paradigms in science & archaeology

Paradigms in Science and ArchaeologyAuthor(s): G. A. ClarkReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 1993), pp. 203-234Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41053076 .

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Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 1, No. 3f 1993

Paradigms in Science and Archaeology G. A. Clark1

The paradigm concept as developed in western philosophy of science contexts is reviewed, and the metaphysical paradigms that govern research protocols in mainstream Old and New World prehistoric archaeology are described and compared. It is concluded that post- 1970 New World archaeological research receives its intellectual mandate from anthropology, is founded on postpositivist biases, and is governed by a critical-realist ontology, a modified-objectivist epistemology, and an experimental-manipulative methodology. Post- 1970 Old World archaeological research is viewed as a kind of history, remains mostly in the strict empiricist tradition, and is governed by a realist ontology, an inductivist epistemology, and by an observational methodology. The claims of various kinds of postprocessual archaeology are abo evaluated in terms of the paradigm concept KEY WORDS: prehistoric archaeology; postpositivism; epistemology; research traditions; critical realism.

INTRODUCTION

Each country has its own traditions of research in respect to the various disciplines that comprise its intellectual life. These traditions are based, in the final analysis, on the concept of the metaphysical paradigm - a collection of biases and preconceptions about the nature of our knowledge of the world or, in the present context, some aspect of the world, such as a scientific discipline. In the United States, prehistoric archaeology is the rough equivalent of what is known as prehistory in Europe (but is considered a branch of anthropology), is typically taught in departments of anthropology, and proceeds from fundamental concepts and assumptions that

department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287.

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204 Clark

are distinct from those that underlie the teaching of prehistory in Europe. In Europe, prehistoric archaeology is usually considered to be a kind of history projected back into the preliterate past. It is taught in history departments, or in autonomous departments of archaeology, treats process in the remote past as an extension of process in history, and is conceptually and organizationally separated from social and cultural anthropology (Clark and Lindly, 1991).

This essay reviews the paradigm concept as it has been used in western science, then compares the paradigms that govern prehistoric archaeology in the anglophone New World with those that govern archaeology in the Old World (especially those of continental Europe). I also summarize and provide a reaction to the claims of various kinds of postprocessual archaeology, notably those identified with its British wing. I endeavor to present a sketch of the fundamental concepts that are important in the two research traditions, because I believe that these shadowy entities, seldom made explicit, have a marked effect on our construals of pattern in the archaeological record, and what pattern might mean in behavioral terms. I take it as axiomatic that the broad parameters of the intellectual traditions to which we pertain are identifiable, at least in general terms (Clark, 1989, 1991). Others, who consider the discipline to be composed of a collectivity of individual scholars, do not agree that it is possible to do this (e.g., Knüsel, 1992).

THE NATURE OF THE PARADIGM

In the anglophone world, both processualists and postprocessualists follow Thomas Kuhn (1962, 1974, 1977, 1991) with respect to the definition of the paradigm. For him, the term "paradigm" meant a prototypical mode of problem solving that implicitly defined for scientists how they must "see the world." According to Kuhn, scientists construct complex theoretical and methodological systems based always on a particular paradigm, but these systems are seldom, if ever, made explicit in any formal sense. They are, in the final analysis, totally subjective. That does not mean, however, that they cannot be subjected to critical scrutiny. In anthropology, a metaphysical paradigm has been likened to a "worldview" - an affirmation, or an assertion about the nature of the world of experience (or a part of it, like the biases and preconceptions that underlie a scientific discipline) (Binford and Sabloff, 1982; Watson et al, 1984). Once indoctrinated in the paradigm (and this occurs through the formal process of education), scientists typically dedicate themselves to the resolution of problems whose solutions tend to reinforce and amplify the credibility of the paradigm, rather than



Paradigms in Science and Archaeology 205

to question its validity. From Kuhn's perspective, this is how science in general functions, without much concern for the preconceptions and biases that are the foundations of its knowledge claims. This is what he means by "normal science," characterized by "mopping up operations," the habit- ual activities of science, the investigation of routine questions and problems, defined and legitimatized by consensus (Kuhn, 1991, p. 37).

But, as everyone knows, in the course of normal science anomalies always occur - phenomena that the paradigm cannot explain, or that it can explain only inadequately, or that, in their implications, contradict it directly. Generally these anomalies are ignored, but if enough of them ac- cumulate, they can provoke a paradigm shift, causing scientists to abandon the ruling paradigm altogether and to substitute a new one for it. Kuhn argues that the process of paradigm shift tends to occur relatively rapidly, causing the kind of "scientific revolution" that appears in the title of his book. Except during the normal science phase, this notion of rapid and conclusive change negates the possibility that science can be a gradual, cu- mulative process, and implies that change is episodic and essentially un- predictable. That is not to say, however, that knowledge itself is noncumulative. Rather, as more comprehensive paradigms are devised and come into general acceptance, their explanatory "reach" is progressively enlarged, more knowledge is subsumed under them, and more can ulti- mately be explained more adequately (Clark, 1987).

Kuhn also thinks that the world of science is profoundly conservative, and because of this, most scientists are not disposed to accept a new paradigm or, more accurately, simply do not understand it, being indoctrinated in the biases and preconceptions of its predecessor. From a certain philosophical point of view, distinct metaphysical paradigms are incommensu- rate. They do not share any common patterns by which they can be compared. Those who subscribe to different metaphysical paradigms can maintain an interminable discourse without ever resolving anything, since they employ distinct fundamental concepts and give different meanings to superficially shared concepts. A good example in the literature of anthropology is the current resurgence of interest in the century-old question of modern human origins (Clark, 1992).

The nature of paradigm shifts has been much discussed in the philosophy of science, in archaeology, and in many other disciplines. Kuhn's assertion that paradigm shifts were essentially absolute, irrational, and un- predictable was debated in American archaeology during the 1970s, and there were some, like Raymond Thompson (1972), who argued that archaeology could best be viewed as a kind of history and that there were many aspects of continuity with respect to paradigmatic change, especially with regard to its methodology. This was put in the context of another,



206 Clark

broader discussion, which had to do with whether or not distinct aspects of the paradigm could change, if in fact the metaphysical paradigm did not change (cf. Meltzer, 1979). Kuhn thinks that the "conversion" of scientists to the emergent paradigm is a process that is at once both political and subjective and that scientists often adopt a new paradigm because it is pro- posed or supported by well-known scholars, or because the field in general has tacitly accepted it already. Both processes occurred with respect to processual archaeology, but the so-called "revolution" in fact took place during more than a decade (ca. 1965-1975).

