Ethnoarchaeology

POLITIS, GUSTAVO

Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

Springer

Año: 2014; p. 2523 - 2530

In this paper the current status of ethnoarcaheology is summarize. Ethnoarchaeology is a sub discipline of anthropology placed in what Binford called actualistic studies; it is differentiated from other actualistic studies in that it includes the systematic observation of living societies, and from other types of ethnography through its explicit focus on the intention to identify the archaeological ?- material -- implications of human behavior. During the last forty years archaeologists have carried out fieldwork in traditional societies to help answer certain questions regarding the interpretation of the archaeological record, and to develop and refine analogies. This research strategy has been labeled as ethnoarchaeology and it transformed in one of the main sources of analogies. Analogy can be broadly defined as the transferal of information from one object or phenomenon to another based on certain relations of compatibility between them. Although the use of analogical reasoning in archaeology has been subject of debates, it is a current consensus that it is necessary in every step of the investigation (for a re-born debate about this subject see Ravn 2011). In the framework of analogical argumentation, ethnoarchaeology provided information from a source better known ? the living societies- in order to transfer this information to another, less known subject ? the extinct societies.