How Valuable is the Use of Ethnographic Analogy in Archaeological Interpretation? A Skeptical Stance. Interpreting Archaeological Evidence: Material Culture and Environment by Karen M. Spence (original) (raw)
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ARC4ICA Essay: Analogy and ethnography: a straitjacket for archaeological explanation?
Analogy is inextricably linked with human perception, discovery and cognition (Edgeworth, 2003, pp. xiii, 13). Analogical reasoning is a form of inferential logic whereby likely relationships are implied between similar entities with varying degrees of probability (Binford 1967, p. 1; Van Reybrouck 2000, p. 42; Wylie 1982, pp. 392-393). Since the 19th Century, archaeologists have used ethnographic analogy to understand the human past behind the archaeological record (Charlton 1981, pp. 133-134, 136; Wylie 2002, pp. 137-138). They illustrated ancient prehistoric hunter-gatherers' lifeways using ethnographic analogies. Sir John Lubbock utilised general analogical research to "throw some light on" (1865, pp. xiii, 1) prehistoric peoples. He contended that contemporary Inuit scrapers were "absolutely identical" to common prehistoric tools, so their use is thus "entirely explained" (Lubbock 1865, p. 407), regardless of dissimilarities (Van Reybrouck 2000, p. 71). William John Sollas (1911, pp. 91, 94) similarly believed that knowledge of modern hunter-gatherers was useful for analogies to understand prehistoric people, by directly comparing Tasmanian Aboriginals with Palaeolithic peoples. Yet, without this ethnographic-based beginning, "few identifications or comparisons would be possible" (Kent 1994), as the archaeological record "cannot speak to us ... cannot tell us how or why they were made or what they mean" (Peregrine 2001, p. 1). However, such uncritical social evolutionary-based similarity studies are not useful archaeological tools (Stiles 1977, p. 89).
Ethnographic analogy, the comparative method, and archaeological special pleading
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 2015
Ethnographic analogy, the use of comparative data from anthropology to inform reconstructions of past human societies, has a troubled history. Archaeologists often express concern about, or outright reject, the practice--and sometimes do so in problematically general terms. This is odd, as (or so I argue) the use of comparative data in archaeology is the same pattern of reasoning as the 'comparative method' in biology, which is a well-developed and robust set of inferences which play a central role in discovering the biological past. In pointing out this continuity, I argue that there is no 'special pleading' on the part of archaeologists in this regard: biologists must overcome analogous epistemic difficulties in their use of comparative data. I then go on to emphasize the local, empirically tractable ways in which particular ethnographic analogies may be licensed.
Archaeology and Anthropology: Brothers in Arms? - On Analogies in 21st Century Archaeology
The relationship between the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology has been repeatedly debated over the years. It is safe to say that the flow of ideas has mostly been one- directional. Archaeologists have frequently, and somewhat uncritically, adopted traditional, anthropological models and frequently employed practices and beliefs of contemporary low-scale societies as a way to “put flesh back on the bones”. Archaeologists, it seems, lack faith in the material record as sufficient for social analysis. A somewhat strange attitude, as the past is in many respects “unknown” to us and not necessarily similar to practices of the contemporary world. These arguments call for a reconsideration of the future relations between anthropology and archaeology. We may actually find that the traditional big brother – little brother relationship between anthropology and archaeology may be turned upside down! In this text, I shall identify some main problems in the use of cross-cultural data in archaeology and anthropology and focus on other ways to employ different “knowledge” of social practices in our analysis of the past.
The Play of Tropes in Archaeology: Ethnoarchaeology as Metonymy
Ethnoarchaeology, 2010
The language of archeology is infused with figurative speech or tropes such as metaphor and metonymy. Since tropes mark symbolic representations in archaeological language and reasoning, it is critical to develop a strongly reflexive posture regarding how archaeologists make interpretations, name artifacts, and carry out bridging arguments through ethnoarchaeology. The misuse of analogy rhetoric in ethnoarchaeology is particularly problematic, for it obscures how analogy is displaced by metonymy to create transformed identities between the past and present. The action of metonymy within ethnoarchaeology further obscures, through amplified metaphorical tension, critical differences that may feed further archaeological inquiry. The solution to this conundrum is a strictly comparative approach that abandons the analogy framework and that seeks to explain how and why differences arise.
