion of theory, regarding laws as simple statements of association, empirical generalizations, in a word. In reaction to essentialism, Pearson attempted to "end the domination of experience by concepts." The relations of science should be relations among things, not relations among concepts. Since no two things are alike, Pearson concluded that relations, and hence all "laws" in his terms, are probabilistic. No phenomena are causal; they are all contingent. Therefore, the objective of rigorous science in his view is the determination of depree of contingency. His efforts to convert physicists to this point of view, while persistent, were unsuccessful-there remained one serious flaw in the paradigm. For Pearson's empirical generalizations to be accurate, all data, an indefinitely large and, because of the future, impossible data set, had to be considered. How could one then get from a series of particular observations to accurate probabilistic generalizations? R.A. Fisher supplied the missing element by adapting the theory of errors to statistical testing, and by col- lapsing statistical procedure and experimental design into the same package, significance testing. With this innovation social science was not only committed to an inductive approach, but also embraced a rigorously essentialist and space-like notion of the nature of reality.

For all of its concerns with empirical studies, the structure of systematic empiricism precludes scientific knowledge (Hayek 1978; Willer and Willer 1974). Without theory in the scientific sense of the term, this strategy is unable to specify meaning apart from the common-sense element that enters into the initial observations. Even more apparent is the fact that no conclusion within such a framework has definitive


empirical consequences, i.e., no statement is empirically falsifiable. Probabilistic statements do not predict values; they predict the likelihood of obtaining a particular value. One supposes that this is the primary reason why the social sciences have embraced a confirmation epistemology rather than one of falsification.'

The contrast between the approaches of science and social science is clearly revealed in a consideration of "la~vs," the relational propositions that are responsible for explanation. Immediately one confronts a major confi~sion in the anthropological and archaeological literatures-between i~~npiricalgeneralkatio~zs and lazes, or empirical and theoretical laws, as they are sometinles labeled in the sciences. Empiri- cal generalizations are summary statements about some specific set of obsei~rations (e.g., Binford 1968b, 1979; Dunnell 1971, 1980). They may be as sinlple as Narroll's (1962) floor-space statement-actually a simple mean amended by subsequent observation (e.g., LeBlanc 1971; 1Yatson 1979)-or they ma)- be of a much grander scale, such as Kepler's lalvs of planetary motion (Kaufmann 1977). Empirical generalizations ma)- be written with any set of terms, including simple English ~vords (cf. Lewontin 1974a). They do not require theory, but they are not antithetical to it. -1s summaries of observations, they are contingency-bound, phenon~enological statements which can never, bl- virtue of their empirical formulation, be true in any absolute or universal sense. Laws, or theoretical laws, are rational, ideational con- structs that ultimately are deductions, sensu s t r i c t ~ , from primitive definitions. They are always true by virtue of their construction, and are not contingency bound. Thus, d = tlt is true, definitionally true. It is quite impossible for any obsei~at ion to contradict this equation or to modify its relations, since all observations ]lave to bc made in these terms, and the terms are theoretically defined.

Given its inductive research strateg)., systematic empiricism equates empirical generalization and theoretical la~v. rill substantive laws in systematic empiricism are of this sort. Generalizations are a conscious, frequently expressed goal. "Theor)." is seen as the product of research, not as its intellectual foundation. Science, on the other hand, makes great use of both kinds of propositions. Empirical generalizations are, holvever, things to be explained, not explanations themselves. Science is not confined to the explanation of regularities, however. Simple reflection on the history of relativity in physics quickly demonstrates this. It was ).ears before there bvere obselvations that could definitive])! show the greater power of Einstein's physics over that of Ne~vton. But historically, empirical generalizations often stinlulate efforts to develop theory. \Vhy is thus-and-such generally the case? Newton's la\\, of universal gravity, a theoretical law, explains ivhy Kepler's laws obtain and, just as importantly, ivhy they don't when they don't. It is important to note, too. that Newton's laws involve such curious units as gravity and mass. not planets.