Once adopted by the majority of the practitioners of the discipline, the new paradigm tends to give the impression that it is better able than its predecessor to resolve certain problems (i.e., those anomalies with which its predecessor could not successfully contend). There is also the notion that the new paradigm is a better approximation of "reality" than the discarded one. The latter issue also has been much discussed in philosophy of science contexts, and there are many philosophers who opine that the "real world" is in itself unknowable and that, from a certain philosophical point of view, no single reality exists apart from our perceptions of it. This

perspective forms part of the collection of biases emphasized by certain elements of the radical critique, but it also underlies some approaches to what I think of as standard processual archaeology. With respect to the

paradigm, it has as a consequence the fact that propositional statements are only "true" and "false" in the context of a given metaphysical paradigm, but within that paradigm, the concepts of truth and falsity are perfectly valid and, in fact, necessary for the functioning of normal science. This

point was very badly misunderstood by partisans of strict empiricism and, also, by some postprocessualists who subscribe to relativist biases (see be-

low). To Kuhn, the role of the paradigm was to provide the secure inferential base required for science to organize the chaos of experience.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF PARADIGMS

Early on, the notion of the paradigm was subjected to critical scrutiny, mainly in philosophy of science contexts. Figure 1 shows how the concept of paradigm was viewed after the middle 1970s. In its broadest conceptu- alization, the paradigm consists of "the totality of beliefs, values and tech-

niques that link together and unify a scientific community" (Kuhn, 1991). However, and unfortunately, Kuhn was careless in his use of the concept; one of his critics enumerated no fewer than 21 different uses of "paradigm" in the pages of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. According to Mar-

garet Masterman (1970), whose scheme I am following here, the paradigm




concept was used in at least three distinct ways. The most inclusive, and the one most relevant to this essay, is that of the metaphysic - an affirmation or an assertion about the content of a scientific discipline. There is also an intermediate usage or level, called by Masterman the sociological paradigm. By this she meant paradigms comprised of "divergent, self-ref- erencing schools," to borrow the words of David Clarke (1973), that often were found within a single metaphysical paradigm. A good archaeological example is the contrast between the partisans of deductive-nomological (D- N) approaches and those of general systems theory (GST) that existed under the metaphysic of processual archaeology in the United States during the 1970s (Flannery, 1973). Both considered themselves to be adherents of "the new archaeology," but they disagreed with respect to how to achieve its objectives. Notice that there is no overlap in the sociological paradigms shown in the diagram, a point to which I return below. There is also a third level, subdivided into various sublevéis, that Masterman designated the level of the construct paradigm. By this she meant that paradigm was also used in its methodological sense to denote a collection of methods and techniques shared by distinct sociological paradigms. Because of this, there is overlap between the various construct paradigms shown in Fig. 1.

When Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962, he was convinced that the metaphysical paradigm was a closed logical system that absolutely determined all the characteristics of its subordinate or constituent paradigms. He was much criticized for this rigid and unrealistic position, and after 1974, he abandoned it (see, e.g., papers in Kuhn, 1977). It became obvious that, in many fields, and especially in hybrid disciplines such as archaeology, there is an enormous overlap with respect to methodology (see, e.g., Dibble and Débenath, 1991). Whether there was overlap with respect to sociological paradigms was less clear, and in Fig. 2, I give my perception of the structure of archaeological paradigms typical of the 1980s.

Some aspects of Fig. 2 deserve commentary or emphasis. For one thing, the diagram is both hierarchical and reticulate in structure, and proceeds from the more to the less inclusive, from the more to the less observable, and back again. If the entry point is at the bottom, at the level of "data," phenomena that are directly observable in the real world are involved. "Facts," however, are abstractions, perhaps best conceptualized as measurements taken on data. Techniques such as measurement, once applied to data, come to embody distinct assumptions about the structure of the phenomena of interest (Carr, 1985a, b). They relate data and facts to generalizations, which are derived inductively from data. Activities in- volving data and facts are common to all archaeological research and cor- respond to Masterman's (1970) construct or methodological paradigm level



208 Clark

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(cf. Fig. 1). Test implications are conditions that are expected to apply to patterns in data and are arrived at via deduction from a hypothesis, which can be defined as any unconfirmed but testable proposition (Hempel, 1966, p. 19). Hypotheses state that, in given circumstances, particular events are covered by (are particularizations of and thus explained by) suspected and/or confirmed laws or law-like generalizations (Watson et ai, 1984, p. 7)-

Then, at the level of "models" and "theories," things typically get fuzzy conceptually. The main reason is that archaeology lacks the body of confirmed, warranted, nontrivial laws or law-like generalizations that is characteristic of more fully axiomatized disciplines. Put another way, we do not have "theories" in the sense that physics has theories. There are good reasons for this, of course - the main one being the often-remarked- upon differences in the research protocols of experimental and observational sciences (Clark, 1982). While most workers appear to share a perception of what a metaphysical paradigm is (although they do not necessarily agree on the nature of the metaphysic), theories and models tend to be used interchangeably by almost everybody. Although theories have relatively precise definitions in more fully axiomatized disciplines, they are most generally viewed as the keys to understanding the empirical world. Hempel (1966, p. 244) writes that theories

are normally developed only when previous research has yielded a body of information, including empirical generalizations, about the phenomena in question. A theory is then intended to provide deeper understanding by presenting those phenomena as manifestations of certain underlying processes.

Personally, I prefer Binford's (1981, p. 25) less rigorous, common-sense definition:

Theories are the answers to the "why" questions of dynamics. They are concerned with understanding variability and how systems proceed from one state to another.

Models, on the other hand, are vague formulations that function at a number of levels to characterize or describe patterns, not necessarily "to provide deeper understanding" of it. Few archaeologists appear to make the distinction (and I, like many others, have often sought refuge in the comfortable ambiguity of "models"). Theories and models appear to occupy an intermediate position between that of the metaphysic and that of the hypothesis; in Masterman's terms, they pertain to the realm of the sociological paradigm. Whatever they are, they express relationships among nonobservables (abstractions) of various kinds and, through hypotheses, relate diverse phenomena of interest to underlying causal processes. It is worth remarking that facts and data have a tenacious and debilitating autonomy in archaeology, and observations are considered to be a better



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source of knowledge about the past than theories. This seems "wrong- headed" to me; maybe we should think about turning it around. While a constant interplay between the empirical and the theoretical is the hallmark of all good science, it strikes me that archaeology has tended to rely much too heavily upon the strict empiricist notion that structure in data is relatively self-evident (Carr, 1985a, b).

