Archaeological Epistemology and Praxis: Multidimensional Context Vivian S. James
This document is the slides and text of the presentation I gave at the 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) held April 6-10, 2016, in Orlando, Florida. Only 15 minutes was allowed for the presentation, so much remains to be taken into consideration. For instance, Hodder’s 1992 Theory and Practice in Archaeology, which discusses context at length, and the many Computer Applications & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) Proceedings are not included. Additional time constraints forced me to rely more heavily on journal articles than their authors’ full-length books, which is in the process of being rectified. A more complete treatment is in the works and this presentation regarding context as theory and its predecessor introducing institutional context should be regarded as ideas in progress. My thought is that approaching context as theory enables an archaeological theorization of GIS as an archaeological methodology, that context is applied as theory in archaeological practice, and that context is theory that has been developed, written, tested, and refined by archaeology. Comments and suggestions may be emailed to me at [email protected]. I would especially like to hear from others researching along similar lines.
THIS DOCUMENT IS BEST VIEWED AS “TWO PAGES SIDE BY SIDE”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Merlin
for his enduring love and patience, for believing in me, and for the magic that made it possible for me to be here today.
Additionally, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee:
Marilyn Masson, University at Albany Christina Rieth, New York State Museum
Sean Rafferty, University at Albany Terry Powis, Kennesaw State University
Robert Feranec, New York State Museum for asking an impossible question for which
the only answer was context.
Archaeological Epistemology and Praxis: Multidimensional Context
Vivian S. James, RPA, B.S., M.A. Dept. of Anthropology, University at Albany, SUNY
Dept. of First-Year and Transitional Studies, Kennesaw State University
Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting
April 6-10, 2016 Orlando, Florida
Good afternoon. My goals this afternoon are to provide archaeologists a new way to think about archaeology and to theorize archaeological GIS.
CIRCLE OF CONTEXT TAYLOR 1948
Near the end of the fourth chapter of Taylor’s 1948 A Study of Archeology, he uses the phrase “circle of context” to describe how the process of shifting between inductive and deductive reasoning expands archaeological understanding of culture in the past.
HERMENEUTIC CIRCLE
http://alfa-img.com/show/hermeneutic-circle.html
The visualization of a circle of context, reminiscent of the hermeneutical circle of interpretation described by Carbonelli (2011), inspired me to think more deeply about what context is and specifically what context is in archaeology.
The term context, according to Butzer (1980) and reiterated by Burke (2002), comes from the Latin word contexere, meaning “to weave” and is related to contextus, which indicates “connection.” Weaving a number of disparate ideas from multiple disciplines together produced a tapestry that transformed my understanding from context as description to context as theory. Context, as it is used linguistically and in most other disciplines, can be defined as everything other than whatever is being examined. In archaeology, literally everything is context, or at least, everything has potential context. This potentiality, which includes whatever is being examined, distinguishes the archaeological understanding of context. Where other disciplines create context that is equivalent to the warp of a tapestry, the background threads upon which an understanding of the original object can become known, context in archaeology also contains an inclusive and textured weft. Archaeology is truly capable of weaving a tapestry that enables the past to be visible in the present.
THEORY, MODEL, & METHOD SCILLA 1759 [1647]
What distinguishes archaeological theory from archaeological method? Theories have shape. These shapes are models. Clarke (1972) defined archaeological models as: “pieces of machinery that relate observations to theoretical ideas,” they are simplified heuristic constructions of what are thought to be the critical elements and processes of a complexity, a “skeletal expression of a theory.” Gould (2002) recognized that theories have shapes when he used Scilla’s seventeenth century painting of an articulated coral to model the structure of evolutionary theory. Good theories, such as Stenonis’ (1699) ideas about stratigraphy, have multidimensional shapes. They are tensile, flexible enough to withstand modifications over time as Gould found Darwin’s (1859) theory of evolution to be. They are also interdisciplinary, applicable in multiple fields and as Schiffer (1988) informed us: “..archaeology is the quintessential interdisciplinary discipline, incorporating varied home-grown theories as well as theories from nearly all other social and natural sciences. Indeed, the basic structure of archaeological theory is that of multiple and loosely coupled hierarchies. Although principles within each hierarchy cohere substantively and may be related logically, such connections largely are lacking between hierarchies. However, principles in different hierarchies are linked procedurally in the archaeological research process.” It is the interdisciplinary nature of archaeology that both enables archaeology in the sense of the borrowing of ideas from other disciplines and enables archaeology to inform other disciplines.
