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Lewis R. Binford
The “new archaeology” was largely the result of the impact of Lewis R. Binford’s paper “Archaeology as Anthropology” (American Antiquity, Vol. 28, No. 2, Oct., 1962, pp. 217-225). Binford called for a more sophisticated approach to archaeological theory:
“Archaeologists should be among the best qualified to study and directly test hypotheses concerning the process of evolutionary change, particularly processes of change that are relatively slow, or hypotheses that postulate temporal-processual priorities as regards total cultural systems. The lack of theoretical concern and rather naive attempts at explanation which archaeologists currently advance must be modified… we cannot afford to keep our theoretical heads buried in the sand. We must shoulder our full share of responsibility within anthropology.“
Prior to Binford the dominant school of thought in the interpretation of archaeological finds was known as the “cultural historical” school; after Binford, the new archaeology came to be associated with the label “cultural processual” school. Later still, a “post-processual” school has emerged. (Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips were also instrumental in the emergence of cultural processualism and the new archaeology.)
Archaeology represents a discipline focused on the past, but it need not be exclusively so focused. In a couple of recent posts I suggested the possibility of Experimental Archaeology of the Future, and readers have since brought my attention to others who have made similar suggestions (Portraying the Future: ‘Historical Pre-enactment’, which I then commented upon, and Archaeological Excavations into the Future).
The idea that archaeology might be as concerned with the future as with the past might even be said to be a mainstream view, in light of a recent museum exposition, Looking for the Future in the Past: Archaeology’s Long-Term View, which sought, “…to re-envision archaeology as a science of the present and future, as well as the past.”
An archaeology of the future could benefit no less than an archaeology of the past from the theoretical rigor that Binford represents in archaeological thought. The “processes of evolutionary change” that Binford mentions apply equally to the future as to the past, and we stand in need of an adequate theoretical framework that can comprise past, present, and future that converges on a single, unified, and comprehensive perspective.
The study of civilization must shoulder its full share of responsibility in this process of understanding.