Finally, I think that the overlap between theories and models is directly related to the extent to which these concepts are shared, which in turn is a function of the degree of communication across sociological paradigm boundaries, which is a function of language. The boundaries between "schools" are more or less permeable and, despite allegations to the contrary, have much to do with the idiom of scientific communication. Ar- chaeology, along with other observational sciences, lacks the universal operational metalanguage of mathematics, the international medium of communication in highly axiomatized, experimental, "big science" disciplines. As an Old World archaeologist trained in the notoriously monolin- gual American research tradition, it is evident to me that one of the biggest problems facing the discipline today is simply a failure to communicate. As a consequence, the metaphysical paradigms that govern the various Old and New World research traditions are seldom, if ever, made explicit [see papers in Clark (1991) for an attempt to do this]. It is for this reason that I have argued strongly for the publication of translations (Clark, 1990).

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING PARADIGMS

Despite their admittedly subjective nature, any metaphysical paradigm can be evaluated, or at least characterized, in terms of three criteria that are perhaps best expressed as questions. According to Egon Guba (1990a), whose scheme I am following here, the first is its (1) ontology: According to the tenets of the paradigm, what is the nature of the "knowable," or what is the nature of "reality"? The second criterion is its (2) epistemology: What is the nature of the relationship between the "knower" and the "known" (or knowable)? The third is its (3) methodology: How should the investigator proceed in the process of investigation (Guba, 1990a, b)? One could argue that the answers to these questions outline the basic belief systems according to which inquiry proceeds. It should be emphasized that these belief systems are in no sense foundational (i.e., they cannot be proven or disproven). They are rational assertions about how we might go about investigating the world of experience.

In the last three centuries, essentially five metaphysical paradigms have emerged in western science, although the first, strict empiricism, is



212 Clark

not usually regarded as part of science (although it is very important in the history of archaeological research). These are, in a rough chronological order, (1) strict empiricism, (2) classic positivism, (3) postpositivism, (4) critical theory, and (5) constructivism (Casti, 1989; Guba, 1990b) (Fig. 3).

Strict Empiricism

Strict empiricism proceeds from a realist ontology in the sense that it is held that an objective reality exists "out there," apart from our perceptions of it. Epistemologically, strict empiricism is characterized by an inductivist research protocol. Structure or pattern in data is considered to be intrinsic to them, and the significance of pattern is arrived at inductively. The significance of pattern is considered to be more or less evident to the adequately prepared investigator, and the professional competence of the investigator is taken into account in the evaluation of his or her conclusions (see, e.g., Thompson, 1972). Methodologically, strict empiricists have adopted an observational research protocol, devoid of any deductive com- ponent, lacking in any formal notion of a hypothesis or of the evaluation of a hypothesis (cf. Swartz, 1967; Fritz and Plog, 1970).

While strict empiricism disappeared from the exact sciences over 200 years ago, it still exhibits a remarkable tenacity in archaeological investigation. Probably something like 90% of all archaeological research ever conducted, in both the Old and the New Worlds, has been done under a strict empiricist paradigm. I suggest that strict empiricism is alive and well in all the intellectual traditions of archaeology, and remains dominant in most of the Old World research traditions. In a manner of speaking, strict empiricism has no real epistemology, because the nature of the relationship

iSi^i^ibe STRICT CLASSIC POST- CRTTICAL CONSTRUCTIVISM evaluated In terms EMPIRICISM POSITIVISM POSITIVISM THEORY of their "ONTOLOGY: realist realist critical realist critical realist relativist

EPISTEMOLOGY: inductivtst dualist-objectivist modified objectivist subjectivist subjectivist

modified dialogic- comparative- METHODOLOGY: observational experimental experimental- transformative interactive

manipulative

Fig. 3. The metaphysical paradigms of western science from the 16th to the 21st century (alter Guba, 1990). Classic positivism provided the foundation for the emergence of western science in the Age of Enlightenment and was dominant up until around the middle of the 19th century, when it began to be replaced by postpositivism in the exact and predictive sciences, a process that was essentially complete by the late 1920s. Critical theory and constructivism became important in certain branches of social science after about 1930 but are largely ir- relevant in experimental science.




between the investigator and the investigated is never subjected to critical scrutiny.

Classic Positivism

Classic positivism dominated western science from its beginnings in the Age of Enlightenment until the 1920s. It is also rooted in a realist ontology (i.e., it is held that a reality exists out there, independent of our perceptions of it, and that it is governed by time- and context-free natural laws and mechanisms). It is the business of science to discover these laws, some (many) of which entail prediction and imply or require linear cau- sality. Probably the best-known example is the metaphysical paradigm of Newtonian physics (Kitchener, 1988; Capra, 1988; Casti, 1989). Epistemologically, classic positivism is both dualist and objectivist, which means that the investigator must adopt a noninteractive posture removed, supposedly, from the object of investigation (Guba, 1990b, pp. 19, 20). The duality is between the observer and the observed; the actions of the observer are not supposed to influence the results of observation in any way. Values, preconceptions, and other bias factors are, in theory, precluded from influencing the outcome of experiment. It was held that objectivity free of values, theories, etc., was possible. From a modern perspective, this is ingenuous. Methodologically, positivism is experimental, which means that research questions or hypotheses are established beforehand in propositional form, then subjected to some kind of empirical test (i.e., falsifi- cation, from a Popperian perspective) under carefully controlled laboratory conditions (Popper, 1972). The positivist paradigm characterized western science during the first three-quarters of the 19th century, when the "big science" disciplines (astronomy, physics, chemistry, etc.) began to assume recognizable form (Casti, 1989).

Postpositivism

Postpositivism, practiced today by most of the exact sciences, is a modified or evolved form of classic positivism. Ontologically, postpositivists move to a position of critical realism, which means that, although a real world governed by natural laws is held to exist, it is impossible to perceive it directly, owing to imperfections in our sensory and intellectual capacities. Although "truth" in an absolute sense is held to be unattainable, the objective of postpositivist investigation is to arrive at better and better ap- proximations of it. Realism (sometimes called "hypothetical realism") remains the central ontological bias. Epistemologically, postpositivism is



214 Clark

usually considered as "modified objectivist"; objectivity remains what is called a regulatory ideal and is used to select among competing, alternative explanations. It is acknowledged that it is impossible to arrive at total objectivity. There is also explicit recognition of the existence of a critical intellectual tradition, made manifest in a critical intellectual community (i.e., one or various "schools") within which the paradigm is more or less con- sistent and accepted by consensus, but outside of which it might be non- sensical. Methodologically, postpositivists have adopted what Guba (1990b, pp. 22, 23) calls an "experimental-manipulative" research protocol, which aims to consider simultaneously multiple alternative hypotheses, which seeks to avoid or minimize the effects of bias in "natural" (i.e., nonobtru- sive) settings, and which depends rather heavily upon grounded theory (i.e., a body of theory already well tested and confirmed).

