Processualism and After Patty Jo Watson

C H A P T E R 3 Processualism and After Patty Jo Watson

The history of ideas is concerned with all that dispute the ultimate goals or purposes of archaeologi- insidious thought, that whole interplay of rep- cal endeavor. resentations that flow anonymously between In a technical, philosophy of science sense, none of men. the above is properly theory because a theory is a for- —Michel Foucault, mal, axiomatized system, the likes of which are present The Archaeology of Knowledge only in formal logic, abstract mathematics, and the theoretical realms of some other sciences. According For the purposes of this chapter, processualism is to one philosopher of science who has taken an in- taken to be more or less synonymous with proces- terest in archaeology, what archaeologists call theory sual archaeology, and with what came to be called might be more precisely termed “meta-archaeology” New Archaeology in the United States. Processual- (Embree 1992). ism dominated North American and west European archaeology from the 1960s to the 1980s and is still Process, Culture Process, and Processualism central to Americanist archaeology, but more periph- In 1967, Kent Flannery reviewed Gordon Willey’s ma- eral in Europe. In this chapter, I discuss processualism jor synthesis of North American archaeology, Intro- and what came after it in North America. A somewhat duction to American archaeology, vol. 1, North America parallel development took place in post–World War (Willey 1966). The review is entitled “Culture History II England, especially prominent at Cambridge Uni- vs. Culture Process: A Debate in American Archaeol- versity under the leadership of Grahame Clark, Eric ogy” (Flannery 1967). The phrase “culture process” in Higgs, David Clarke (whose productive and influential Flannery’s title was popular in anthropological jargon career was abruptly and tragically cut short in 1976), of the time as an abbreviated reference to the search and Colin Renfrew. I do not address that Old World for regularities and generalizable developments in cul- development here because of space constraints, and tural dynamics across space and through time. Flan- because I am not qualified to do so, but see the other nery’s title conveys the notion of opposition between chapters by Gill (chapter 5), Bintliff (chapter 10), an overt emphasis on cultural processes (generalizing and Koerner and Price (chapter 21) for alternative or research) and one on cultural history (particularizing complementary geographical and topical accounts. research). Although both generalizing and particularizing (nomothetic and idiographic) foci are always ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY AND intertwined in any kind of investigative scholarship, META-ARCHAEOLOGY, PROCESS, processualist archaeologists insisted on the primacy of CULTURE PROCESS, AND PROCESSUALISM generalizing approaches to the human past. Particu- Archaeological Theory and Meta-Archaeology lars about specific times, places, artifacts, sites, and so When archaeologists say “archaeological theory,” they on, were to be sought only in the service of delineating are usually referring to some aspect or level of ar- broad generalizations about how culture (past or pres- chaeological interpretation, such as the plausibility of ent) works (Binford 1965, 1968a). or justification for knowledge claims about a discrete In Americanist archaeology during the 1960s and piece of the archaeological record, or about a part of a 1970s, “culture” had a meaning different from the broader explanatory formulation concerning the hu- connotations conveyed by that word in the 2000s. man past. They may be referring to the nature and sta- Culture meant all the characteristics of human be- tus of a particular research problem, or of the research havior—technological, sociological, ideological—that design selected for solving such a problem. Finally, distinguished humankind from other primates and under the rubric of “archaeological theory” they may other animals. During the 1970s, anthropological

