Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice

673 Pages·2016·78.68 MB·English

by  Colin Renfrew

Archaeology
Theories, Methods, and Practice

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COLIN RENFREW
PAUL BAHN
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Theories, Methods, and Practice
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C O L L E G E
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E D I T I O N
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S E V E N T H
E D I T I O N
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REVISED &
UPDATED
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Archaeology © 1991, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016
Thames & Hudson Ltd, London
Text (unless otherwise indicated) Copyright © 1991 and 2016
Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn
For other textual credits see acknowledgments
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in 1991 in the United States of America by
Thames & Hudson Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10110
thamesandhudsonusa.com
Seventh edition 2016
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2015943655
ISBN 978-0-500-29210-5
Manufactured in China by Imago
C O N T E N T S
Preface to the College Edition 9 BOX FEATURES
Experimental Archaeology 53
Introduction
Wet Preservation: The Ozette Site 60
The Nature and Aims of Archaeology 12 Dry Preservation: The Tomb of Tutankhamun 64
Cold Preservation 1: Mountain “Mummies” 67
Cold Preservation 2: Snow Patch Archaeology 68
PART I
Cold Preservation 3: The Iceman 70
The Framework of Archaeology 19 3 Where?
1 The Searchers Survey and Excavation of Sites and Features 73
The History of Archaeology 21 Discovering Archaeological Sites
The Speculative Phase 22 and Features 74
The Beginnings of Modern Archaeology 26 Assessing the Layout of Sites and Features 98
Classification and Consolidation 32 Excavation 110
A Turning Point in Archaeology 40 Summary 130
World Archaeology 41 Further Reading 130
Summary 48 BOX FEATURES
Further Reading 48 The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project 76
Sampling Strategies 79
BOX FEATURES
Identifying Archaeological Features from Above 82
Digging Pompeii: Past and Present 24
Interpretation and Mapping From Aerial Images 86
Evolution: Darwin’s Great Idea 27
Lasers in the Jungle 89
North American Archaeological Pioneers 30
GIS and the Giza Plateau 96
The Development of Field Techniques 33
Tell Halula: Multi-period Surface Investigations 100
Pioneering Women in Archaeology 38
Geophysical Survey at Roman Wroxeter 106
Processual Archaeology 41
Measuring Magnetism 108
Interpretive or Postprocessual Archaeologies 44
Underwater Archaeology 113
Çatalhöyük: Interpretive Archaeologies in Action 46
Excavating the Red Bay Wreck 114
Jamestown Rediscovery: The Excavation Process 117
2 What is Left?
Excavating the Amesbury Archer 120
The Variety of the Evidence 49 Excavating an Urban Site 126
Basic Categories of Archaeological Evidence 49 4 When?
Formation Processes 52 Dating Methods and Chronology 131
Cultural Formation Processes – How People
Have Affected What Survives in the Relative Dating 132
Archaeological Record 54 Stratigraphy 132
Natural Formation Processes – Typological Sequences 133
How Nature Affects What Survives
Linguistic Dating 136
in the Archaeological Record 55
Climate and Chronology 136
Summary 72
Absolute Dating 138
Further Reading 72
Calendars and Historical Chronologies 140
Annual Cycles: Varves, Speleothems, Investigating Maya Territories 210
and Tree-Rings 142 Conspicuous Ranking at Mississippian Spiro 218
Radioactive Clocks 146 Conflict Archaeology 220
Early Intermediate Period Peru: Gender Relations 226
Other Absolute Dating Methods 160
Genetic Dating 162 6 What Was the Environment?