In classic positivism, there was a tendency to concentrate any test on a single hypothesis, which automatically eliminated the simultaneous evaluation of other alternative hypotheses. In postpositivism, the hypothesis has become a more sophisticated concept, and the process of evaluation has been expanded into the simultaneous evaluation of a series of alternative, competing hypotheses. In big science contexts, this process has become strongly quantified. It is recognized that bias is inevitable, but in purely experimental contexts, every effort is made to predict and control the effects of bias with the greatest precision possible. Since the Heisenberg Un- certainty Principle was articulated and widely accepted in the theoretical physics of the 1930s, there has been a general recognition that bias is in- escapable, even in tightly controlled laboratory contexts, and experimental outcomes are always expressed in terms of probabilities (Feynman, 1985; Kitchener, 1988). Processual archaeology in both the United States and the United Kingdom typically proceeds from a postpositivist metaphysical paradigm and the preconceptions and biases that underlie it (Watson et al, 1984).

Critical Theory

The fourth paradigm, critical theory, really signifies "ideologically ori- ented investigation" (Guba 1990b, p. 23). Here are included the various forms of Marxism, some kinds of materialism, feminist inquiry, etc., where it is explicitly recognized that participation in the process of investigation will bias the results. From a critical theory perspective, nature can never be perceived as it "really is" or "really works," except through a lens or filter of values. However, most critical theorists subscribe to the same ontological position as the postpositivists - that of critical realism. In other




words, they recognize that a reality exists out there but argue that we can comprehend it only through the imperfect intellectual filters of our preconceptions and biases. But there is a paradox here, or at least a troubling inconsistency, and that is that a realist ontology would seem to imply or demand an objectivist epistemology in order to discover the nature of reality. Critical theorists, however, almost exclusively adopt a subjectivist epistemology, which basically specifies that values mediate investigation and that investigation cannot be attempted at all without the values of the investigator playing an important role. In other words, a subjectivist epistemology is recruited in the service of a realist ontology, with the result that much critical theory is not very credible outside of a particular, and often very restricted, metaphysic.

Methodologically, critical theory is said to be "dialogic-transfomative," which means that, within the confines of the paradigm, critical theorists seek to eliminate false consciousness and transform the world, selecting elements of the relevant domain that can be comprehended, and deciding which of them can be altered. Because of its methodology, then, there is a strong proselytizing or propagandistic aspect to much critical theory, to which many postpositivists object. In archaeology, the best and most obvious examples of critical theory are the works of Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley (1987, 1988); it is also evident, although less marked, in some of the pub- lications of Ian Hodder (e.g., 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, cf. 1991).

Constructivism

Constructivism is the last of these paradigms. In contrast with the rest, which are essentially disposed to be eclectic in the sense that they can accommodate aspects and elements of other metaphysics, constructivists consider that positivism and postpositivism are so defective that they must be replaced altogether. Ontologically, constructivists are relativists. They emphasize the theory-laden nature of facts, the underdetermination of theory and the difficulty of arriving at a genuine test of a theory, and the value-laden nature of facts (Guba, 1990b, pp. 25-27). They argue that the results of any investigation are always determined by the interaction of the investigator and the "investigated" and that multiple realities exist in the form of multiple mental constructions. The latter are grounded in the sociological paradigm and in the realm of experience, local and specific, the form and content of which are essentially dependent upon the life experi- ences of the person internalizing them.

Epistemologically, constructivists are subjectivists - the investigator and the investigated are "fused" into a single entity, and the results of the



216 Clark

process of investigation are literally the creation of the process of interaction between the two. From a constructivist point of view, subjectivity is not only forced upon us by the human condition (as postpositivists would also argue), it is the only means to reveal constructions held in the minds of individual humans. Put another way, if realities exist only in the minds of people, subjective epistemologies would appear to be the only way we can access them. At this juncture, the question arises whether these multiple realities are idiosyncratic or whether there are degrees of overlap or sharing among them. The answer is that there is typically a restricted number of overlapping or shared realities - a kind of polythetic set - with fewer realities than the number of individuals and with only a partial overlap between any pair of individuals. One can supposedly arrive at this circum- scribed set of realities by means of thick description, followed by careful and controlled comparison.

Methodologically, constructivists (1) seek to collect or compile individual constructions, (2) describe these in as complete and precise a manner as possible, and (3) compare and contrast them dialectically, with the objective of generating one (or a few) constructions about which there is substantial consensus. Constructivists do not seek to predict or control a real world that exists apart from perception, nor to transform it (as critical theorists would do), but rather to construct (or, arguably, reconstruct) the world at the only point in which it exists - in the human mind (Guba, 1990b, c).

The boundary between critical theory and constructivism in archaeology is a bluny one, due to the rapidly evolving and incoherent nature of the radical critique as a whole and to the near-impossibility of neatly cate- gorizing its dominant personalities. Practically the only example of an archaeology that could, with some degree of justification, be labeled "constructivist" is the work of Mark Leone, who has been engaged for years doing historical archaeology in the city of Annapolis, Maryland [(e.g., 1981, 1984; Leone et al, 1987) but see below, for Leone is not a relativist]. He has been concerned to reconstruct the various archaeologies of the diverse socioeconomic classes, ethnic, racial, and linguistic groups that comprised the city during various periods in its long history. His investigations, as much historical as archaeological, have an important public aspect in that he has been charged by the municipality with the construction of a series of small museums, each one of which illustrates aspects of the city from the perspective of the various social groups that comprised it. According to Leone, then, Annapolis does not have a single archaeological record but various ones - the archaeology of the slaves, the archaeology of the mari- time traders, the archaeology of the southern aristocracy, of mercantile capitalism, etc. While these efforts are arguably successful given the his-




torical "reach" of documentation (but cf. Young, 1988), it should be borne in mind that, in default of written records, there would be no way to evalu- ate independently the credibility of Leone's reconstructions. Paradigm bias is always more problematic when it is implicit, as it is in the case of all prehistoric archaeological research.

