Archaeology as Anthropology Author(s): Lewis R. Binford Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Oct., 1962), pp. 217-225 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/278380 Accessed: 15-08-2017 04:16 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Antiquity This content downloaded from 128.227.133.130 on Tue, 15 Aug 2017 04:16:26 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ARCHAEOLOGY AS ANTHROPOLOGY LEWIS R. BINFORD ABSTRACT ties and differences characteristic of the entire It is argued that archaeology has made few contribu- spatial-temporal span of man's existence (for tions to the general field of anthropology with regard to discussion, see Kroeber 1953). Archaeology has explaining cultural similarities and differences. One certainly made major contributions as far as major factor contributing to this lack is asserted to be the tendency to treat artifacts as equal and comparable traits explication is concerned. Our current knowl- which can be explained within a single model of culture edge of the diversity which characterizes the change and modification. It is suggested that "material range of extinct cultural systems is far superior culture" can and does represent the structure of the total to the limited knowledge available fifty years cultural system, and that explanations of differences and ago. Although this contribution is "admirable" similarities between certain classes of material culture are inappropriate and inadequate as explanations for such and necessary, it has been noted that archae- observations within other classes of items. Similarly, ology has made essentially no contribution in change in the total cultural system must be viewed in an the realm of explanation: "So little work has adaptive context both social and environmental, not been done in American archaeology on the ex- whimsically viewed as the result of "influences," "stim- planatory level that it is difficult to find a name uli," or even "migrations" between and among geographi- cally defined units. for it" (Willey and Phillips 1958: 5). Three major functional sub-classes of material culture Before carrying this criticism further, some are discussed: technomic, socio-technic, and ideo-technic, statement about what is meant by explanation as well as stylistic formal properties which cross-cut these must be offered. The meaning which explana- categories. In general terms these recognized classes of tion has within a scientific frame of reference is materials are discussed with regard to the processes of change within each class. simply the demonstration of a constant articula- Using the above distinctions in what is termed a sys- tion of variables within a system and the meas- temic approach, the problem of the appearance and chang- urement of the concomitant variability among ing utilization of native copper in eastern North America the variables within the system. Processual is discussed. Hypotheses resulting from the application of the systemic approach are: (1) the initial appearance change in one variable can then be shown to re- of native copper implements is in the context of the pro- late in a predictable and quantifiable way to duction of socio-technic items; (2) the increased produc- changes in other variables, the latter changing in tion of socio-technic items in the late Archaic period is turn relative to changes in the structure of the related to an increase in population following the shift system as a whole. This approach to explanation to the exploitation of aquatic resources roughly coincident with the Nipissing high water stage of the ancestral Great presupposes concern with process, or the opera- Lakes; (3) this correlation is explicable in the increased tion and structural modification of systems. It selective pressures favoring material means of status com- is suggested that archaeologists have not made munication once populations had increased to the point major explanatory contributions to the field of that personal recognition was no longer a workable basis for differential role behavior; (4) the general shift in later anthropology because they do not conceive of periods from formally "utilitarian" items to the manufac- archaeological data in a systemic frame of ture of formally "nonutilitarian" items of copper is ex- reference. Archaeological data are viewed par- plicable in the postulated shift from purely egalitarian to ticularistically and "explanation" is offered in increasingly nonegalitarian means of status attainment. terms of specific events rather than in terms of process (see Buettner-Janusch 1957 for discus- IT HAS BEEN aptly stated that "American sion of particularism). archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing" Archaeologists tacitly assume that artifacts, (Willey and Phillips 1958: 2). The purpose of regardless of their functional context, can be this discussion is to evaluate the role which the treated as equal and comparable "traits." Once archaeological discipline is playing in furthering differences and similarities are "defined" in the aims of anthropology and to offer certain terms of these equal and comparable "traits," suggestions as to how we, as archaeologists, may interpretation proceeds within something of a profitably shoulder more responsibility for fur- theoretical vacuum that conceives of differences thering the aims of our field. and similarities as the result of "blending," Initially, it must be asked, "What are the aims "directional influences," and "stimulation" be- of anthropology?" Most will agree that the inte- tween and among "historical traditions" defined grated field is striving to explicate and explain largely on the basis of postulated local or re- the total range of physical and cultural similari- gional continuity in the human populations. 217 This content downloaded from 128.227.133.130 on Tue, 15 Aug 2017 04:16:26 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 218 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [ VOL. 28, No. 2, 1962 I suggest that this undifferentiated andadapt un- the human organism, conceived generi- structured view is inadequate, that artifacts cally, hav- to its total environment both physical and ing their primary functional context in different social. operational sub-systems of the total cultural Within sys- this framework it is consistent to view tem will exhibit differences and similarities diff- technology, those tools and social relationships erentially, in terms of the structure of the cultur- which articulate the organism with the physical al system of which they were a part. Further, environment, as closely related to the nature that the temporal and spatial spans within and of the environment. For example, we would not between broad functional categories will vary expect to find large quantities of fishhooks with the structure of the systematic relationships among the recent archaeological remains from between socio-cultural systems. Study of these the Kalahari desert! However, this view must differential distributions can potentially yield not be thought of as "environmental determin- valuable information concerning the nature of ism" for we assume a systematic relationship social organization within, and changing rela- between the human organism and his environ- tionships between, socio-cultural systems. In ment in which culture is the intervening varia- short, the explanation of differences and similar- ble. In short, we are speaking of the ecological ities between archaeological complexes must be system (Steward 1955: 36). We can observe offered in terms of our current knowledge of the certain constant adaptive requirements on the structural and functional characteristics of cul- part of the organism and similarly certain adap- tural systems. tive limitations, given specific kinds of environ- Specific "historical" explanations, if they can ment. However, limitations as well as the po- be demonstrated, simply explicate mechanisms tential of the environment must be viewed of cultural process. They add nothing to the always in terms of the intervening variable in explanation of the processes of cultural change the human ecological system, that is, culture. and evolution. If migrations can be shown to With such an approach we should not be have taken place, then this explication presents surprised to note similarities in technology an explanatory problem; what adaptive circum- among groups of similar levels of social com- stances, evolutionary processes, induced the mi- plexity inhabiting the boreal forest (Spauld- gration (Thompson 1958: 1)? We must seek ing 1946) or any other broad environmental explanation in systemic terms for classes of his- zone. The comparative study of cultural sys- torical events such as migrations, establishment tems with variable technologies in a similar en- of "contact" between areas previously isolated, vironmental range or similar technologies in etc. Only then will we make major contribu- differing environments is a major methodology tions in the area of