New Archeology
The New Archeology [ njuː ɑːkiˈɒlədʒi ] ( also Processual Archeology ) is a research approach of prehistoric archeology developed in the 1960s , which was mainly discussed in the USA and Great Britain and was essentially limited to the English-speaking area. The protagonists include Lewis Binford and David Leonard Clarke . The essay Archeology as Anthropology by Lewis Binford from 1962 is seen as the beginning of New Archeology . The demand to view (American) archeology primarily as a branch of anthropology and less as a cultural science was previously made by Gordon Willey and Phillip Phillips .
The New Archeology of the 1960s took a critical look at the work of the older generation of archaeologists and called for research to be made more scientific and objective. This was characterized by an explicit modeling and a clear formulation of questions. Typical methodological-theoretical approaches are, for example, the spatial analysis within a site ( spatial archeology , SpA), the environmental analysis, the method of carrying capacity , the use of EDP (including early GIS applications). Archeology thus increasingly moved from history towards cultural anthropology .
New Archeology has found resonance worldwide to varying degrees. The discussion on New Archeology in German-speaking countries was initiated in 1978 by the prehistorian Manfred Eggert . Eggert criticized above all the discrepancy in New Archeology between a methodical approach (e.g. an “explanatory research design ”) and actual ways of finding knowledge, which usually elude a purely scientific argument. As a result, a theoretical discussion also arose in German-speaking countries in the 1980s.
To a younger generation of researchers, such as Ian Hodder , but also to many traditional archaeologists, these approaches appeared too functionalist, too schematic and too ahistorical. They would take too little account of the spiritual world and the symbolic nature of the artifacts (see post-process archeology ).
literature
- Manfred KH Eggert: Prehistoric Archeology. Concepts and Methods. UTB for science, Verlag A. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2001.
- TL Kienlin: British Processual Archeology and the Role of David L. Clarke and Colin Renfrew: Formation, Structure, Influence . In: Manfried KH Eggert, U. Veit (Hrsgg.): Theory in archeology. For discussion in English . Waxmann, Münster 1998, pp. 67-113.
Individual evidence
- ^ Lexicon of History , Orbis Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-572-01285-6
- ^ Lewis Binford: Archeology as Anthropology , in: American Antiquity 28, 1962, pp. 217-225.
- ↑ Gordon Willey and Phillip Phillips: Method and Theory in Archeology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1958.
- ↑ Peter Stadler: What is “Spatial Analysis” in archeology? , in: Mitteilungen der Anthropologische Gesellschaft in Wien (MAGW), 115, 1985, pp. 163–168.
- ^ Manfred KH Eggert: Prehistoric Archeology and Ethnology. Studies on American New Archeology , in: Prehistoric Journal 53, 1978, pp. 6-164.
- ↑ MKH Eggert, U. Veit (Hrsgg.): Theory in archeology. For discussion in English. Waxmann Verlag, Münster 1998 (Tübingen Archaeological Pocket Books 1).
- ^ Ian Hodder: Interpreting Archeology. Finding Meaning in the Past. Routledge, London / New York 1995.
- ^ Whitley, DS (Ed.): Reader in Archaeological Theory. Post-Processual and Cognitive Approaches. Routledge, London, 1998 (Routledge Readers in Archeology).