Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal ofAnthropology

Volume 1 | Issue 1 Article 10

6-20-2011

Lewis Binford and the New ArchaeologyHarry LernerThe University of Western Ontario

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Recommended CitationLerner, Harry (1994) "Lewis Binford and the New Archaeology," Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology: Vol.1: Iss. 1, Article 10.Available at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/totem/vol1/iss1/10

Lewis Binford and the New Archaeology

KeywordsLewis Binford, New Archaeology, theory, anthropology

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Lewis Binford and the New Archaeology

by Harry Lemer

The role of archaeology in the broader fieldof anthropology has grown from mere traveloguesmaking no contribution to further ourunderstanding of the past. to detailed scientificanalyses forming a permanent complex bondbetween the two fields of endeavor.

The leading figure in the disciplineresponsible for the formation of this bond is LewisR. Binford. He envisions a pivotal role forarchaeology in the piecing together of culturalpuzzles. and his vision has become what is termedthe NewArchaeology.

r" The New Archaeology embodies Binford's,.... beliefs that if the discipline is to grow a system of" testing and re-evaluation must be in place. and

that there must be a greater level of tolerance of..' new ideas and perspectives. Binford believes that

only in this way will archaeology achieve thestatus of archaeology as anthropology.

'•., Archaeology's -objectives are narration and<: explanation. It is allied to both history and

anthropology. to history as both strive to presentan account of events and people of the past and toanthropology as both by means of a comparativepoint of view attempt to understand the pastthrough explanation of its contents.

The procedures of archaeology are at thesame time particularistic and more general intheir objectives. from the description andcategorization of material remains to cross-cultural comparison and the delineation of culturepattems.

This interrelationship can be understoodwhen it is realized that the two chief aims ofarchaeology are co-dependent. Explanation andcomparison cannot be accomplished until somedescriptive data become available. and descriptionand categorization cannot reliably be done withoutsome degree of explanation and interpretation.

suggest. is the archaeology which is geographicallylimited to the Americas and all associated islandgroups. This. however. does not implydevelopment in total isolation from it's Old Worldcounterpart. In fact many parallels can be drawnbetween the two fields of research. These includethe early focus of interest on two main areas ofstudy. in the Americas on the Aztec and Maya ofCentral America and on the simpler aboriginalcultures of North America. and the influences ofnew schools of thought like Darwinianevolutionism. Parallels continue to be seenbetween these fields in method and objective alike.

The Speculative Period of Americanarchaeology. the first of four general stages ofdevelopment in this field. first flourished in thelatter half of the fifteenth century and persisted forsome three-hundred and fifty years. This periodconsisted primarily of armchair speculation aboutthe origins of the NewWorld inhabitants. The bulkof knowledge collected dUring this time came fromthe writings of travelers and explorers and the veryfew actual surveys done dUring this period. Theformer sources consisted solely of first handaccounts of all that was seen and heard. whileactual archaeological intent inspired the latter.The collectors of this knowledge haVing noscientific method to fall back onto utilizedtheological explanations to reconstruct the past ofthe NewWorld.

The second stage. the Classificatory-Descriptive Period. although not entirelyabandoning the practice of academic speculation.saw a shift in the intent of the archaeologicalworker from mere documentation to detaileddescription and some level of classification.Throughout this period there was an increase inthe volume of material remains found anddocumented. but still lacking was a chronologicalframework within which to order this new foundinformation. The approximately seventy-fiveyears of this period were largely characterized bythe collection and accumulation of greatquantities of data. The subsequent stage ofarchaeological pursuit saw the incorporation of atime scale into the classificatory process.

The Classificatory-Historical Periodmarks the introduction of chronologies as amethod for ordering and interpreting material

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The name of the period. historical. carriesthe implication at least insofar as theminimum of history is a time-ordering ofevents. [Willeyand SablofT1974: 88)

This period can be further identified with what istermed the Stratigraphic Revolution inarchaeological technique. This revolution issimply the advent of stratigraphic excavation. thetreatment of an archaeological site in terms ofdifferent levels of occupation. This new approachlent a time frame to the material remainsrecovered. and in tandem with the newly institutedconcept of seriation. the mapping out of stylistictrends and fads within the archaeological record.the foundation for a chronologically basedanalysis was laid.