Because many problems and questions regarded as "significant" are held in common by distinct regional or national research traditions (e.g., modern human origins, emergence of social complexity, etc.), it is illu- minating to try to catch a glimpse of the metaphysics that appear to underlie their "worldviews." This is what is attempted in the next section. I argue there that prehistoric archaeology in the Old and New Worlds proceeds from fundamentally different view of the past, founded on fundamentally different metaphysical paradigms. Underlying many Continen- tal approaches is the preconception that prehistory is history projected back into the preliterate past and that process in the remote past can be treated as analogous to, and an extension of, process in history (see, e.g., Otte and Keeley, 1990). This contrasts sharply with the anthropological biases that underlie American research traditions (see, e.g., Dunnell, 1986; Meltzer, 1979; Meltzer et ai, 1986). Metaphysical paradigms are typically not subjected to much critical scrutiny within research traditions and, as noted, have no objective reality beyond that conceded them by their adherents. So, from one point of view, one metaphysical paradigm is "as good as another." However, because the assumptions underlying the metaphysical paradigm can determine the character of its subordinate paradigms (which in turn determine research protocols in any problem context), conflicts arise with respect to the nature of explanation and what kinds of explanations are regarded, a priori, as plausible. From an American perspective, there are major problems with the contention that prehistory is an extension of history, and these have far-reaching implications for European construals of the nature of pattern and what it might mean.

OLD AND NEW WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARADIGMS

The first, and practically the only, systematic attempt at comparing the metaphysical paradigms of prehistoric archaeology in both hemispheres is the essay by Lewis Binford and Jeremy Sabloff, published more than a decade ago (1982; see also papers in Clark, 1991). They begin by reminding us of some of the contributions of classic positivism, especially the rejection of the strict empiricist notion that "the facts can speak for themselves." For more than a century, it has been evident that an objective observer



218 Clark

does not exist who is capable of observing nature directly and, thus, "dis- covering" facts or structure latent in nature. Facts or structure in data is the creation of paradigmatic bias, essentially "invented" by the investigator in order to assist in problem solving. Binford and Sabloff adopt Kuhn's definitions of "paradigm" and "theoiy" (i.e., the paradigm is an assertion of what the world is like; a theory is an argument invoked to explain why the world is as it appears to be). The significant difference, of course, is that the facts no longer speak for themselves. Meaning comes from humans, and not from nature.

In an effort to illustrate the effects of paradigmatic bias on systematic* and archaeological interpretation, Binford and Sabloff describe the characteristics of two paradigms that, in their opinion, have governed archaeological research traditions in the United States and in Continental Europe, respectively, from ca. 1940 to ca. 1970 (Table I). According to them, the two distinct metaphysical paradigms of the Old and New Worlds are founded upon two distinct conceptions of "culture," which influence not only methodology but also the meaning that we give to pattern in an archaeological record. It should be kept in mind that they are referring here to prehistoric archaeology (i.e., portions of the time-space continuum where no written records exist and where the direct historical approach is not an option).

The New World Paradigm

In the New World (or, more accurately, the anglophone New World), the conception of culture adopted by archaeologists originated in culture area studies and was developed principally by cultural anthropologists such as Alfred Kroeber (Berkeley) and Clark Wissler (Columbia), beginning during the 1920s. This concept of culture was characterized by the presumption of much continuity across extensive geographical areas and was manifest in the form and distribution of its material residues. Moreover, continuity was perceived to be very stable in space and time, so long as the natural environment did not change very much. Because of these biases, marked discontinuities in pattern were regarded as exceptional.

This collection of preconceptions and biases regarding the nature of culture in anthropology had a major effect on North American archaeology, of course, and, by about the 1940s, resulted in "the normative conception of culture" - the dominant paradigm in the discipline up until the end of the 1960s (Willey and Sabloff, 1980). The basic archaeological analytical units (pottery types, projectile point types, etc. - types in the generic sense) were seen as analogous to the units employed by cultural anthropologists




Table I. Metaphysical Paradigms in Prehistoric Archaeology (1940-1970): Major Biases and Preconceptions of the Anglophone New World (Canada, United States) and Continental Old World (especially France, Belgium, Spain, Italy) Conceptions of Culture (based on Binford and Sabloff. 1982Ì

New World Paradigm Old World Paradigm The definition of culture

Developed out of culture area studies Developed out of European history and nationalism

Received its mandate from social and Received its mandate from natural science cultural anthropology (esp. geology, paleontology)

Essentially gradualist, emphasized continuity Characterized by punctuated equilibrium; over space and time emphasized discontinuity in that traits

were believed to be congruent with social, ethnic groups

Led to normative (i.e., variety-minimizing) Also normative; cultures equal differentiated views of culture packages of traits over space and time

Recognizes some vectored change within Essentially static within analytical units analytical units

Coherent; cultures equated with trait Incoherent; when cultures changed, they complexes that cohere over space and time changed en bloc and abruptly (because

of population replacement) Existed at a level above that of social, Existed at the level of social, ethnic, and

ethnic, and linguistic groups linguistic groups Many definitions of culture; some Definition of culture essentially ideational

phenomenological, others ideational (i.e., norms, values in people's heads)

like Kroeber and Wissler. The purpose of an archaeological type was to provide the investigator with an organizational system that would allow him to group specimens in such a way that they would exhibit demonstrable historical continuity and that could be interpreted and understood in terms of human behavior. To the scholars of that era, a type should exhibit temporal and spatial cohesion with respect to its attributes, and if it was a "good" type (i.e., useful, reliable, diagnostic), its attributes should have been totally coherent (i.e., the best types were in fact monothetic, or nearly so). Under this paradigm, culture itself was viewed as a cohesion of characteristics or traits and was considered to exist above the level of the social, ethnic, racial, and linguistic units that created it (i.e., it existed at a more inclusive level than specific ethnic, racial, linguistic groups). In my opinion, this is the most important distinction between the Old and the New World paradigms of the 1940-1970 era.



220 Clark

The Old World Paradigm

In the Old World, culture was considered to be a kind of material expression of distinct ethnic, social, linguistic, etc., groups that existed at the level of such groups, and not above them. Because of this bias, a given archaeological assemblage was equated with a given ethnic or social entity, although this equation was seldom made explicit. From this perspective, cultures were seen (and, in my opinion, continue to be seen) as packages of traits differentiated among themselves, but not differentiated internally. In this sense, they were as "normative" (variety-minimizing) as their Ameri- can counterparts, if not more so. This equation of cultures with packages of index fossil tool types was the point of departure for the French paradigm, exemplified by François Bordes, but also adopted by bracketing gen- erations of French prehistorians, at least up until the early-mid 1980s. According to its tenets, it would be possible to detect either cultural continuity or the lack of it in an archaeological record, dependent upon the time-space distribution of the fossiles directeurs, interpreted more or less directly as the remains of the passing of long-gone ethnic or social entities analogous to the tribes, nations, and cultures of history.