29 concerns with and about culture shifted to the now Although the whole of past human cultures was prevalent view in which “culture” refers only to the the avowed subject matter of New Archaeology (Bin- cognitive universes constructed and maintained by ford 1962, 1965), in practice processual archaeology human groups. Human ideational systems in general became a materialist, functionalist pursuit of paleo- and symbolic systems characterizing specific human economy, paleoenvironment, and paleoecology with groups are emphasized, with techno-economic sys- subsistence systems occupying center stage. Relations tems and functions being of less interest. between cultures or societies and their physical en- During the 1960s, however, and through the 1970s, vironments were of paramount interest, resulting in the goal of anthropological archaeologists was to the necessity for interdisciplinary teams of archaeolo- advance knowledge, not just about past lifeways at gists and natural scientists to undertake archaeological specific times and places, but also, and more impor- fieldwork. In addition, research design was supremely tantly, to aid social scientific understanding of culture, important, with the processual questions or problems broadly construed: to delineate specific cultural pro- to be attacked stated clearly, together with the methods cesses, as well as cultural process in general. Ideational chosen for obtaining data to answer the questions and matters were not a central concern for most proces- solve the problems (Watson, LeBlanc, and Redman sualists (among the very few exceptions are Fritz 1978; 1971; and 1984: chapter 4). Hall 1976, 1977), and was explicitly disavowed by at The Americanist archaeological scene in the 1960s, least one leading protagonist (Binford 1967). 1970s, and early 1980s was a lively affair with big, interdisciplinary projects funded by the National Science PROCESSUALISM IN AMERICANIST Foundation pursuing culture processual issues, not ARCHAEOLOGY, 1962–1982 just in the Americas but also in various portions of the Concern for something akin to what was called “cul- Old World. Machine-aided multivariate statistics— ture process” in the 1960s had been advocated by several electronic calculators, then microcomputers (personal Americanist archaeologists during the 1930s and 1940s computers) used in tandem with “canned” programs (Bennett 1943; Steward and Setzler 1938; Taylor 1943, such as SAS, SPSS, and BIOMED (O’Neil 1984; Wat- 1948), and by an influential sociocultural anthropolo- son, LeBlanc, and Redman 1984:chap. 5)—were freely gist (Kluckhohn 1940). But it was not until the advent of deployed, as were physico-chemical analyses and pro- New Archaeology that processualism became a central cedures. Processualist archaeology was highly influen- focus for the entire discipline. The movement was of- tial in the United States and around the world. Yet the ficially kicked off by Lewis Binford in a paper published scope of 1960s–1970s processualism was still narrowly in 1962, “Archaeology as Anthropology.” That article, construed, remaining within the boundaries noted in plus two others he published subsequently (Binford the previous paragraph and being largely what Hall 1964, 1965), Fritz and Plog’s “The Nature of Archaeo- (1977) concisely described as “econothink.” logical Explanation” (1970), and an edited volume, New A major debate internal to processual archaeol- Perspectives in Archeology (Binford and Binford 1968), ogy—but not about the appropriateness of econo- presented the New Archaeology party platform in a per- think—and emerging in the 1970s focused squarely suasive and enthusiastic manner (Leone 1972; Watson, on processualist assumptions concerning the nature LeBlanc, and Redman 1971). and integrity of the archaeological record. Lewis Bin- Old Archaeology was characterized as particular- ford (1976, 1978, 1981a, 1983:98–106) and Michael istic culture history obsessed with chronology and Schiffer (1972, 1976, 1985) problematized archaeolog- comparative typology (time-space systematics); it was ical interpretation by drawing attention to the fact that to be replaced by New Archaeology with emphasis on archaeological remains are never (with the exception culture process, to be approached via systems theory of extremely rare Pompeii-like situations) delivered and/or by an explicit search for general laws (Flan- intact and unaltered from a specific past time and nery 1973). The archaeological record was viewed by place to the archaeologist’s shovel, pick, or trowel. processualists as a vast laboratory for the eliciting and Because of his unsuccessful struggles to interpret establishing of generalizations, functional regularities, Mousterian lithic data from sites in southern France, and general laws about human cultural behavior. Ad- Binford succumbed to a skeptical crisis concerning vocates of New Archaeology sought not only to de- the nature of the archaeological record as a source scribe and explain the human past but also to predict of present knowledge about the real past (Binford the human future. 1983:98–106). He resolved that crisis by undertaking

