Archaeology
Archaeological Science
This guide helps you get your bearings in Archaeological Science before you start exploring the interactive timeline, framework graph, and concept maps.
Before You Dive In
- Archaeological Science studies past human life through material remains, stratigraphy, and scientific inference.
- Rough timeline: culture-historical archaeology -> processual 'new archaeology' -> post-processual interpretive critiques -> scientific and community-engaged synthesis.
- Start with provenience, context, and formation processes; interpretation quality depends on recovery logic.
- Use Noosaga to compare frameworks by explanatory emphasis: adaptation, symbolism, political economy, agency, or landscape systems.
Key Terms to Know
StratigraphyLayer-based temporal ordering used to establish site chronology.
Formation processNatural and cultural processes shaping archaeological deposits.
Processual archaeologyApproach emphasizing scientific explanation and systems/ecological models.
Post-processual archaeologyApproach emphasizing interpretation, agency, symbolism, and reflexivity.
ProvenienceExact three-dimensional location of an artifact at recovery.
Common Confusions
Treating artifacts as direct statements of meaning without depositional/context analysis.
Assuming archaeological science techniques remove interpretive uncertainty.
Confusing heritage management goals with hypothesis-driven archaeological explanation.
Recommended Reading
Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice— Colin Renfrew & Paul Bahn
2016In Small Things Forgotten— James Deetz
1996Archaeological Theory Today— Ian Hodder (ed.)
2012How to Use the Interactive View
1
Explore the timeline
Open the interactive view and scan the framework timeline. Which frameworks came first? Which ones overlap? Where are the big transitions?
2
Read the articles
Click into individual frameworks to read what each one claims, where it came from, and how it relates to its neighbors.
3
Check the concept map
See how the key ideas within a framework connect. This is useful for figuring out what to learn first and what depends on what.
4
Test yourself
Take the quiz for any framework you've read about. It's a quick way to find out whether you actually understood the core ideas or just skimmed them.