Culture-historical syntheses were also apart of this period but they were somewhat limitedin scope for they were. for the most part. basedsolely on artifact sequences. The latter half of thisperiod was gUided by the consideration of factorsother than the chronological ordering of materialremains. Prior to and up until this timearchaeology. in general. had been relegated to thefringes of anthropology's cultural mainstreamwhich was considered the birthplace of insight andthe center for theory building.

The role of archaeology at this time wouldhave continued unchanged had it not been for ahandful of archaeologists who challenged thestatus quo by suggesting it was possible thatarchaeology could provide pieces of a culturalpuzzle that ethnology simply could not. Thissuggestion sparked the trends that would be seen inarchaeology for decades to come.

These trends were the growing emphasisbeing placed on the context and function ofcultural relics. and the increase in confidence withwhich some archaeologists speculated aboutassociated cultural processes. Speculation oncultural issues beca.iTIemore respectable within thearchaeological community with the recognition ofthe value of traces of human activity other thanthe material remains themselves. Physicalcontext and settlement pattems are able to shedconsiderable light on various human actions andrelationships. and in conjunction with thetechnological innovations occurring within otherscientific disciplines at this time a whole newrealm in the study and analysis of physicalremains unfolded before the archaeologist.

This realm became the foundation ofAmerican archaeology in the following years ofthe Explanatory Period. The shift in the aims ofarchaeology was based on the re-emergence ofevolutionary ideas long since disfavored by thesocio-anthropological establishment. The small

number of advocates of cultural evolutionarytheory included. among others. Leslie White andJulian Steward. who in the in the middle of thenineteen-fifties introduced to Americanarchaeology unilinear. general and multi-linear.ecological evolutionary theories respectively.

(Whitestated) ... general evolution ... (treats)progress as a characteristic of culture ingeneral ... (whereas Steward believed) ...that ecological adaptation was crucial fordetermining the limits of variation incultural systems. [Trigger1989: 290-91)

These attempts to account for the development orprogress of culture were suggested as altematives tothe long held view that culture and historyinextricably connected and that the meredeSCriptionof historic-cultural events sufficed as agauge of cultural growth and development.

These descriptions amount to thechronologies religiously mapped out during theClassificatory-Historical Period. The chronologyhaVing been the focus of archaeologicalinvestigation for many years predisposed thearchaeological community to accepting the re-instatement of evolutionary concepts. The greaterattention being paid to the more general processesbehind culture lead to a closer and more complexrelationship between archaeology andanthropology. The Explanatory Period can then beseen to encompass considerable growth. in severaldirections. of the ability and potential ofAmerican archaeology to provide insights intocultural dynamics and process. The continuationof such growth resulted in the establishment of the'New Archaeology'. The New Archaeologyrepresents a synthesis of both revised olderconcepts and newer recently introduced ideas.Cultural evolution. though having been around forquite some time. was now back in favour amonganthropologists and archaeologists alike andbecame the foundation of the New Arch-archaeology. Systems L.'l.eory.another throwbackto the earlier days of anthropology. took on newsignificance in light of the evolutionaryframework established dUring the latter half of theClassificatory- Historical Period. Cultural-ecologyas well as the notions of context and function alsotook on increasingly pivotal roles in theinterpretative process. Concepts which were justbeing introduced in academic circles. like thelonger held notions. had their place in the largerstructure of the NewArchaeology.

The idea of modern ecology and eco-systems brought the importance of context andfunction to a much larger scale. and thedevelopment of computer technology allowed formore precise statistical examinations andmaterial analyses. All of these concepts and

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technologies helped to establish a more scientificapproach to the study ofman and culture. and thisapproach was the NewArchaeology.

Lewis R. Binford and the NewArchaeology

It is generally agreed that there was onearchaeologist who was truly successful in bringingthese concepts together;

Without much question the archaeologistresponsible for this synthesis. which madethe New Archaeology possible and whichmarks the threshold of the ExplanatoryPeriod is Lewis R. Binford. [Willey andSabloff 1974: 186]

Lewis Binford, who now holds the position ofProfessor Emeritus at the University of NewMexico in Albuquerque, questioned theassumption of the nineteen-sixties and before thatthe bulk of the information one can derive fromthe archaeological record is restricted totechnological and economic subject matter. Hebelieves that artifacts should be seen as products ofwhole cultural systems composed of subsystemsfunctionally associated with one another, and thatthey can provide insights into the social structureand religious beliefs, among other aspects of theirproducers' lives.