Binford and Sabloff (1982) emphasized that the two conceptions of culture were metaphysical paradigms recapitulating our expectations in regard to what culture is "like." Both were based on empirical generalizations, but they proceeded from different sets of presuppositions and biases. Both consisted of conscious attempts to describe the phenomenological world of culture, but given that the two realities were different, the de- scriptions and explanations of the patterns perceived in each case were also different. The New World paradigm provides us with a portrait of geographical and temporal continuity, but it is a limited kind of continuity in comparison with the time-space framework of the Old World. Moreover, the New World paradigm views the archaeological record, almost inevita- bly, as a series of births and growths, followed by a series of collapses or declines, and the cycle is repeated over and over again. This preconception about the nature of change can be seen very clearly with respect to Mesoamerican archaeology, with its Formative, Pre-Classic, Classic, Post- Classic, and Proto-Historic epochs and stages.

The Old World paradigm provides us with an ideational portrait of culture in which archaeological assemblages (as defined by their fossiles directeurs) are equated with distinct ethnic or social entities of some kind. It is a view of culture characterized by a lack of continuity across time - by a series of time-successive replacements - and also by a lack of geographical continuity, each culture being defined spatially by its own assemblage of "diagnostic" artifacts. There are also differences of scale. Culture is seen




as immutable over the long term, and when there are changes (and they are rare), they tend to be abrupt and complete, explained by the physical replacement of one group by another. In general, cultures in the Old World paradigm change less, mix less, and are modified only gradually, if at all, over the course of time. It is a model characterized by a kind of punctuated equilibrium, with long periods of stasis corresponding to the classic analytical units (e.g., Solutrean, Magdalenian), "punctuated" by transition epi- sodes of a relatively short duration (1-2 kyr), which coincide with unit boundaries. Binford and Sabloff argue that the Old World paradigm is in- capable of acknowledging the possibility that distinct aspects of a culture could change (without change in other aspects) and could appear as distinct artifact assemblages in given times and places. This possibility is negated by the definition of culture itself, which requires that change must be total and conclusive, owing to the concept of population replacement.

Binford and Sabloff (1982) add that the Old World paradigm is characterized by certain other tendencies, some of which are arguable from the perspective of the early 1990s. They claim, for example, that there is a tendency to overemphasize either index fossil tool types or typological systematics to the near-exclusion of other lines of evidence, as if these were in some way significant in their own right. This tendency contributes to a European version of the normative view of culture that, like its American counterpart, tends to minimize the amount of variation perceived in an archaeological assemblage. They also claim that there is too much emphasis on the artifacts themselves, and a tendency to study artifacts as a domain of investigation isolated from other domains of investigation. There is in- sufficient emphasis on the geographical and environmental settings of sites in the landscape and a tendency to extract the site from its social and natural context and consider it as the principal analytical unit. In other words, they are criticizing the Old World paradigm for its lack of a systemic perspective of broad scope, which would be capable of evaluating multiple variables and patterns simultaneously. They suggest that the traditional European preoccupation with typological systematics tends to distract European prehistorians from other, more productive lines of evidence (e.g., technological systematics, the study of raw material procurement, use and discard patterns, intrasite spatial analysis, settlement pattern studies, studies of adaptation, etc.).

The 1970-1990 Era

Readers will, of course, have their own opinions about the accuracy of this characterization. In my view, the portrait of the Old World paradigm



222 Clark

is fundamentally accurate but a little out of date. Other than continued application of traditional, typologically based time-space systematics, not much happened on the Continent during the 1970s. The 1980s have seen increased emphasis on technology, raw material distributions, production sequences - the chaîne opératoire of French prehistorians (e.g., Boëda, 1988; Geneste, 1988; Meignen, 1988) - in part, at least, because of "penetration" of the European intellectual market by American approaches and ideas through partial (and delayed) overlap at the sociological paradigm level. Very little has come "the other way," and what has crossed the Atlantic tends to come from the United Kingdom (see below). I believe that there are two reasons for this. One is the near-total monolingualism of the American archaeological research tradition that, as a consequence, is seldom exposed to Continental literature in any significant or sustained way. The other is the near-total absence in Continental university curricula of what could be called an explicit concern with archaeological theory building. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to see why this is so. If, in fact, archaeology is perceived to be history projected back into the preliterate past, explanation in archaeology is taken to be analogous to explanation in histoiy and is particularistic, concerned with the unique outcome of an equally unique sequence of events. Put another way, European prehistorians tend to be the strictest of empiricists, little influenced by the constant soul-searching that has been an integral part of the American

quest for explanation since the mid-1960s. While European prehistoric ar-

chaeology has changed a lot over the past decade, much of that change has been methodological and has had no impact whatsoever on the meta-

physic. And it is at the level of the metaphysic that explanation lies. I believe the Binford and Sabloff characterization remains accurate with regard to (1) the continuing absence of a systemic perspective, (2) the overem-

phasis on typological systematics and its implications, and (3) the tendency to equate prehistorian-defined analytical units with the ethnic or social entities known to us from history (see, e.g., Otte and Keeley, 1990; cf. Clark and Lindly, 1991). It has not escaped the attention of its critics that the Old World paradigm might be largely a product of the chaotic recent his-

tory of Europe itself, marked, as it continues to be, by warfare, population displacements, and ethnic and social unrest.

In the New World, the Binford and Sabloff view of the 1940-1970 era was little noted nor much remarked upon, essentially because few Ameri- cans took issue with their picture of the traditional culture-historical paradigm (drawn largely from Willey and Sabloff, 1980) and because there was an ongoing dialectic about the evolving nature of the Americanist meta-

physic, anyway, within the boundaries of that research tradition. Robert Dunnell (1984, 1986) questioned certain aspects of it, especially their con-




strual of the epistemology and methodology of traditional New World archaeology, with which he has long disagreed. He made an argument that culture-historical inquiry was not the mindless pattern-searching enterprise that it was sometimes claimed to be (e.g., Swartz, 1967) and that it was, in fact, a highly productive "normal science" phase in the history of the discipline. He went on to make the more problematic assertion that it was founded in deductive reasoning, that it constituted a collection of methods not explicitly rationalized in theoretical terms, and that its conceptual structure, including its expectations about pattern and the meaning of pattern, was widely but implicitly held on a consensual basis that arose from the fact that its practitioners were all products of a single intellectual tradition. Of these observations, perhaps the most controversial is its allegedly deductive character.

Watson (1986), in a kind of rebuttal, reacted to this view. She labeled Dunnell a strict empiricist because he thinks he can avoid the inferential links involved in reconstructing the past by resorting to what she called "artifact physics" - "the hard phenomena of the archaeological record" (Dunnell, 1978, p. 195). This is naïve, she claims, adding (correctly, in my view) that all our statements about the past are inferential reconstructions of it, variously credible (depending upon our preconceptions and biases), but just as paradigm-bound and theory-dependent as were the interpretations of the 1940-1970 era.