30 patty jo watson ethnological research in a society whose subsistence was focusing on the physical nature of the archaeo- system he judged to be relevant to some aspects of logical record itself and urging archaeologists to give Middle Paleolithic life during the Late Pleistocene pe- careful thought to the myriad noncultural (e.g., wind, riod in southern France: the Alaskan Nunamiut. The weather, colluvial and alluvial action, burrowing ro- influence of Binford’s ethnoarchaeological work re- dents and insects) as well as cultural (e.g., trampling, sulted in the emergence of actualistic studies and what trash removal, digging of burial pits and storage pits) he called “middle-range theory” as central concerns factors that arrange and rearrange older cultural de- for processualist archaeologists (Binford 1977, 1978, posits and their sedimentary matrices to create sites, 1980, 1981a,b, 1983). as encountered and defined by archaeologists (Schiffer Prior to his own ethnographic research, Binford’s 1972, 1976). Schiffer’s commentaries, as well as similar position with regard to the use of ethnographic data observations by Binford (Binford 1981b), spurred a by archaeologists had been negative (Binford 1968b), great deal of very useful work on the processes of site but he conceived of his work among the Nunamiut as formation and deformation that is still a strong theme being quite different from the older practice of naively in contemporary Americanist archaeology (Goldberg applying specific ethnographic parallels or analogs to et al. 1993; Stein 1983; Stein and Ferrand 1985; Wood specific bits and pieces of the archaeological record. and Johnson 1978). Rather, he thought observations made by archaeolo- While these debates internal to Americanist archae- gists within living societies, carefully chosen to be rel- ology were taking place, political vectors external to evant to past societies preserved only archaeologically, the discipline began to have powerful effects on it. could be designed to produce middle-range theory: a body of knowledge about the relations between ARCHAEOTHEORY AND ARCHAEOPOLITICS IN material culture and human activities within various THE UNITED STATES: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL behavioral settings, warranting translation of static CONSERVATION ACT OF 1974 archaeological data to cultural and cultural processual As the result of hard work by a few dedicated archae- dynamics. ologists (King 1971; Lipe 1974; McGimsey 1972), the Ethnoarchaeology and middle-range theory be- Archaeological Conservation Act was signed into law came hot topics; ethnographic research was enthusi- in May 1974 (McGimsey 1985; see Green, chapter 22). astically undertaken by many archaeologists (David The act extended to prehistoric and historic cultural and Kramer 2001; Gould 1978, 1980; Kramer 1979; resources the same protection previous legislation af- Longacre 1991), but also engendered debates about forded biological, geological, and other environmen- the correct and proper use of ethnographic analogy, tal resources. As implemented, the act meant that discussions that continue intermittently to the present archaeological survey and “mitigation” of threatened day (Binford 1967; Chang 1967; Gould 1980; Gould cultural resources were required by federal law any- and Watson 1982; Stahl 1993; Watson 1979, 1982, where that federal funds were used to alter the land- 1999; Wylie 1982, 1985). Much of the impetus for scape: for strip-mining coal; drilling for oil; building these debates came from (in my own opinion, quite dams, bridges, highways, soil terraces, and so on. Up to unjustified) equating the phrase “ethnographic anal- 1 percent of the total cost for such projects was to be ogy” solely with particularistic and naive transferrals made available in support of the archaeological work. of specific ethnographic observations to portions of “Mitigation” could mean documentation of archaeo- the archaeological record, whereby the selected eth- logical remains on the surface by various means short nographic bits functioned as ready-made explana- of excavation (e.g., coring or augering; use of remote tions for the archaeology. If carefully, thoughtfully, sensing such as ground penetrating radar, resistivity, and explicitly carried out, however, this procedure is or magnetometry); mitigation could also mean dig- very helpful in the actual practice of archaeological ging test pits and/or undertaking full-scale excava- excavation, and in fact is unavoidable when interpret- tions. ing specific archaeological data. Moreover, it is not so Among the problems raised by that legislative ac- far removed, as has sometimes been claimed, from tion were the following: the building of middle-range theory (Watson 1986, 1999). 1. An immediate need to define who was and who At about the same time that Binford was plunging was not an archaeologist certified to carry out the into Nunamiut ethnoarchaeology, Michael Schiffer survey and mitigation mandated by law.