Lewis Binford's opinion as to the cause ofthis imbalance in the information retrieved fromthe archaeological record is that it is not so muchthe nature of the data as it is the lack ofappropriate interpretative skills on the part of thearchaeologist. Archaeology has made manycontributions in the area of explication ordescription, but up until the nineteen-sixties hasmade very few strides toward the explanation ofnewly acquired data. Binford states;

.... archaeologists ... do not conceive ofarchaeological data in a systemic frame ofreference. Archaeological data are viewedparticularistically and 'explanation' isoffered in terms of specific events ratherthan in terms of process. [Binford 1962:217]

Binford believes archaeologists have alwaysassumed that artifacts. regardless of theirfunctional content, can be seen as comparablecultural traits and therefore can be used as a basisfor the delineation of patterns of continuity amonglocal or regional human populations. This would.at first glance. seem to contradict his initial claimthat explanation was rarely attempted byarchaeologist prior to nineteen-sixty, however theassumption about the possible inferences drawn

from the artifactual remains overlooks thesignificance of the context of the artifacts withinthe particular cultural sub-system to which theypertain. how they are articulated with the rest ofthe system and the differences and similarities inthese relationships between spatially separatedarchaeological complexes. It is these factors.Binford believes, which potentially hold valuableinformation concerning the true nature of socialsystems.

Binford's work showed a concern with thecultural subsystems which are dependent onbiological process for change and definition. andwhich function to adapt the individual to his orher physical and social environment. Binfordwrote;

... we assume a systematic relationshipbetween the human organism and hisenvironment in which culture is theintervening variable. [Binford 1962: 218]

He feels that the material items from thearchaeological record in conjunction with thecontextual inter-relationships represent anunderstandable picture of the total culturalsystem, and in furthering this contention Binfordhas distingUished between three essentiallydifferent artifact types. Technomic artifacts arethose which were directly involved in the processof coping with the environment. The nature ofthese artifacts can shed considerable light on theprevailing conditions of past environments,providing a basis for the interpretation of otheraspects of culture. Socio-technic artifacts arethose which pertain to the social sub-systems ofthe total cultural system. These artifacts are thephysical remains of the means by whichindividuals in society were articulated with oneanother allowing them to function effectively as agroup. therefore the form and structure of theseartifacts reflect the form and structure of the socialsystem. The third type, Ideo-technic artifacts, arethose which-pertain to the ideulugical cultural sub-system. The symbolic framework which enablesthe individual to participate in society is inessence documented by these artifacts as they wereused during the participatory process. Binfordrecognized that the real value of these artifacts layin what they can tell us about the cultural systemno longer available to us for observation.

Cross-cutting these artifact types arestylistic characteristics which Binford believesprovided a material environment which promotedgroup solidarity and identity. The boundariesdrawn by the evidenced spatial extent of suchstylistic characteristics can be seen to closelycorrelate with the boundaries between culturalareas which vary in degree of social complexityand method of adaptation. Binford believes that

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with these concepts as the basis of archaeologicalresearch:

... archaeologists are in an excellentposition to make major contributions tothe general field of anthropology for we canwork directly in terms of correlations ofthe structure of artifact assemblages withrates of style change, directions of stylespread, and stability of style continuity.[Binford 1962: 220)

He has repeatedly stated that only whenarchaeologists as a group begin to view data asrepresentative of cultural systems will many of theproblems which have long plagued them beresolved.

The view held prior to the nineteen-sixties,what has been described as the normative view,was based on what was considered to be acommonly adhered to set of rules or norms, andthe variations in these norms were used to accountfor both structural variations in the culturalsystem and behavioral variations betweenindividuals. These variations can be interpreted.according to the normative theory. in terms ofcultural relationships which combine to form asingle model of culture. This model. as outlined bythe theory. is based on the concept of a culturecenter where rates of change in the form and styleof cultural items are highest. thus culturalrelationships can be viewedas the degree ofmutualinfluence which exists between culture centers.Binford termed this scheme

",.. the aquatic view of culture." [Binford1965: 204). as culture was perceived as aflOWing stre'am consisting of minorvariations in the rules or norms by whichpeople conducted their lives.