I do not intend to comment at length upon major trends in post-1970 Americanist archaeology (for current reviews, see Watson, 1986, 1991; Dunnell, 1984, 1986, 1991; the annual Advances volumes edited by Mike Schiffer, etc.). It seems evident to me that mainstream Americanist archaeology is firmly grounded in a postpositivist metaphysic that views the past as "real" in some fundamental sense, and accessible to scrutiny. There are, of course, many and diverse aspects to what I think of as "mainstream Americanist archaeology." While they share a number of distinct but overlapping sociological paradigms, they all proceed from the same metaphysic - that of anthropological archaeology (Meltzer, 1979). I want instead to concentrate upon the preconceptions and biases of what I think of as "the radical critique" - the archaeological minority that defines itself in opposition to the mainstream.

RAGGING THE RADICAL CRITIQUE: ARCHAEOLOGY AS ALMOST ANYTHING BUT SCIENCE

As is well-known, the postpositivist legacy of western science that underlies processual archaeology in the United States has been attacked in



224 Clark

recent years by certain elements of the radical critique. Arguing from both relativist and realist perspectives, critical theorists have claimed (1) that processual archaeology has been a failure, in that it has not improved understanding or generated new knowledge of the past that is more secure inferentially than that produced by traditional, pre-1970 archaeology; (2) that processual archaeology is mostly unconscious of its own biases, especially with regard to the limitations of functionalism and its derivatives that underlie its grounding theories; (3) that logical positivism has been misinterpreted as antiempiricist and is not, in any case, an appropriate philosophical base for a "human science" (whatever that is); (4) that positivism is a product of the industrialized, capitalist West, and other (and by im- plication, better) paradigms are available (especially the various forms of Marxism); (5) that science cannot be extracted from its broader social context and will always be influenced by prevailing social, political, and economic biases; (6) that processualists believe that the past is directly accessible and is something that exists independently from our perceptions of it (i.e., it is "objectified"); (7) that the processualists accept the existence of a permanent frame of reference (that of natural science) in order to determine the nature of an objectified reality; (8) that they employ a model of economic rationality derived from western capitalism; (9) that they subscribe to adaptationist biases grounded in biosocial evolution; (10) that

processual archaeology is not, in fact, "processual" (i.e., it does a poor job of confronting process questions both in the past and in the present); and

(11) that, with its emphasis on cultural materialism, the ideational realm is ignored or deemphasized (and consequently discarded as unattainable) (Shanks and Tilley, 1987, 1988; Bell, 1987; Binford, 1987; Hodder, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1991; Earle and Preucel, 1987; Preucel, 1991).

The Biases of the Radical Critique

It is not easy to untangle the various skeins of thought in the literature of the radical critique, although Patterson has recently attempted to do so

(1989, 1990). What emerges from this is a kind of poorly defined, polythetic set comprising three partly complementary, partly contrasting, positions grounded intellectually in French poststructuralism, various aspects of social Marxist thought, and, to a certain, very limited extent, symbolic an-

thropology. Patterson identifies a rapidly evolving variant, headed by Ian Hodder (e.g., 1985, 1986), that is realist yet antipositivist, materialist, and structural Marxist and that, in its most recent incarnation (1991), argues that social history affects our construal of pattern in the past, present, and future; that different social segments have distinct conceptions of the past




(and, because of this, they represent the past in different ways); that our perception of the past reflects contemporary relationships and structures of power and authority (and, more broadly, the present-day social context); that the archaeological record has an objectified reality but is, nevertheless, also a "text to be decoded"; and that middle-range theory (sensu Binford, 1981; Schiffer, 1987) is inadequate to model processes of any conceivable interest to anyone.

A second line of thought is identified with the work of Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley (1987, 1988) and receives its intellectual mandate from French structuralism, poststructuralism, and Marxism. Of- fered as part of a critical examination of the biases of various processual theorists, their own point of view recognizes a realist perspective on the past (but, again, one that is accessible only through reading the cultural material record as a text analogue). They also assert that archaeology is an interpretive effort and is influenced by the sociopolitical and socioeconomic ideologies of the present, arguing that alternative and equivalent "understandings" of the past exist that reflect contemporary relationships of power and authority. They take the processualists to task for their efforts to develop methods that seek to extract science from its social context, since they believe that this is impossible to do. They advocate a kind of activist archaeology in which archaeologists unite with other intellectuals in the struggle against the established social order and all forms of knowledge and power used to "repress." Archaeological knowledge is to be mar- shalled to empower the economically and socially disadvantaged victims of western imperialism. An extension of this imperialism is the hegemony (one could almost read tyranny) of the processuali version of the scientific method. Metaphorical Maoists, they wish to "let a thousand flowers bloom" while, at the same time, eradicating a few noxious capitalist weeds from the intellectual garden.

The third position is represented by Mark Leone (e.g., 1981, 1984, 1991; Leone et al, 1987), who argues that, while archaeological practice and ideology are part of the present, they are nevertheless biased in terms of particular historical specifics (e.g., analytical frameworks, frameworks for the justification of knowledge claims). Like Hodder, Leone claims that the processualists have not been sufficiently critical of their own analytical frameworks and knowledge claims and that one cannot ignore ideology, since it restricts human action in the past and affects social consciousness (and many other things!) in the present. Ideology itself has a history, and it is necessary to examine it because, by doing so, archaeologists will be in a position to choose alternative interpretations that are better founded in a range of alternative reconstructions of the past (Leone et ai, 1987).



226 Clark

A Reaction

Confronted with this attack based on what many of us would consider to be versions of processual archaeology that are dated, misinterpreted, or mutually contradictory, it is not surprising that a coherent response has so far not been forthcoming. The attack itself is incoherent. As Patterson's overview shows very clearly, there is considerable disorder in the postprocessualist camp, with as much intellectual energy expended on internal dis- putes as is directed at the opposition (see also P. Watson, 1991; R. Watson, 1991a, b). In fact, at times it is difficult to determine who the opposition is. However, there has been a reaction, and although it is still a partial one, it contains some recurrent elements.

Perhaps the most damaging observation to emerge from reactions to various critical theory books (and I have not read all of them!) is that the postprocessualist explication of the methodology, inferential structure, and positivist foundations of processual archaeology are often distorted, impre- cise, and/or wholly or partly incorrect. There is a general tendency to caricature processual archaeology as grounded in classic positivism, when in fact it receives its intellectual mandate from postpositivism. They also tend to confound the role of deduction in verification with the inductive context of discovery as if, in some way, the inductive, deductive, and abductive aspects of problem solving could be neatly and absolutely separated from one another.

