Archaeological culture
An archaeological culture is a recurring
Concept
Different cultural groups have material culture items that differ both functionally and aesthetically due to varying cultural and social practices. This notion is observably true on the broadest scales. For example, the equipment associated with the brewing of tea varies greatly across the world. Social relations to material culture often include notions of identity and status.[citation needed]
Advocates of culture-historical archaeology use the notion to argue that sets of material culture can be used to trace ancient groups of people that were either self-identifying
We find certain types of remains – pots, implements, ornaments, burial rites and house forms – constantly recurring together. Such a complex of associated traits we shall call a "cultural group" or just a "culture". We assume that such a complex is the material expression of what today we would call "a people".
— Childe 1929, pp. v–vi
The concept of an archaeological culture was crucial to linking the
This idea of culture is known as normative culture. It relies on the assumption found in the view of archaeological culture that artifacts found are "an expression of cultural norms," and that these norms define culture.[2] This view is also required to be polythetic, multiple artifacts must be found for a site to be classified under a specific archaeological culture. One trait alone does not result in a culture, rather a combination of traits are required.[2]
This view culture gives life to the artifacts themselves. "Once 'cultures' are regarded as things, it is possible to attribute behavior to them, and to talk about them as if they were living organisms."[3]
Archaeological cultures were generally equated with separate 'peoples' (ethnic groups or
Most archaeological cultures are named after either the type artifact or type site that defines the culture. For example, cultures may be named after pottery types such as Linear Pottery culture or Funnelbeaker culture. More frequently, they are named after the site at which the culture was first defined such as the Hallstatt culture or Clovis culture.[citation needed]
Since the term "culture" has many different meanings, scholars have also coined a more specific term paleoculture, as a specific designation for prehistoric cultures.[4] Critics argue that cultural taxonomies lack a strong consensus on the epistemological aims of cultural taxonomy,[5][6][7][8]
Development
The use of the term "culture" entered archaeology through 19th-century German ethnography, where the Kultur of tribal groups and rural peasants was distinguished from the Zivilisation of urbanised peoples. In contrast to the broader use of the word that was introduced to English-language anthropology by Edward Burnett Tylor, Kultur was used by German ethnologists to describe the distinctive ways of life of a particular people or Volk, in this sense equivalent to the French civilisation. Works of Kulturgeschichte (culture history) were produced by a number of German scholars, particularly Gustav Klemm, from 1780 onwards, reflecting a growing interest in ethnicity in 19th-century Europe.[9]
The first use of "culture" in an
The strongly racist character of Kossinna's work meant it had little direct influence outside of Germany at the time (the
Though he was sceptical about identifying particular ethnicities in the archaeological record and inclined much more to
Criticism
The concept of archaeological cultures is itself a divisive subject within the archaeological field. When first developed, archaeologic culture was viewed as a reflection of actual human culture.[1]
...in the traditional view we translate present into past by collecting artifacts into groups, and naming those groups as archaeological cultures. We then make the equation between an archaeological and a human culture by making the assumption that artifacts are the expressions of cultural ideas or norms. (...) This approach (...) was termed "culture history" by many (...).
— Matthew Johnson, Archaeological Theory: An Introduction, p. 19–20
This view of culture would be "entirely satisfactory if the aim of archaeology was solely the definition and description of these entities."[12] However, as the 1960s rolled around and archaeology sought to be more scientific, archaeologists wanted to do more than just describe artifacts, and the archaeological culture found.[2]
Accusations came that archaeological culture was "idealist" as it assumes that norms and ideas are seen as being "important in the definition of cultural identity." It stresses the particularity of cultures: "Why and how they are different from the adjacent group." Processualists, and other subsequently critics of cultural-historical archaeology argued that archaeological culture treated culture as "just a rag-tag assemblage of ideas."[13]
Archaeological culture is presently useful for sorting and assembling artifacts, especially in European archaeology that often falls towards culture-historical archaeology.[14]
See also
- Archaeological association– Glossary for archaeological terms
- Law of superposition – In undeformed stratigraphic sequences, the oldest strata will be at the bottom of the sequence
- Relative dating (archaeology) – Determination of the relative order of archaeological layers and artifacts
- Sequence (archaeology) – Stratigraphy of the archaeological record, used as part of the 'seriation' method of relative dating
- Seriation (archaeology) – Archaeological method of relative dating
- Sequence dating – Archaeological relative dating method based on linking pottery styles to time periods
- Stratigraphy (archaeology) – Study of archaeological sedimentation for dating purposes
References
- ^ a b c McNairn (1980). p. 48.
- ^ a b c d Johnson 2019, p. 19.
- ^ Shennan (2021). p. 114.
- ^ Polomé 1982, pp. 287.
- ^ Reynolds & Riede (2019).
- ^ Marwick (2019).
- ^ Shea (2019).
- ^ Scerri (2019).
- ^ a b Trigger 2006, pp. 232–235.
- ^ Trigger 2006, pp. 235–241.
- ^ Trigger 2006, pp. 241–248.
- ^ Shennan (2021). p. 113.
- ^ Johnson 2019, p. 75–76.
- ^ Johnson 2019, p. 226.
Sources
- Childe, V. Gordon(1929). The Danube in Prehistory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Johnson, Matthew (2019). Archaeological Theory: An Introduction. Third Edition. ISBN 9781118475027.
- Marwick, Ben (15 October 2019). "Galisonian logic devices and data availability: revitalising Upper Palaeolithic cultural taxonomies". Antiquity. 93 (371): 1365–1367. S2CID 211672039.
- McNairn, Barbara (1980). The Method and Theory of V. Gordon Childe. Edinburgh University Press. p. 48. ISBN 0852243898.
- ISBN 9780804711494.
- Reynolds, Natasha; Riede, Felix (15 October 2019). "House of cards: cultural taxonomy and the study of the European Upper Palaeolithic". .
- Scerri, Eleanor M.L. (15 October 2019). "Cultural taxonomy for the European Upper Palaeolithic: a wide-ranging problem". Antiquity. 93 (371): 1362–1364. S2CID 211661048.
- Shea, John J. (15 October 2019). "European Upper Palaeolithic cultural taxa: better off without them?". Antiquity. 93 (371): 1359–1361. S2CID 211663912.
- Shennan, S. J. (1978). Hodder, I. (ed.). Archaeological 'cultures: an empirical investigation. London: Duckworth. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-521-60049-1.