If the differences are so stark, it is important to ask 1%-hy such conflation persists. kl'iller and \Tiller (1974) may have '1 point-if social science wcre to admit thc problem at this late date, a lot of social scientists might find themselves unemployed. Sociologic polemic aside, formal confusion between the t ~ v o is relatively easy. "The sun rises every morning" is a true statement in spite of the common sense terms with which it is constructed. Because "sun rising" and "morning" are definitionally related in English, there is n o morning if the sun does not rise. But this propositioil might be construed to be an empirical generalization, because it is also observationally


true. I t is easy to ignore the definitional relation that is embedded in common sense and natural language. Thus, it could be confused with "All European geese are white," which, although empirically accurate, is not a true statement, since the next observation may change its truth value.

We cannot explain the first statement; we would definitely want to explain the second. The answer to "why is it that . . ." has substance in the second case but none in the first. Note too, that a black goose in Europe only requires conversion to "hlost European geese are white." The fascination with a "covering law" model in archaeological writing contributes to the confusion. As Salmon and Salmon (1979) note, a wide variety of statements may be employed in such a format, including both theoretical laws and empirical generalizations.

A second course of confusion lies in the empirical accuracy of the two statements. "The sun rises every morning" and "All European geese are white" are both empirically true now. The first will be true forever, because when the sun disappears so does morning. Not so with the latter statement. \Ye would assume that "Europe," "geese," and "white" all change independently. What determines the empirical accuracy of such generalizations? This is the key issue. The accuracy o f an empirical generalization is a direct function o f the temporal/spatial distance between the data set upon which the generalization is founded and the new observation or prediction. This has two important consequences.

First, returning to the contrast drawn between space-like and time-like sciences, it can readily be appreciated that in those fields in which an essentialist ontology is a reasonable position, the contrast between empirical generalizations and theoretical laws is minimal. So long as, by virtue of the scale at which phenomena are conceived, the universe can be usefully presumed to be homogeneous, statements that have the formal properties of theoretical laws could be and probably are derived both induc- tively and deductively. Thus, one can find support for either research strategy in the scientific literature. Individual laws can be seen as the consequence of research, as well as a priori principles. The inductive research strategy does not, however, produce the integrated system of propositions that we recognize as theory. Nonethe- less, since theories are rarely compared, these differences can remain obscure for long periods of time.

For time-like sciences that require a materialistic metaphysic, the differences are profound. When phenomena are conceived in such a fashion that the universe is not reasonably construed to be homogeneous at the highest levels, the timelspace distance between a generalization and a new observation quickly breaks down the accuracy of the generalization; generalizations cannot be employed as if they were laws without grossly influencing the outcome. This deterioration of accuracy takes place much more rapidly in time than it does in space. Both Pearson and his critics (e.g., P. Gould 1970) would agree that all phenomena are temporally/spatially auto- correlated. Since space is multidirectional, and finite at any given point in time, some loss in accuracy can be compensated by broad spatial dispersion of the data points on which the generalization is founded. Sampling can lead to accurate generalizations within a space-like frame, because spatial autocorrelation is a local phenomenon. Such is not the case in the temporal dimension, because time is uni- directional and pragmatically infinite. No amount of sample dispersion, even setting


aside the problems of sampling the future, can correct the universal character of temporal autocorrelation. Surely these observations underlie Popper's assertion that there can never be empirical laws of history, while still holding that history is explicable in terms of laws (cf. Ruse 1977). Such success as the social sciences enjoy depends very much upon operating within a space-like frame.

The second consequence is derivative: the accuracy of an empirical generalization can be improved by reducing its substantive content. The larger the number of observations, the greater their dispersion over contemporary variability; the fewer the variables accounted for, the greater the accuracy of the generalization. Apparent universality can be purchased a t the cost of content. It is this feature of empirical generalizations that results in their oft-remarked triviality. To make an apparently universal statement by empirical means requires the content to be reduced to that which does not measurably change over the time and space considered.

There are two solutions to the problem of triviality: statistical generalizations (i.e., replacing the "all" with "most") and partitioning. The first retains content by setting less ambitious accuracy tolerances and lessening the explanatory and predictive power for particular cases. The second course constrains the field over which accuracy is expected. A "Mickey R,louse law" (Flannery 1973) can have much more specific content than a "universal law."

If the social sciences were theoretical, such that the units of observation were systematically interrelated and meaningful, then social scientific knowledge would be utilitarian in inverse proportion to the distance between the data base and the prediction. This distance would be the only constraint on accuracy. The social sciences could supply much of value for the here and now, the near future, the near past. But this would not make them science. In short, solely to the extent that the future or the past is no different from the present, and that our interest in the future and the past does not involve difference, generalizations provide a reasonable basis for action. Unfortunately, archaeology's avowed interest in cultural change makes the social-scientific model, systematic empiricism, no better a choice than the common sense which runs the traditional approach.

