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The post-processualists' approach to archaeology is diametrically opposed to that of the processualists. The processualists, as positivists, believed that the scientific method should and could apply to archaeological investigation, therefore allowing archaeologists to present objective statements about past societies based upon the evidence.
The new methodological approaches of the processual research paradigm include logical positivism (the idea that all aspects of culture are accessible through the material record), the use of quantitative data, and the hypothetico-deductive model (scientific method of observation and hypothesis testing).
It reintroduces the basic assumptions of positivism: the possibility and desirability of objective truth, and the use of experimental methodology. The work of philosophers Nancy Cartwright and Ian Hacking are representative of these ideas. [citation needed] Postpositivism of this type is described in social science guides to research methods. [7]
Historicist arguments against positivist approaches in historiography include that history differs from sciences like physics and ethology in subject matter and method; [36] [37] [38] that much of what history studies is nonquantifiable, and therefore to quantify is to lose in precision; and that experimental methods and mathematical models do ...
An approach to the study of archaeological materials formulated by Michael B. Schiffer in the mid-1970s that privileged the analysis of human behaviour and individual actions, especially in terms of the making, using, and disposal of material culture. In particular this focused on observing and understanding what people actually did, while ...
Post-excavation analysis constitutes processes that are used to study archaeological materials after an excavation is completed. Since the advent of "New Archaeology" in the 1960s, the use of scientific techniques in archaeology has grown in importance. [ 2 ]
In social science, antipositivism (also interpretivism, negativism [citation needed] or antinaturalism) is a theoretical stance which proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with the methods of investigation utilized within the natural sciences, and that investigation of the social realm requires a different epistemology.
A branch of research in archaeological ontology is known as typology which attempts to sort objects into classes based on physical characteristics. The existence and nature of time is also of concern in archaeological ontology. For example, what effect does periodisation, e.g. the three age model, have on archaeological theory and practice. [11]