The only models that can be made of methodologies are task lists and flow charts. Task lists are flat, unidimensional shapes. The tasks are not necessarily sequential or even related to one another. Complicated methods and sequenced task lists can be organized into a flowchart, changing the overall shape from a simple line to a rectangle. Each progressive step in a flow chart is usually tied to a hypothesis, if only as some organizing principle, providing a second dimension. These bidimensional models that connect methods with hypotheses about methods – Binford’s (1982) “middle range” theory – make up the bulk of archaeological theorizing.
Bos taurus a) right tibia b) left femur. Hutson, et al. 2013: 4147
Most simple analyses are two dimensional as the following example demonstrates. The data are only related in that they are sets of animal bones that had nice photographs available online along with some information about their provenience. Even when two middle range hypotheses are tested, the result is still only a two dimensional model.
DESCRIPTION COMPARATIVE METHOD
COMPARATIVE ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Dog
CONCLUSION: DIFFERENCE
B. taurus
not exposed exposed
SPECIES
TAPHONOMY
The first hypothesis is that bones from different species will be morphologically different, so the zooarchaeological task is to visually examine bones to determine species by the different shape of the bones. This idea can be further extended to include the taphonomic idea that bones exposed on the surface will appear visually different from bones that are buried, with the task being another visual inspection. You can see for yourself that the result is descriptive in nature and looks like a flow chart. It is when models reach a third dimension, when they move beyond ideas about methods into ideas about life, that they become theory.
“QUEST FOR A SEAT AT THE HIGH TABLE” LYMAN 2007
Archaeological Theory
Does archaeology produce theory? Taylor said no. To Taylor, archaeology was “no more than a method and a set of specialized techniques for the gathering of cultural information.” This has essentially remained the perspective of archaeology as Lyman (2007) has informed us. Taylor firmly disavowed the eighteenth century perspective of Hume that the study of man was the center of the sciences and restricted his consideration to cultural anthropology in relation to archaeology, preventing him from reaching any other conclusion than the one he did. A decade ago, Johnson (2006) reconsidered the question and answered yes and no – yes, archaeology uses theory, but no, archaeology has not produced any unique theory. In this case, his definition of theory as “the order we choose to put the facts in” – echoing Phillips and Willey’s (1953) take on the “jigsaw hypothesis” – limited his conclusion, a limit that Coudart (2006) criticized at the time. His focus on theory as organizing could be viewed as limiting archaeological theory to the middle range as I have pointed out that organizing principles only bring a second dimension to methodology. Schiffer’s definition of context as “a series of basic premises, postulates, or assumptions that specify certain fundamental entities, processes, or mechanisms, often implicating phenomena that themselves are unobservable (at the time of theory formulation)” is a more inclusive description of theory. Though not explicit in his review of archaeological theory, Schiffer saw archaeological theory as a “dynamic” part of a process. Finally, Lyman optimistically expressed the hope that archaeology could develop theory and take a “seat at the high table” in the twenty-first century if only archaeologists would stop limiting themselves to doing cultural anthropology of the past. What ties archaeological research together into a single, coherent discipline? The answer is deceptively simple. Context. It crosses all boundaries of archaeological research. It applies in all regions and to all materials. But what is context in archaeology? And how does context connect archaeology to the other sciences? Due to time limitations, only the skeleton of multidimensional context can be presented here.
CONTEXT
TAYLOR 1948
context
causal context
development of context
full and inclusive context
pertinent contexts
contextual synthesis
cultural contexts contexts
historical contexts
context of
culture
contextual significance
circle of context
archeological cultural context
detailed contexts present
context
Starting with Taylor, who defined “cultural context” as the product of historiography – which he ultimately concluded is the goal of archaeological research – context in archaeology is usually understood to be everything other than the object being studied. Yet, Taylor used the term context in fifteen different expressions. All told, he used “context” or its plural 117 times in 202 pages! Where at first glance this may appear to be a confusing array of usages, and considering Johnson’s “complex and shifting kaleidoscope of interests, contexts and discourses” in archaeological theory, all are correct uses and have been productive in archaeological praxis. To me, this represented opportunity – the glimmerings of multidimensionality.
To Phillips and Willey, context was separate from time and space and was related to function. They equated Taylor’s conjunctive approach to a “contextual approach,” which they contrasted to their taxonomical approach and thought of as a “luxury.” Alternatively, they offered the culture-historical theory, which as you can see in their model only has two dimensions.
CONTEXT WILLEY & PHILLIPS 1953
SPACE TIME
FORM (OBJECT)
The important taxonomical categories were: “space, time, and form” or object. They were almost led to context as a theory, but their overfocus on Taylor and taxonomical categories prevented them from seeing the three dimensional in favor of a two dimensional model.