ARCHAEOLOGY AGAIN Quite apart from the accuracy of this analysis, it is my hope that I have demon-

strated the value of considering issues normally thought of as philosophic, in the early phases of disciplinary development. While to be valuable, a philosophy of archaeology is necessarily a post hoc construction, and decidedly premature under present conditions, the philosophy of science does provide the means of analyzing what we are doing, of identifying the consequences of particular choices, as well as providing some measure of rational control for disciplinary change. I am, of course, well aware of the untimeliness of such considerations when the profession as a whole is anxious to get on with the business of "doing archaeology." I feel a considerable kinship with Osgood (1951 :205) three decades ago, when he considered the notion of culture:

Should I have the temerity to raise the question of the truth of statements made by the eth- nologist, I am not unprepared for the accusation that I am stupidly contradicting real 'facts.' Some particulars may be wrong, I am told, but with regard to the whole, it is a waste of time to discuss the question. Further, it is not a personal matter, since the ethnologists' ideas are only a reflection of what is real. He is defending reality, whereas I am attacking him. I with-draw, profoundly impressed by the necessity for demanding vigorous epistemological standards in anthropology.


Such is the power of common sense. It is something into which one can retreat, and retreat comfortably. But this "no action necessary" position is a position, and one that has grand entailments for the nature of archaeology and its potential t o realize the lofty goal of the 1960s.

At a slightly less general level, I hope I have raised some doubts about using physics and philosophical models based on it as the archetypical science. Much of the attractiveness of physics in this context derives from its apparent theoretical rigor. This is, however, directly tied to its essentialism metaphysic and space-like conception of reality. Archaeology, so long as it professes concern with change, cannot be that kind of science., I t is for this reason that I have relied more heavily on biologists. Although not nearly so neat and complete, biology is at least struggling with similar problems in a similar context. Analyses of this field do have direct implications for archaeology. Just as physics is too restricted to serve as a model for all science, many philosophical models are too broad to be of much help. The tendency of modern philosophy of science has been toward producing robust accounts of explanation generally, or at least explanation in both science and social science. Because of the dramatic differences between science and social science, and even within science, these accounts are far too general to serve as guidelines in the construction of any specific science.

The implications of the more specific elements of this analysis for the history and development of archaeology are, I think, sufficiently clear that they only require summarization here. The structure of culture history, long the dominant sense-making model, its research emphases, its explanations, and its weaknesses are all directly attributable to a lack o f explicit theory, which gives free reign to common sense in all matters save those of the extraction of time. The implicit use of style to extract temporal information is the one bright, potentially scientific spot. But even in this matter, the dominance of common sense as an explanatory system compels culture historians to periodicize their record in order to approximate the space-like frame assumed by common sense. Philosophical essentialism runs the model; empirically valid conclusions are limited to those that are rooted in the properties of style.

The new archaeology, holding in common an anti-culture-history attitude, is not a unified field in these terms. At least two fundamentally different sense-making systems are involved (Binford 1977; Dunnell 1971). Comprising the bulk of the new archaeologists are the systematic empiricists, who conceive science on the model of social science and whose general research strategy is inductive. In this view, theory is a product of research. Yet, of course, the role of theory in formulating observations and integrating those observations into meaningful sentences must be played by something. In the case of cultural reconstructionism, as I have termed this approach elsewhere (Dunnell 1979), sociocultural anthropology has been substituted for common sense in many of the essential theoretical functions. Thus, in terms of its structure, cultural reconstructionism is not very different from culture history. Explanation is accomplished by rendering descriptions in terms of sociocultural anthropology and English, respectively. Once the data conversion is made, explanation follows closely without much explicit recourse to principles of explanation.

