Ethnoarchaeology

POLITIS, GUSTAVO

McGraw Hill Yearbook of Science& Technology

McGraw Hill Yearbook

Lugar: New York; Año: 2010;

Since the 1970s, archeologists have carried out fieldwork in traditional societies to help answer questions regarding the interpretation of the archeological record and to develop analogies. This research strategy has been labeled as ethnoarcheology and has transformed into one of the main sources of analogy. There are various definitions of ethnoarcheology, but it can be summarized simply as the acquisition of ethnographic data to assist archeological interpretation. It also can be defined as the study of the relationship between human behavior and its archeological consequences. Ethnoarcheology is differentiated from other actualistic studies in that it includes the systematic observation of living societies. It also is differentiated from other types of ethnography through its explicit focus on the intention to identify the archeological (material) context of human behavior.