Calibrated Relative Methods 163
Environmental Archaeology 233
Chronological Correlations 164
World Chronology 167 Investigating Environments on a Global Scale 233
Summary 176 Studying the Landscape: Geoarchaeology 240
Further Reading 176 Reconstructing the Plant Environment 249
BOX FEATURES Reconstructing the Animal Environment 256
The Maya Calendar 140 Reconstructing the Human Environment 264
The Principles of Radioactive Decay 147 Summary 272
How to Calibrate Radiocarbon Dates 150 Further Reading 272
Bayesian Analysis: Improving the Precision of
Radiocarbon Chronologies 152 BOX FEATURES
Dating the Earliest West Europeans 158 Sea and Ice Cores and Global Warming 235
Dating the Thera Eruption 164 El Niño and Global Warming 236
Cave Sediments 242
Doggerland 246
Pollen Analysis 250
PART II Elands Bay Cave 262
Mapping the Ancient Environment: Cahokia
Discovering the Variety of
and GIS 266
Human Experience 177 Ancient Gardens at Kuk Swamp 268
7 What Did They Eat?
5 How Were Societies Organized?
Social Archaeology 179 Subsistence and Diet 273
What Can Plant Foods Tell Us About Diet? 274
Establishing the Nature and Scale of the Society 1 80
Information from Animal Resources 278
Further Sources of Information
for Social Organization 186 Investigating Diet, Seasonality, and
Domestication from Animal Remains 288
Techniques of Study for Mobile
Hunter-Gatherer Societies 195 How Were Animal Resources Exploited? 306
Techniques of Study for Segmentary Societies 198 Assessing Diet from Human Remains 310
Techniques of Study for Chiefdoms and States 209 Summary 316
The Archaeology of the Individual Further Reading 316
and of Identity 222
BOX FEATURES
The Emergence of Identity and Society 225 Paleoethnobotany: A Case Study 276
Investigating Gender and Childhood 225 Butser Experimental Iron Age Farm 278
The Molecular Genetics of Investigating the Rise of Farming in Western Asia 284
Social Groups and Lineages 230 Seasonality at Star Carr 290
Summary 232 Taphonomy 292
Quantifying Animal Bones 294
Further Reading 232
Bison Drive Sites 296
BOX FEATURES The Study of Animal Teeth 298
Network Analysis 185 Farming Origins: A Case Study 300
Ancient Ethnicity and Language 194 Shell Midden Analysis 304
Monuments, Polities, and Territories in Early Wessex 204
Interpreting Stonehenge 206
8 How Did They Make and Use Tools? From Written Source to Cognitive Map 401
Technology 317 Establishing Place: The Location of Memory 403
Measuring the World 405
Unaltered Materials: Stone 319
Planning: Maps for the Future 409
Other Unaltered Materials 334
Symbols of Organization and Power 411
Synthetic Materials 342
Symbols for the Other World:
Archaeometallurgy 347 The Archaeology of Religion 413
Summary 356 Depiction: Art and Representation 422
Further Reading 356 Music and Cognition 428
BOX FEATURES Mind and Material Engagement 430
Artifacts or “Geofacts” at Pedra Furada? 320 Summary 432
How Were Large Stones Raised? 324 Further Reading 432
Refitting and Microwear Studies at Rekem 330
BOX FEATURES
Woodworking in the Somerset Levels 336
Metallographic Examination 348 Clues to Early Thought 396
Copper Production in Ancient Peru 350 Paleolithic Art 398
Early Steelmaking: An Ethnoarchaeological The Ness of Brodgar:
Experiment 355 At the Heart of Ceremonial Orkney 406
Maya Symbols of Power 414
9 What Contact Did They Have? The World’s Oldest Sanctuary 418
Recognizing Cult Activity at Chavín 420
Trade and Exchange 357 Identifying Individual Artists in Ancient Greece 424
Sacrifice and Symbol in Mesoamerica 426
The Study of Interaction 357
Early Musical Behavior 428
Finding the Sources of Traded Goods:
Cognition and Neuroscience 431
Characterization 365
The Study of Distribution 374 11 Who Were They? What Were They Like?
The Study of Production 372
The Study of Consumption 382 The Bioarchaeology of People 433
Exchange and Interaction:
Identifying Physical Attributes 435
The Complete System 384
Assessing Human Abilities 445
Summary 390
Disease, Deformity, and Death 453
Further Reading 390
Assessing Nutrition 466
BOX FEATURES
Population Studies 467
Modes of Exchange 361
Diversity and Evolution 469
Materials of Prestige Value 362
Analyzing Artifact Composition 368 Identity and Personhood 475
Glassware from the Roman Mediterranean in Japan 372 Summary 475
Amber From the Baltic in the Levant 373 Further Reading 476
Fall-off Analysis 377
BOX FEATURES
Distribution: The Uluburun Wreck 380
Spitalfields: Determining Biological Age at Death 438
Production: Greenstone Artifacts in Australia 383
Facial Reconstructions 442
Interaction Spheres: Hopewell 389
Finding a Neolithic Family 444
10 What Did They Think? Ancient Cannibals? 450
Examining Bodies 454
Cognitive Archaeology, Art, and Religion 391 Grauballe Man: The Body in the Bog 456
Life and Death Among the Inuit 460
Investigating How Human Symbolizing
Richard III 462
Faculties Evolved 393
Genetics and Language Histories 471
Working with Symbols 400 Studying the Origins of New World
and Australian Populations 473
12 Why Did Things Change? Archaeological Ethics 551
Explanation in Archaeology 477 Popular Archaeology Versus
Pseudoarchaeology 551
Migrationist and Diffusionist Explanations 477
Who Owns the Past? 556
The Processual Approach 481
The Responsibility of Collectors and Museums 560
Applications 483
Summary 564
The Form of Explanation: General or Particular 489
Further Reading 564
Attempts at Explanation: One Cause or Several? 491
BOX FEATURES
Postprocessual or Interpretive Explanation 498
The Politics of Destruction 552
Cognitive Archaeology 501
Destruction and Response: Mimbres 561
Agency and Material Engagement 503
Summary 506 15 The Future of the Past
Further Reading 506 How to Manage the Heritage? 565
BOX FEATURES
The Destruction of the Past 565
Diffusionist Explanation Rejected: Great Zimbabwe 480
The Response: Survey, Conservation,
Molecular Genetics, Population Dynamics
and Climate Change: Europe 482 and Mitigation 568