Cultural reconstnictionism and culture history differ dramatically in practice, of course. The data-transformation step in culture history, with the exception of


periodization, is covert and almost instantaneous. The same step in cultural reconstructionism is explicit and technically complex, because the translation of rocks and bones and sticks and stones into behavioral and/or transactional terms is not intuitively obvious. The need for this kind of explicit data transformation produces the seemingly excessive preoccupation with methods and techniques, much in the manner of the culture-llistorical preoccupation with chronology. The essentialist view of the nature of reality is retained, but only at the highest levels. In cultural reconstructionism, empirical variability is a major and contrastive concern. I)ata transformation deprives each of empirical sufficiency, and thereby the ability to falsify empirical propositions, save through convention. The lack of theor)- in both prevents rigorous integration of results into systematic bodies of knowledge. In short, both are free to create just-so stories (again escepting the chronological conclusions in culture history), though the form and themes are conventionally contrastive. Because cultural reconstructionism is much more explicit and rigorous, the constraints of its high-level essentialism are more apparent, producing the emphasis that Plog (1974) has noted on synchronic research strategies. Each approach is analyzable as a coherent sense-making system in its own right, but neither is a science, nor can either become science through "refinement" of method or concept within the existing structure.

,;Z potentially scientific approach has been present within the new archaeology from the begnning. This approach, perhaps identifiable as a processual approach, has recognized the typically scientific role of theory as a set of principles for observation and explanation, and embodies a strongly materialistic view of the nature of reality (e.g., Binford 1962, 1968b, 1977; Dunnell 1971, 1980). The analysis presented here is helpful in attempting to understand why the reconstructionist approach has ovenvhelmingly dominated the nelv archaeology, at the expense of an approach more promising as a science. First, and probably most sipificant, is the simple fact that the reconstructionist approach is intellectually easier. By adopting an established sense-making system, the reconstructionists were quickly able to produce a product, which lvas essential to the success of the new archaeolog). in its initial years of competition with culture history. An approach that required the creation of theory almost from scratch ~vould not have that important capability. Reconstructionisn~ amounted to little inore than substitution; a science \vould require a fundamental change in the \ray conclusions are reached, in ho\v reality is to be construed, in short, changes in all the basic processes involved in the creation of knowledge.

Second, although it was generally recognized that archaeology as a science ~ r o u l d be in some way modeled on evolutionary theory, there were no scientific models that could be borrolved in unadulterated form. The manlnature dichotomy that permitted the development of evolutionary theory also insured that it had features unique to the nature side of the dichotomy, that would prevent direct extension into cultural phenomena. Efforts, such as sociobiology, to make a direct extension, leave a great deal to be desired. Even the most recent tinkerings (e.g., Lumsden and il'ilson 1980) in this school of thought seem to be Ptolemaic contortions to bring cultural phenomena within the purview of biological evolution, rather than an effort to make evolutionary theory more general. The development of evolutionary theory was further hampered by the long-standing presence of a nonscientific model in

DILEMMA O F MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY 2 1

anthropology and elsewhere, which was also called evolution (Dunnell 1980). In paleontology, perhaps the discipline most closely allied to archaeology in terms of general structure, the kind of change proposed by the new archaeologists is only now beginning to be systematically explored (S. Gould 1980). I t does not seem possible that archaeologists can quietly borrow their way into science. If we are to persist in becoming scientific, it seems that we will be forced to make important contributions to Western thought in general. The project is too bold a change, involving too many fundamental issues, t o be contained within the field itself.

Also contributing to the lack of development of the processual approach must be counted the superficial similarity between it and the reconstructionist model, especially when contrasted with culture history. Both eschew pattern and con-figurational descriptions for systemic functional descriptions. Both require serious concern with contemporary cultural phenomena.8 And, of course, both imply considerable methodological and technical rigor, including quantitative methods. It is not hard to do one and believe that you are doing the other, or to vacillate from one position to the other.

Archaeology may be approaching the threshold that seemed within easy grasp twenty years ago. Reconstructionism has established an atmosphere that is probably much more receptive to archaeology becoming a science, while at the same time there is something of an appreciation that the potential of reconstructionism has been explored and found wanting. Finally, I think there has been a gradual appreciation of the problem we have set for ourselves, and with it, a greater likelihood that we will find the means of solution.