Binford criticized this approach to archaeologicalresearch by stating:

The normative view leaves thearchaeologist in the position of consideringhimself a culture historian and/or paleo-psychologist (for which mostarchaeologists are poorly trained.) [Binford1965: 204)

He argues that a new form of archaeologicalsystematics based on viewing culture as a totalsystem is needed to adequately explain culturalprocesses. The technological and socio-culturalsub-systems depicted by the people. items andlocations of a given cultural system are articulatedwith one another through common culturalprocesses. Binford defines culture as being multi-variate. in other words as varying along more than

one dimension at the same time, therefore thearchaeologist's goal is to defme the causes of thesevariations and to try and isolate regularrelationships between these causes. As a first stepBinford identified within the archaeologicalrecord what he describes as morphologicalvariation and decorative variation operatingalong technical and design dimensionsrespectively. and he saw that these variationscould be categorized in terms of primaryjunctional variation and secondary junctionalvariation. The rates at which these two types ofvariables change reflect the way in which changestake place within the cultural system as a whole.Binford feels by using such a classification schemea better understanding can be achieved of thecultural systems represented by the artifactswithin the archaeological record.

Three fundamental cultural phenomenacan be distingUished using these categories. Thefirst is the tradition which is a "... demonstrablecontinuity through time in the formal propertiesof locally manufactured craft items ... " [Binford1965: 208) and can apply to either a single type ofartifact or to several types of artifacts of a singlecultural system. The second is what are termedinteraction spheres which are regions of regularintersocietal relations. and are a means offormalizing and maintaining these relations. Thescope of interaction spheres is reflected in theitems exchanged between cultures. The thirdphenomenon. adaptive spheres. are the regionswhich exhibit a high frequency in the occurrenceof artifacts used in the adaptive process. Theseregions would seem to coincide with those definedby the culture area concept, however the stylisticvariable prominent in culture area identificationis omitted from the definition of adaptationspheres. Binford summarized this systematicframework by stating:

Use of such a framework will facilitateisolation of the causes of various kinds ofchanges and differences and provided thebasis for (the) studying (and).,.understanding of cultural processes.[Binford 1965:209)

Binford views the normative approach as verynaive and limiting in interpretative scope. He sawthe need within the archaeological discipline for amethod for the constant re-evaluation of theoriesand generalizing conclusions concerning culturalprocesses.

Binford attempted to formulate such amethod by essentially getting back to basics. Heposed the questions: 'what are data?' and 'where do

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they come from?' He answered these questions bysaying:

...data are the representations of facts bysome relatively permanent convention ofdocumentation. They record the events ofobservation in which theyparticipate ... (and) archaeologists producedata from facts of contemporaryobservations on artifacts. [Binford 1987:392]

The utility of data in the process of theory buildingin science is commonly judged by three basiccriteria: data represent single events. these eventsmust be open to public scrutiny. and thedescription of the events must be accessible to awide range of people. Binford saw these criteria assupporting his definition of data. but cautionedagainst confusing implications with facts asmaterials from the past can be retrieved but theassociated events are ..... gone and no longeravailable for observation." [Binford 1987: 393].This is where. Binford believes. traditionalarchaeologists made a collective wrong tum intheir analytical

Traditional archaeologists. in Binford's. opinion. followed the empiricism of early

scientific thought and discounted theory as auseful step in the scientific process. The empiricistideally operated with no pre-determined notions

., and expected knowledge to freely avail itself to him~) or her through experience. One claim of such an..-

acquisition of knowledge was the concept ofrelativism. but Binford suggests that this was aproduct of the naive nature of certain types ofsocial research. Today it is generally accepted thatempiricist reasoning is indeed faulty. According tothe empiricist point of view the ethnographerreporting fieldwork results imparts information.not data. as provided to him or her by a localinformant. If this method of apprehending thepast is the only accepted one the archaeologistwould have little hope of achieving any valuableresults as he or she has no informant to relate thesignificance of the recovered material remains.The alternative of adopting a universalisticinterpretative approach has been suggested where acommon human nature is sought within the pastand where the search is conducted from the insideof past events, in other words from the ..... humanperspective ..... [Binford 1987: 400]. This approachis akin. if not entirely based upon. the ideas putforth by Franz Boas years ago. It is are-iterationof his belief that to achieve any understanding ofthe behavior of individuals and the relationshipsbetween them they must be viewed from the inside

looking out. from the perspective of the individualhim/herself. Binford's opinion of this solution tothe empiricist problem is that in itsimplementation the archaeologist prevents anyreal understanding from coming about.