Shanks and Tilley (1987, 1988) also claim to reject quantified research protocols owing to the erroneous belief that the processualists use quanti- fication to produce "value-free data." Since they deny the existence of value-free data (as, of course, do processualists), Shanks and Tilley also are ill disposed toward precision, prediction, and control. However, they undermine the credibility of their own position with their strong depend- ence on statistics in the famous beer can study that, as P. Watson (1990, p. 220) points out, comprises about 30% of Reconstructing Archaeology (1987). Based on other quantified pattern searches, they arrive at other post hoc accommodative arguments - arguments cooked up after the fact in order to explain patterns in data (Binford, 1981).

Shanks and Tilley also reject in its totality the concept of social evolution. Time-transgressive data patterns are attributed exclusively to the op- eration of historical factors, and history, for them as for many others, is particularistic and nongeneralizing. The only explanation of change they propose to offer is "a full account of change" (Oakeshott, 1933, p. 43), which by definition must be particularistic. However, they actually do gen- eralize. Their "complete explanations of change" are not, in fact, comprised of historical sequences of events but, instead, consist almost exclusively of




empirical generalizations, thus contradicting their own explicitly stated biases about what is causing pattern in material culture. And so it goes. Even ignoring the so-called "crisis of historicity" [the problematic nature of historical facts (Young, 1988)], the problems for prehistoric archaeology are formidable and obvious ones.

Although there are clear differences between Hodder, on the one hand, and Shanks and Tilley, on the other, the British wing of the radical critique seems to be wholly lacking in a coherent investigation strategy that would permit any kind of independent evaluation of the credibility of its "understandings" and "interpretations." In short, you either "buy it" (by accepting their biases) or you don't. There is nothing "in between" that would permit one to connect an assertion about the "nature of the world" to a body of evidence about the nature of the (or a) past. They never make clear how one explains social transformations in the particular case (except as the unique result of an equally unique series of historical events) or in general, or why social transformations are thought to have occurred in the first place. They explicitly reject any notion of a generalizing mode of explanation and, with it, any pretension to objectivity in the evaluation of the credibility of their knowledge claims. The whole is couched in a strident, 1960s-style rhetoric that advocates a "radical, value-committed archaeology" (Shanks and Tilley, 1988, p. 206) in which archaeologists are to employ their expertise in the fight against "the prevailing regime for the production of truth" (1988, p. 204) - presumably the western, capitalist, positivist tradition. Nonwestern, noncapitalist, antipositivist alternative archaeologies are advocated (Marxist, poststructuralist, symbolic, etc.), but no compelling reason is articulated for choosing any one of them or for choosing them over their positivist competitors (P. Watson, 1990; R. Watson, 1991a, b).

In reviews generally sympathetic to the radical critique, Patterson (1989, 1990) criticizes processual archaeology for its "largely implicit, empiricist, behaviorist, functionalist, and logical positivist grounding theories" (1989, p. 556), its obsession with technique, and its claims to objectivity. In contrast, postprocessualists are supposedly more critically self-aware, employ broader conceptions of both history and culture, and view history as a context-dependent human construction and archaeology as a "series of texts," also socially constructed, that cannot be "read" (in fact, do not exist) apart from the circumstances in which interpretations occur (1989, p. 561). He calls for a dialectic between processual and postprocessual archaeology in order to identify elements incompatible with the different theoretical perspectives of each (1990, p. 197). The eclecticism characteristic of both sides is deplored (because it stands in the way of synthesis), and an appeal is sounded for critical assessment of their strengths, weak- nesses, and implications for the study of process. Whatever the differences



228 Clark

among them, the three kinds of postprocessual archaeology he outlines supposedly (1) confront the empiricist, positivist biases of processual archaeology concerning structure, history, and change, (2) reject the notion that the past is directly knowable (i.e., has an objective reality apart from our perceptions of it), (3) view history as a human construction, rather than something handed down by nature, and (4) acknowledge the importance of contemporary sociopolitical influences in the construction of history (Patterson, 1989, p. 562).

Some "Final" Thoughts (as of February 15, 1993)

Is it possible to reconcile these allegations with the tenets of proces- sualism? I would suggest (1) that some postprocessualists (e.g., Leone) have in fact confronted the subjective element in history without abandoning independent verification of knowledge claims; (2) that most processualists would agree with the postprocessualist assertion that the past is not directly knowable; (3) that processualists also see history (and archaeology) as human constructions (but nevertheless adopt a realist stance); and (4) that they would readily acknowledge the subjective element in history. In short, it seems to me that Patterson's points of alleged contrast are, in fact, wholly or mostly compatible with the position of processual archaeology today. The processual archaeology that is the target of the radical critique is little more than a caricature of the processual archaeology of the 1990s.

I would also contend, despite assertions to the contrary, that the Brit- ish wing of critical theory is, in large part, a relativist archaeology because "truth" itself changes according to the sociopolitical persuasion of the archaeologist (Shanks and Tilley, 1987, 1988; but cf. Hodder, 1991). Not so, of course, for the processualists, or for the American postprocessualist Mark Leone (1981, 1984, 1991; Leone et ai, 1987), who, while he acknow- ledges the importance of the subjective element in the construction of history, also endorses a realist archaeology and the analytical strategy that goes along with it. Perhaps the most "processual" of processual archaeologists, Lewis Binford, has recently observed that our knowledge of the past is constructed in the present out of (1) the static material residues of once- dynamic processes now found in geological contexts (i.e., the archaeological record), (2) the observations we choose to make on the archaeological record (in turn, determined by our biases and the preconceptions of the research traditions to which we pertain), and (3) general contemporary knowledge about the world in the waning years of the 20th century that guides our choices of observations and our interpretations of them (1989, p. 13). I suggest that many postprocessualists would find this outline for a




research agenda to be more or less compatible with their own. If there is a parting of the ways, it is because some of the more extreme elements of the radical critique have abandoned any disinterested attempt at objective verification of their knowledge claims.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Much of the research that eventually resulted in this essay was actually done in Spain during two visits in May-September 1991 (Universidad de Cantabria, Santander) and October 1992 (Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, Valencia). I wish to thank the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Grant SAB 91-0247), colleagues at the Universities of Cantabria, Valencia, and Oviedo, and the Generalität (Valencia) for underwriting my work. A special agradecimiento, y un abrazo, goes to my long-time friend and colleague, Prof. Manuel R. González Morales, Department of Archae- ology and History, University of Cantabria.

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