SPACE TIME
FORM (OBJECT) FUNCTION
FUNCTIONAL CONTEXT BINFORD 1962
Binford (1962) extended the object-space-time of Phillips and Willey by adding in consideration of function. An early attempt at layering empirical inferences, it is essentially a methodology paper about social function based on association. The “functional context” model has a different shape from that of object-space-time, but is three dimensional despite the fact that Binford was using context as a middle range theory.
SYSTEMIC CONTEXT SCHIFFER 1972:159
Schiffer (1972) carried Binford’s functional context a step further into “systemic context,” which is a complex, bidimensional middle range theory about how the archaeological record is formed. He separated systemic context from archaeological context, which is synonomous with the archaeological record.
REFINED CONTEXTUAL PARADIGM BUTZER 1978; 1980
CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
NONCULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
SPACE
TIME
This differed substantially from Butzer’s 1978 and 1980 calls for context as a means of integrating archaeology. He defined context as “a four-dimensional, spatial-temporal matrix that comprises both a cultural and non-cultural environment, and that can apply to a single artifact or to a constellation of sites.” His emphasis on the ecological context of sites is a locus of connection to the other sciences and he points to the historical inclusion of ecology in archaeological research. Indeed, one need only to recall Keller’s treatise on The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and Other Parts of Europe (translated into English by Lee in 1866) to find an early example of “environmental archaeology” that includes archaeobotany, geoarchaeology, and zooarchaeology. But just as Taylor lost sight of context as a theory because he was focused on criticizing the taxonomists and Phillips and Willey lost sight of a real theory because they were focused on Taylor, Butzer overfocused on ecology and his “refined contextual paradigm” never really caught on. Context in the refined contextual paradigm is the fourth dimension, the cube in the center of the tesseract model, that emerges from understanding the cultural and non-cultural environments in space and time.
As the end of the twentieth century neared, the archaeological understanding of context deepened. The concept of “taskscape” advanced by Ingold in 1993, expanded the circle of context. Archaeological sites are connected places in which people as active agents performed a multitude of tasks individually and collectively within a specific time frame, shaping and shaped by the landscape. A hunting camp, for instance, is not limited to the boundary of the camp. The taskscape or context of the task also includes the forest where the hunting happens and the river where the hunters washed the blood off their hands.
PLOW ZONE CULTURAL LAYER UNDISTURBED SOIL
NORTH
SOUTH
WEST
EAST
STRATIGRAPHY
PROVENIENCE
TIME
ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT LYMAN 2012
ALTITUDE
DEPTH ASSOCIATION
SPACE
Entering the twenty-first century, we see a more technical approach to “archaeological context.” Stein (2008) looked at the “interpretive potential of provenience” and defined context as “characteristics of archaeological data that emerge from the analysis of documented associations among artifact assemblage variation, matrix composition, and provenience” omitting the landscape while acknowledging that archaeologists often impose a context upon their data. Additionally, she mentions primary context and secondary context and discusses stratigraphy in relation to the formation processes of the archaeological record. Lyman (2012), in response to Stein, defined archaeological context as a four dimensional construct of the tridimensional provenience plus association. Lyman’s definition is theory. It can be modeled and includes multiple subtheories, such as Stenonis on stratigraphy and Worsaae (1843) on association, and methodologies incorporative of middle range theory. Note that what archaeology calls “association” is equivalent to the idea that everything is potential context.
A provenienced archaeological site or subsite where a specific type of operation occurred in the past that is identified by associated features and artifact assemblages.
INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT JAMES 2015:7
Archaeology has no agreed upon aggregate term for identifiable cultural places usually termed “ritual context,” “ceremonial site,” “residential context,” “public context,” and a host of similar phrases. They are sometimes called “functional contexts” in the literature, but this can be confused with Binford’s use of “functional context” in regards to tool function. So last year, I presented a paper that introduced the aggregate term “operational context,” which sounded too much like actions in the present. After reflection, I am reintroducing the idea here as “institutional context,” which is “defined as a provenienced archaeological site or subsite where a specific type of operation occurred in the past that is identified by associated features and artifact assemblages.” It differs from taskscape in that the taskscape is a multitude of temporally related locations in which related activities to complete a task have occurred. Institutional contexts are those locations which are limited to specific types of activities. Residential activities, for instance, occur in residential contexts. The idea allows for multiuse contexts in the sense that a ritual context can include the residential-like preparation and consumption of food for ceremonial feasts as well as non-residential activities like public ceremonies. One final form of context that is seldom explicit in archaeological writing, but is always implicit is research context. All of archaeology happens in a time and place, with all the opportunities and constraints that exist in that time and place. They can be economical, political, personal, ecological, etc. The reality of the research context adds an additional dimension to context. I will now conclude with a brief summary explanation of my ideas about multidimensional context as archaeological theory.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
RESEARCH CONTEXT
SOCIAL CONTEXT
ECOLOGICAL CONTEXT
MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONTEXT
DEPOSITIONAL CONTEXT
FORMATIONAL CONTEXT
After studying all these ideas about context in archaeology – and many more – a bewildering array of colors and textures, I realized that all of these perspectives are accurate, even when they are critical of one another. How is that possible? It is possible because context is not a thing, it is a theory. Beginning with initial description, each analysis layers onto previous research, layers that overlap and are sometimes embedded. The model that I created includes the six major theoretical categories of archaeology. Each of the spheres can be examined on their own, but are also synergistically related and dynamically interconnected.