The Origins of Farming: A Processual Explanation 484 Heritage Management, Display, and Tourism 580
Marxist Archaeology: Key Features 486 Who Interprets and Presents the Past? 581
Language Families and Language Change 488
The Past for All People and All Peoples 583
Origins of the State: Peru 492
The Classic Maya Collapse 496 What Use is the Past? 583
Explaining the European Megaliths 500 Summary 584
The Individual as an Agent of Change 504 Further Reading 584
BOX FEATURES
Conservation in Mexico City: The Great Temple
PART III of the Aztecs 570
CRM in Practice: The Metro Rail Project 574
The World of Archaeology 507 Portable Antiquities and the UK “Portable
Antiquities Scheme” 576
13 Archaeology in Action
16 The New Searchers
Five Case Studies 509
Building a Career in Archaeology 585
Oaxaca: The Origins and Rise of the
Zapotec State 510 Lisa J. Lucero: University Professor, USA 586
The Calusa of Florida: Gill Hey: Contract Archaeologist, UK 587
A Complex Hunter-Gatherer Society 519 Rasmi Shoocongdej: University Professor,
Research Among Hunter-Gatherers: Thailand 589
Upper Mangrove Creek, Australia 525 Douglas C. Comer: CRM Archaeologist, USA 591
Khok Phanom Di:
Shadreck Chirikure: Archaeometallurgist,
Rice Farming in Southeast Asia 531
South Africa 593
York and the Public Presentation
Jonathan N. Tubb: Museum Curator, UK 594
of Archaeology 538
Further Reading 548
14 Whose Past?
Glossary 596
Archaeology and the Public 549 Notes and Bibliography 605
Acknowledgments 651
The Meaning of the Past:
The Archaeology of Identity 549 Index 654
P R E FA C E T O T H E
C O L L E G E E D I T I O N
Since we first published this book twenty-five years ago we enable students to test their comprehension of the book
have revised it six times. This new edition of Archaeology: and to explore new areas of research. For instructors there
Theories, Methods, and Practice is the most comprehensive is an online instructor’s manual, a test bank and images
introduction to archaeological method and theory avail- and diagrams (as JPEGs and as PowerPoint presentations)
able. It is used by instructors and students for introductory for use in class.
courses on methods and theory, but also for classes on
field methods, archaeological science, and a number of
Archaeology in the 21st Century
other courses.
The book presents an up-to-date and accurate overview of We set out to convey a sense of the excitement of a rapidly
the world of archaeology in the 21st century. We are acutely moving discipline that is seeking answers to some of the
aware of the complex relationships between theory and fundamental questions about the history of humankind.
method, and of both of these upon the current practice of The archaeological record is the only resource we have
archaeology – in excavations, in museums, in heritage work, which can answer such questions about our origins – both
in the literature, and in the media. Throughout, the box fea- in terms of the evolution of our species and of the develop-
tures illustrate specific examples of excavation projects, and ments in culture and society which led to the emergence
explain particular techniques or theoretical approaches. of the first civilizations and to the more recent societies
The references and bibliography ensure that the work can founded upon them. The research is thus an enquiry into
be used as a gateway to the full range of current scholarship ourselves and our beginnings, into how we have become
– in that way it is also a work of reference for graduate stu- what we are now, and how our world view has come about.
dents as well as professional archaeologists. We hope too That is why it is a discipline of central relevance to the
that the book is written with sufficient clarity and purpose present time: only in this way can we seek to achieve a
that it is of real value for the general reader, whether as an long-term perspective upon the human condition. And it is
overview of the subject today or to be used selectively to worth emphasizing that archaeology is about the study of
follow up particular topics of interest. humans, not just artifacts and buildings for their own sake.
We have tried not to duck any of the controversial issues The dynamic pace of change in archaeology is reflected
of contemporary archaeology – whether in the field of in the continuing evolution of this book, particularly in this
theory or of politics. And we have tried to include origi- seventh edition. Each chapter and every element is reviewed
nal ideas of our own. We would claim for instance that and updated, incorporating new methods, changing theo-
our chapter on The Bioarchaeology of People (Chapter ries, and fresh discoveries. This dynamism is driven in part
11) offers an overview not readily found elsewhere, by the range of research constantly underway in every part
and that the chapters (10 and 12) on Cognitive Archae- of the world, which in turn means that the data accessible
ology and on Explanation in Archaeology offer syntheses to the archaeologist are increasing all the time.
that present a number of original perspectives. The dis- But new interpretations are not simply the product
cipline of archaeology is perpetually in a state of change, of new excavations turning up new information. They
and we have tried to capture and to represent where it is depend also upon the development of new techniques
at now. of enquiry: the field of archaeological science is a rapidly
expanding one. We believe also that progress and deeper
understanding come from the continuing developments
Resources
in archaeological theory, and from the changing nature of
With this edition students will have access to free online the questions we pose when we approach these increas-
9
study materials at http://goo.gl/WTwvu6. Its quizzes, ing amounts of data. The questions we ask, moreover,
chapter summaries, flash cards, and web projects will arise not only from academic research but from the