The question then arises. what does thearchaeologist do with his or her data? Binfordadvocates responsible scientific procedures whichinclude the formulation of bodies of theorytestable through a broad range of scientificexperiences. He states;

Responsible learning is dependent upon thedegree to which research is designed so as toexpose ambiguity, inadequacy andinaccuracy in our ideas guiding both theproduction of data and our attempts tounderstand it. [Binford 1987: 403]

The New Archaeologists. in challengingtraditional archaeological practice. did notadvocate a specific theory but a change inparadigm. They rejected the idea that thearchaeological record limited the type ofinformation related to past cultures retrievable bythe researcher, they believed the record had barelybeen explored at all therefore its true potential forilluminating the past was unknown. Theincreased field of view offered by this newinterpretation of the archaeological recordreqUired. more so than ever before in the opinionof the NewArchaeologists. a means of verificationof theories and models. This should be seen as amajor factor in the formulation of a new paradigmas archaeologically valid views of the past aredependent on the attitudes towards the record heldwithin the paradigm. These attitudes are theguidelines for middle-range research. NewArchaeologists believe a willingness to questionnewly introduced concepts of culture is crucial toachieving some degree of separation betweentheorist and theory allowing the evaluation oftheory to take place.

The challenge to science is to addressdirectly the problem of developingmethodological aids to paradigm changeand evaluation. as well as the continuedperfection of such aids for the evaluationand production of theories. [Binford andSabloff 1982:139]

The ability to identify the most productiveposition to assume when conducting research: theperspective of the individual. the perspective fromhigh above the cultural landscape or a perspectivepermitting observation of both types of socialscenery. is an equally potent ingredient ininducing growth of the paradigm. Thereforeparadigmatic change, from Binford's point of view,

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can take place by concentrating on the differentways that culture process can be related to thestatic archaeological record.

Summary

Binford is quite adamant in his views onthe proper archaeological methodology to beemployed to make significant contributions to thegeneral field of anthropology possible. He is verycritical of archaeologists who do not question thevalidity of the paradigm within which they work.for he believes that there can be no growth of thediscipline if there is no re-evaluation of it'stheories.

The New Archaeology has fostered anumber of different ways of observing andinterpreting the archaeological record. One suchmethod. as mentioned above. is middle-rangeresearch whereby Of... accurate means ofidentification and good instruments for measuringspeCified properties of past cultural systems. Of

[Binford 1983a: 49] are sought. This type ofinvestigation is essentially the search for acommon ground between scientific data and socio-cultural phenomena. in other words for atranslational mechanism to render observationsof material remains into reasonable conclusionsconceming cultural dynamics. The traditionalattitudes toward the archaeological record as awhole also changed markedly within this newparadigm. Archaeologists began to see the recordfor what it really was. the material remains of pastcultures not the past itself. and this prompted therealization that as important as what the recordhas to tell the archaeologist about past cultures ishow it tells it. This promoted a greater willingnessto consider new interpretive models. and Binfordbelieves that this new openness to different ideas iscentral to progress in this and other fields of study.

Archaeology in the nineteen-sixties asBinford saw it was stagnating and spinning its'wheels. The notion that culture could be used toexplain tnematerial remains was the exactopposite of what Binford felt should be the truegoal of archaeology. to use the archaeologicalrecord to explain the similarities and differencesof cultures both past and present. Views such asthis put forth by Lewis Binford can be seen as acatalyst in the maturing of archaeology as ascientific discipline. Binford has summarized his

We need a science of the archaeologicalrecord. To achieve this goal. archaeologistsneed to continue to experiment withmethods for both the production andrefinement of a new paradigm appropriateto our science ...then archaeology will beginto achieve the status of 'archaeology asanthropology'. [Binford and Sabloff1982:153]

This status is Binford's wish for archaeology for hebelieves that archaeology and anthropologytogether can achieve greater success in theunderstanding of ourselves and our past than caneither field individually.

ReferencesBinford. L.R 1962. Archaeology as Anthropology.

American Antiquity 28: 217-25.

1965. Archaeological Systematics and theStudy of Culture Process. American AntiqUity31: 203-10.

1981. Bones: Ancient Men and ModemMyths. NewYork: Academic Press.

1983a. Working at Archaeology. NewYork:Academic Press.

1987. Data. Relativism and ArchaeologicalScience. Man 22: 391-404.

Binford. L.R and Sabloff. J.A. 1982. Paradigms.Systematics and Archaeology. Journal ojAnthropological Research 38(2): 137-53.

Trigger. B.G. 1978. Time and Traditions.Edinburgh: University Press.

. 1989. A History oj Archaeological Thought.Cambridge University Press.

Willey. G.R. and Sabloff. J.A. 1974. A History oj~ American Archaeology. Thames and Hudson.

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