As I have assumed here, many archaeologists have generally taken it for granted that a scientific archaeology is in some absolute sense good. Is it? Do we want such a thing? As DeBoer and Lathrap (1979) have remarked, we may not find the product very satisfying. Certainly we will not be answering the questions archaeologists have traditionally asked. In recognizing that a recreation of archaeology as science is a theoretical matter, we must also recognize that the traditional questions framed from common sense may no longer be permissible statements. But this is, I think, a superficial problem. If we acquire the ability to explain human phenomena in a scientific fashion, we would also acquire the ability to change the nature of culttiral change itself. Cultural change, if founded in such a science, would literally become Lamarckian. hlany people suppose that cultural change is already Lamarckian (e.g., S. Gould 1979), although the basis for such an assertion is largely emotional. People have been enormously successful without the slightest knowledge of how culture changes. lfould such knowledge in itself decrease our success? Perhaps. If we are committed to "directed" change, change that is not the result of millions of individual and largely independent decisions, but policies, perhaps we would be better off if policy were founded in science, rather than in systematic empiricism or common sense. One thing is clear: no one will want to know. Il'e have strong ideological commitments which none of us would like demonstrated to be wrong. Archaeologists are not going to receive much encouragement if we actually approach our goal.

* The Harvey Distinguished Visiting Lecture Series was made possible by a grant from Byron Harvey, 111, to the Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico.

JOURNAL O F ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH

NOTES

1. This paper closely follows the content of the original lecture. I have, however, benefited from the comments and criticisms of the faculty and students, Department of Anthro- pology, University of New Mexico, most especially those of Lewis R. Binford. In re-sponse to this discussion, I have reorganized certain sections and expanded the discussion of a few concepts in an attempt to clarify the position taken.

2 . "Definitive empirical consequence" is not equivalent to "prediction," at least not to prediction used in a rigorous manner. Although much emphasis has been placed on prediction as a distinctive element in science, it is quite obvious that useful predictions are much more broadly distributed. Further, as Mayr (1960) has noted, many, many sciences do not produce robust predictions at any level.

3. It is unfortunate that the terms "induction" and "deduction" are widely used with reference to two different contrasts, both of which are important. Certainly the most common usage of these terms in the archaeological literature denotes the "direction,'' rather than kind of argument.

4. This is the basis for the doctrine of uniformitarianism.

5. There is a second issue involved as well, that of mystical causation. Certainly a major contribution of Darwin was the mechanistic account of organic change, a view of causation that prior to his efforts was restricted to the inorganic world. .is Toulmin and Goodfield (1965) point out, the price that science paid to pursue this course was a strict enforcement of the mantnature dichotomy. "hlechanistic" explanation is acceptable in the nonhuman

Athens, J.S., 1977, Theory Building and the Study of Evolutionary Process in Complex Societies. Pp. 353-84 in For Theory Building in Archaeology (ed. by L.R. Binford). New York: Academic Press.

Bacon, F., 1960, The New Organon and Related Writings. New York: Liberal Arts Press.

Baker, J.R., 1938, The Evolution of Breeding Systems. Pp. 161-77 in Evolution: Essays on .4spects of Evolutionary Biology Presented to E.S. Goodrich on His Seventieth Birthday (ed. by G.F. deBeer). Oxford: Oxford

world; explanation of human phenomena must include a mystical element, either supernatural or rational intention. This is the last, and perhaps the greatest, impediment to a scientific archaeology, and promises to become a major issue shortly. I t is well illustrated by comparing Rindos's (1980) account of agriculture with that, say, of Green (1980) or Coombs's (1980) discussion with the remainder of those in the same volume (Earl and Christenson 1980).

6 . The best examples may be found in the "normative notion of culture" attributed by the new archaeologists to the traditional approach, and in the latter's strong resistance to probabilistic sampling.

7. While probabilistic approaches and inductive research strategies are closely associ- ated (e.g., Willer and Willer 19 74 :104, especially), the relation is neither symmetrical nor necessary. For example, during periods of "normal science," when theory has a low profile, scientific research often assumes an inductive appearance. In such situations, falsification and inductive research strategies are combined (e.g., Platt 1964).

8 . Some critics have supposed that a scientific archaeology would be a sterile physics of artifacts (DeBoer and Lathrap 1979). This kind of criticism may be based on a conception of scientific archaeology as systematic empiricism, without the data transformations of cultural reconstructionism, something along the lines envisioned by Clarke (1968). Obviously, the theory of a scientific archaeology could no more ignore the interactive properties of cultural phenomena than evolutionary biolog). could ignore those of organisms.

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