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MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONTEXT
Context is everything – it is the epistemelogical foundation of archaeology. My assertion is that multidimensional context is the epistemological result of archaeological praxis. The warp of the tapestry is the connection between theory and model. Methodology organizes and weaves the warp and the weft – the data or observations – together to produce the tapestry. Without methodology, theory is only a hypothesis. But when theory, model, and methodology are woven skillfully together, the tapestry of life in the past appears with all of its nuance and texture. Thank you.
CITATIONS Binford, Lewis R. 1962 Archaeology as Anthropology. American Antiquity 28(2):217-225.
Binford, Lewis R.1981 Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. Academic Press, New York.
Butzer, Karl W. 1978 Toward an Integrated, Contextual Approach in Archaeology: A Personal View. Journal of Archaeological Science 5:191-193.
Butzer, Karl W.1980 Context in Archaeology: An Alternative Perspective. Journal of Field Archaeology 7(4):417-422.
Clarke, David L. 1972 Models in Archaeology. Methuen & Co. Ltd., London.
Coudart, Anick 2006 Is Archaeology a Science, an Art or a Collection of Individual Experiments...? Archaeological Dialogues 13(2):132-138.
Darwin, Charles 1964 On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, A Facsimile of the First Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England. Originally published 1859 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, John Murray, London.
Gould, Stephen Jay 2002 The Structure of Evolutionary History. The Belknap Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Hegmon, Michelle 2003 Setting Theoretical Egos Aside: Issues and Theory in North American Archaeology. American Antiquity 68(2):213-243.
Ingold, Tim 1993 The Temporality of the Landscape. World Archaeology 25(2):152-174.
James, Vivian S. 2015 Operational Context: Stating the Obvious (And Not So Obvious). Paper presented at the Anthropology Graduate Student Organization Student Symposium, Albany, New York.
Johnson, Matthew H. 2006 On the Nature of Theoretical Archaeology and Archaeological Theory. Archaeological Dialogues 13(2):117-132.
CITATIONS Lee, John Edward 1866 The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and Other Parts of Europe by Ferdinand Keller. Longmans, Green, and Co., London.
Lyman, R. Lee 2007 Archaeology’s Quest for a Seat at the High Table of Anthropology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26:133-149.
Lyman, R. Lee 2012 A Historical Sketch on the Concepts of Archaeological Association, Context, and Provenience. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 19:207-240.
Phillips, Philip, and Gordon R. Willey 1953 Method and Theory in American Archeology: An Operational Basis for Culture-Historical Integration. American Anthropologist 55(5):615-633.
Schiffer, Michael B. 1972 Archaeological Context and Systemic Context. American Antiquity 37(2):156-165.
Schiffer, Michael B. 1988 The Structure of Archaeological Theory. American Antiquity 53(3):461-485.
Scilla, Agostino 1759 Coralium Articulatum quod Copiosissimum in Rupibus et Collibus Messanae Reperitur. (“Articulated Coral, Found in Great Abundance in the Cliffs and Hills of Messina”) In De Corporibus Marinis Lapidescentibus quae Defossa Reperiuntur (“On Petrified Marine Animals that are Found Buried”), Ta v. XXI, Fig. I. Monaldini, Rome. Originally published in 1670 La Vana Speculazione Disingannata dal Senso (“Vain Speculation Undeceived by the Senses”). A. Colicchia, Naples.
Stein, Julie K. 2008 Exploring the Historical Foundations and Interpretive Potential of Provenience. In Archaeological Concepts for the Study of the Cultural Past, edited by A. P. Sullivan, pp. 108-124. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Stenonis, Nicolai 1699 De Solido intra Solidvm Natvraliter Contento: Dissertationis prodromvs ad Serenissimvm. Stellae, Florentiae. With reference to the English translation published by John Garrett Winter 1916 The Prodromus of Nicolaus Steno’s Dissertation: Concerning a Solid Body Enclosed by Process of Nature within a Solid. The Macmillan Company, New York and London.
Taylor, Walter 1948 A Study of Archaeology. Memoirs No. 69. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.
Thoms, William J. 1849 The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark by J. J. A. Worsaae. John Henry Parker, London.