Ethnoarchaeology: critic, consolidator and contributor
World Archaeology, 2016
The papers that make up this debate section acknowledge the fact that ethnoarchaeology has increasingly been marginalized by archaeology, but deserves a central role in the evaluation and development of archaeological theory. The interactions of ethnoarchaeologists with functioning societies and real people make it hard for them to ignore the complex and multi-faceted interrelationships between humans and material culture that frequently make archaeological interpretations challenging. Lyons and Casey rightly point out that ethnoarchaeology should be thought of as a methodologyone engaged in studying the complex relationships between material culture and living peoples. Following Hicks (2003), they (and similarly Cunningham and MacEachern) argue that the role of ethnoarchaeology is to broaden the experiential understanding of other cultures that we use to interpret archaeological situations. For instance, the expansion of concepts like 'landscape' and 'environment' to encompass such ideas as 'viewscapes', 'soundscapes', 'sense-scapes' and 'affordances' reflects a growing awareness in archaeology that humans live in a multi-sensory world. Working with people and focusing on their 'lived experience' in dealing with material culture, ethnoarchaeology is well positioned to contribute to archaeological understandings of the diverse perceptions, filtered by culture and biology, through which people interact with their physical and social environment. As Sillar and Ramón Joffré and other contributors point out, analogies have always been a foundation of archaeological theory. Ultimately, all archaeological interpretation is based on analogy, and archaeologists who have attempted to deny this are fooling themselves. We were not there, we did not see the people act, we cannot ask them to explain the underlying intangible rules that structured what they did and made. We can understand the past only by reference to something we do know, even if it is as removed as an ethnographic report on a culture we have never visited or a common-sense understanding of how people somewhat similar to ourselves might be likely to act. Obviously, we should avoid the assumption that our ways are the only ways or the imposition on the past of a familiar analogy without consideration of alternatives. Perhaps the most important function of ethnoarchaeology is the study and evaluation of archaeological theory. Ethnoarchaeology has the potential to challenge even our most fundamental ideas, as Brady and Kearney demonstrate in their discussion of the living nature of rock art. Archaeologists who believe that they are interpreting the past in the absence of reference to the present are deluding themselves. This is true, as Lyons and Casey point out, for theory as well as
Interpreting the Past Through Each Others' Eyes: Critically Approaching Ethnographic Analogies
Diversity in Archaeology. Proceedings of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference 2020/2021, 2022
Fourth session in the publication 'Diversity in Archaeology. Proceedings of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference 2020/2021' Free download at: https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803272818 Ethnographic analogies have always been a part of the process of interpreting the archaeological record. Throughout shifting paradigms, the use of ethnographic analogies has gone from naïve to complex reasoning, demanding that time aspects, ecological settings, and deep structures are to be considered in the search for large-scale processes or ideologies. Recently, posthumanist theoretical perspectives, including the ontological turn, new materialism and human-animal relations, have shifted focus from top-down, large-scale processes or ideological approaches to a bottom-up approach celebrating local contexts, which values relational over human agency and diversity. Posthuman approaches are thus regarded as more inclusive. However, ethnography is still a tool designed to meet Western epistemological needs and faces the challenging prospect of balancing Indigenous ways of knowing with the need to be scientifically rigorous. This in turn highlights pervasive colonialism and the lack of multivocality, where Indigenous voices are often discredited for being subjective (Kovach, 2010), even within posthuman archaeologies. Ultimately, posthuman approaches can risk the same universalities that they discredit. This session welcomes (but is not limited to) papers that demonstrate new and diverse applications of ethnographic analogy to prehistoric and historic contexts, as well as heritage studies that celebrate local ways of understanding the past.
ETHNOGRAPHIC ANALOGY IN ROCK ART INTERPRETATION
This paper refutes the validity of ethnographic analogy as a tool to assist in the interpretation of rock art. It also rejects the ability of the modern observer of ancient rock art to determine with scientific veracity what is depicted in rock art, or what its meaning is. It even challenges the reliability of ethnographic explanations, pointing out their deficiencies. The nature of objective links between unrelated arts via universals is explained.