Processualism and After 31 2. An immediate need for rules and regulations defin- and reporting. Not only were more archaeologists ing standard archaeological procedures in consid- employed than ever before, but also relatively generous erable detail, yet sufficiently generalized that such funding was available for collaborators in the natural procedures could be applied to very different parts sciences. In addition, promising methods and tech- of the archaeological record throughout the United niques (e.g., various kinds of shovel-testing programs States. and sampling procedures of all sorts) could be applied 3. The potential for a major break within Americanist on a much broader scale than was formerly feasible. archaeology between traditional research-oriented It was also possible to use nontraditional approaches archaeologists, usually based in academia or muse- to site discovery, such as large-scale surface stripping ums, and increasing numbers of archaeologists who with heavy equipment to reveal shallowly buried ar- abandoned or never entered research positions but rays of prehistoric features (Bareis and Porter 1984), were employed by public agencies or private con- and backhoe trenching of alluvial terraces to locate struction firms, or who were freelance contractors. deeply buried sites (Chapman 1994:chap. 1). Some directors of CRM projects were able to include such Problem 1 was solved by creating two new orga- methods and techniques within the scope of required nizations for contract/conservation/cultural resource survey and mitigation procedures, and to contribute management archaeologists: the Society of Profes- results with implications and value well beyond those sional Archaeologists (SOPA) and the American Soci- stipulated in their contracts (in addition to the refer- ety for Conservation Archaeology (ASCA). SOPA was ences already cited, see Schiffer and House 1975). conceived as a certifying and regulating entity, whereas On the other hand, however, some major disadvan- ASCA was a mutual-interest organization promot- tages are inherent to routine CRM archaeology, the ing knowledge about and support for conservation most obvious being contractual limitations regarding and contract archaeology. SOPA functioned until 1998 the scope and nature of field and analytical work, and when it was transformed into a broader entity called the often highly restricted distribution of resultant the Register of Professional Archaeologists (www.rpa- reports. The latter situation gave rise to a major in- net.org). ASCA dissolved as SOPA and the Society for formation retrieval problem with respect to the “gray American Archaeology gradually took over its func- literature” of contract reports that are not readily actions, such as keeping track of congressional actions cessible to non-CRM scholarship. relevant to archaeology and informing and lobbying In spite of the fact that well over 90 percent of legislators about cultural resources. archaeology in the United States is CRM archaeology, Problem 2 is being addressed at both federal and it is difficult for CRM archaeologists to maintain a state levels (King 1998; McGimsey and Davis 1977; presence in the non-CRM scholarly community while Schiffer and Gumerman 1977), and will require con- simultaneously fulfilling the demanding responsibili- tinuous attention into the foreseeable future. ties of their field, lab, and administrative positions Problem 3, similarly, will not be completely re- (Watson 1991). Hence, meta-archaeological debates solved, but necessitates persistent hard work by both and discussions in Americanist archaeology are likely CRM and non-CRM archaeologists to remain in con- to be bereft of contributions from those who actually tact with each other. The latter, now a very small and carry out the overwhelming majority of archaeo- dwindling numerical minority (Zeder 1999), retain logical field and laboratory work in the United States. considerable influence in the realm of archaeological Thanks to unremitting efforts by many CRM and theory (meta-archaeology) and discussion of major non-CRM archaeologists, however, the worst-case methodological concerns. scenario of a major, irrevocable split between the two Which brings us to the issue most relevant to this communities has not manifested itself. The Society essay: How have the past twenty-five years of CRM for American Archaeology has managed to secure and ascendancy affected meta-archaeological debates in retain a respectable component of CRM archaeolo- Americanist archaeology? gists, not only within its membership but also within One striking result of the Archaeological Conserva- its governance structure. Like other issues pertaining tion Act was to direct large sums of money—far ex- to CRM archaeology, however, this one of communi- ceeding even the biggest NSF grants—into the support cation and scholarly collaboration among the CRM of archaeological fieldwork, laboratory analyses (in- majority and the non-CRM minority requires con- cluding radiocarbon and other chronometric assays), stant attention.

32 patty jo watson Robert Dunnell raised another question with re- During the 1980s and 1990s, some Americanist spect to CRM archaeology in the United States (Dun- processualists rejected the entire post-processualist nell 1986:40–42). He suggests that the rapid onset critique; many assessed it more or less thoughtfully, of the CRM program during the 1970s standardized and adopted relevant parts of it as presented, or with archaeological procedures at a particularly unsettled modifications appropriate to their own interests; a few phase in the development of theory and method in embraced the whole program. Americanist archaeology, arresting that developmen- One particular aspect of the post-processualist tal process at an immature stage. Dunnell’s own vision focused on modern sociopolitics and archaeological for Americanist archaeology is an overtly selectionist, practice—attention to indigenous concerns—became evolutionary one (Dunnell 1980; see Bentley et al., a central facet of Americanist archaeology when the chapter 8), and it is understandable how he might Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation have come to such a conclusion. It does not appear, Act (NAGPRA) was passed in November 1990. That however, that the dominance of CRM archaeology law required all institutions and agencies to inventory has blighted the trajectory of Americanist archaeol- collections of Native American physical remains and ogy in the way he feared. Rather, CRM archaeology in grave goods. The inventories had to be distributed practice is just one of several powerful forces shaping to the six hundred or so federally recognized tribes archaeology in the Americas and everywhere, as indi- within the fifty states, representatives of whom could cated in the preceding and following sections. then request repatriation of any ancestral remains that might be included in those lists. Implementation of PROCESSUAL VERSUS POST-PROCESSUAL NAGPRA is ramifying in many different directions, ARCHAEOLOGY ranging from hostile adversarial proceedings to care- While processual archaeologists in the United States fully negotiated compromises. Whether studying pre- were grappling with theoretical and methodological historic or historic sites, Americanist archaeologists issues surrounding ethnographic analogy and site for- must now give careful attention to the legal rights of mation processes, as well as multiple questions and descendant populations, as well as to their beliefs and problems arising from the growth of CRM, major wishes concerning the remains of ancestral communi- challenges to the entire processual enterprise were be- ties. ing formulated in England and western Europe. As al- The implications of NAGPRA are still being vigor- ready noted, 1960s–1970s processual archaeology was ously tested, negotiated, and worked through (DeLo- focused on materialist, functionalist, technological, ria 1995; Thomas 2000), processes that will continue and economic processes, pursued within an explicitly for many years. Apart from this important issue, what deductivist, social scientific framework. Not a great can be said about the general nature and status of pro- deal of attention was paid to individuals, individual cessualist concerns at the present time? agency, ideology, and ancient value systems, or to the modern value systems influencing and variously im- PROCESSUALISM IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY pinging on the practice of archaeology. The sociopoli- ARCHAEOLOGY tics of contemporary archaeology and the ideational The majority of Americanist archaeologists are still aspects of past human societies were virtually ignored, thoroughly processualist in their basic orientation. leaving processualists vulnerable to components of Processualist approaches are also robustly present in the post-processualist (postmodernist) critique (Hall British and European archaeology, as indicated by 1976, 1977; Hodder 1982, 1985, 1986; Preucel 1991; many of the chapters in this set of handbooks. Ar- see Shanks, chapter 9). Post-processualists urged close chaeologists everywhere, however, must also address attention to specific cultural histories, rather than to a host of pressing issues in the real world of twenty- disembodied cultural processes, to individual agency first-century archaeological practice: extensive site de- in past societies (especially issues of domination and struction, proliferating and frequently shifting arrays resistance), and to evidence for ancient cognitive sys- of antiquities legislation at international, national, and tems; as well as explicit recognition of the multiple local levels; interactions among many corporate and societal forces profoundly affecting individual archae- noncorporate groups (archaeologists and indigenous ologists and shaping the entire discipline. They denied peoples being only two such groups) with vested inter- that unbiased, unproblematic, objective access to “the ests in all aspects of the past, how they are treated, how real past” is possible. they are managed or interpreted, and by whom. Non-

Processualism and After 33 CRM archaeologists, who are not officially in full-time other set of sociological factors and processes? Was managerial positions with respect to the archaeologi- Longacre not assuming what he should be trying to cal record, will continue to be in a small minority, but find out just what was the social structure of this an- they may have disproportionate influence in meta- cient pueblo? How, in fact, does pottery manufacture archaeological discussions and the development of and design relate to household and community orga- archaeological theory. If this indeed turns out to be the nization? What do alternative organizations look like case, then these archaeologists must be careful to take archaeologically? full account of factors influencing practice by the ma- Methodological and interpretive questions raised jority of archaeologists. Otherwise their formulations by the Carter Ranch study generated a considerable will, at best, be ignored, or will, at worst, have a delete- amount of follow-up work by many archaeologists in rious effect on the tiny fraction of the archaeological the U.S. Southwest and elsewhere, including a complex record that survives into the twenty-first century. and long-term ethnoarcheological project initiated by Processualist archaeology emerged in the optimis- Longacre himself, together with a research group of tic era following World War II, rapidly rising to a his graduate students and other collaborators. Lon- dominant position in North America, England, and gacre’s project was based on the island of Luzon in the western Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. Much Philippines among contemporary pottery-producing of its initial appeal and strength came from the fact villages of the Kalinga people (Longacre 1991; Lon- that several case studies of New Archaeology in action gacre et al. 1993). During the thirty-five-year trajec- were produced early in its history, and were very well tory of Longacre’s research, he acted in an exemplary publicized. William Longacre’s work at a prehistoric processualist manner. Advocates of New Archaeology pueblo in eastern Arizona, the Carter Ranch site, is insisted that data relevant to investigating cultural one of the first and best-known examples (Longacre processes, such as the nature and dynamics of social 1964, 1968, 1970). organization in prehistoric communities, should be In an attempt to learn something about the social sought wherever they might best be found. Archae- organization of this ancient community, Longacre de- ology is not just about digging. Archaeologists must vised a research design focused on the abundant sherds freely avail themselves of whatever sources seem most of painted pottery vessels in the cultural deposits. His likely to provide the necessary information, including basic working hypothesis, drawn from ethnographic observations they themselves obtain in relevant living information on contemporary western pueblos such societies. Because appropriate information was not as Hopi and Zuni, attributed pottery manufacture available in contemporary southwestern communities, and decoration to the women in each household, who Longacre—in true New Archaeology fashion—sought would have learned ceramic skills from their moth- the necessary relevant data about ceramic produc- ers, maternal aunts, and grandmothers. He further tion, decoration, distribution, and teaching/learning suggested (again on the basis of ethnographic infor- networks where he reasoned they could be secured mation) that the Carter Ranch community had prob- most efficiently. That turned out to be among Kalinga ably been matrilocal and matrilinear. Hence, pottery potters in the Philippines, where, as always happens designs transmitted from generation to generation of with successful empirically based research, the an- women potters should cluster in empirically demon- swers to initial questions did not conform entirely to strable patterns delineating prehistoric, intrapueblo, expectations. New information necessitated revision matrilinear residence groups. of older notions, and opened new avenues of inquiry; Longacre’s quantification of design motifs, and the knowledge accumulated and ramified, often in unan- statistical procedures he applied to them, did indeed ticipated directions. reveal intrasite clusters at Carter Ranch pueblo, and It is unlikely that Longacre himself will ever return his study became highly influential. It also attracted to Carter Ranch, but the questions about archaeologi- many detailed and pointed critiques, however, one cal methods, techniques, and inference raised by his obvious interpretive issue being that of equifinality. work there are a significant part of the processualist Even accepting all the analytical techniques as ap- contribution to archaeological method and theory. propriate (which by no means everyone did), how do Another central aspect of processualist archaeol- we know that the design-element distributions actu- ogy was and is investigation of big landmarks in the ally resulted from matrilocal, matrilineal household human past, especially the origins of agriculture and pottery manufacturing groups, and not from some the origins of the state. Although by no means a

34 patty jo watson topic introduced by New Archaeologists, agricultural uration. Archaeology at the beginning of the twenty- origins research was an early and continuing suc- first century confronts widespread destruction of its cess when taken up by processualists. Designing re- primary subject matter, and is thoroughly engaged search intended to elicit not just when, where, and with multiple real-world forces. A pessimistic assess- how, but also why agriculture happened encouraged a ment might conclude that Euro-American archaeol- productive combination of interdisciplinary field and ogy is currently in significant difficulty, besieged by laboratory work, partaking heavily of various natu- proliferating numbers of insistent commentators pre- ral sciences. Indeed, the subdisciplines now known senting conflicting and confusing recommendations as archaeobotany or paleoethnobotany, geoarchaeol- about the most appropriate course for this engaged ogy, and zooarchaeology were born of this interac- and turbulent discipline to follow. A more optimistic tion. Such research was also highly compatible with observer, however, might find grounds to conclude New Archaeology’s heavy emphasis on paleoeconomy that Euro-American archaeology, and world archaeol- and paleoecology. Significant advances were made in ogy in general, will eventually incorporate the most knowledge of early food-producing economies, es- useful portions of processualism, post-processualism, pecially in the Americas (Flannery 1986; Smith 1998; and post-post-processualism. Meanwhile, advocates Watson 2001). It is now fairly clear that food-produc- of irreconcilable or incompatible approaches will con- ing economies were created indigenously fewer than tinue to create multivalent tensions causing all the ten times. Contrary to earlier expectations, however, protagonists to work harder and more carefully than there does not appear to be a single, universal explana- might otherwise be the case to create a more mature tion and trajectory for agro-pastoral origins, but rather twenty-first-century archaeology. an array of processes—including both external envi- ronmental and internal sociopolitical factors—that is REFERENCES implicated in each instance. Hence, most contempo- Adams, Robert M. 1966. The evolution of urban society: Early rary research centers on delineating those factors and Mesopotamia and Pre-Hispanic Mexico. Chicago: Aldine. processes operating within each world region where Bareis, Charles J., and James W. Porter (eds.). 1984. 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