Archaeological and ethnoarchaeological approaches

Ethnoarchaeologists have contributed by providing descriptions of ethnographic specimens – archaeological ethnography (sensu Kent) – to the identification of archaeological artifacts and, through ethnoarchaeology, to interpretation of many aspects of their significance. We shall discuss examples, but need first to answer two not so simple questions: what are artifacts and what do archaeologists hope to learn from them? An artifact is something culturally fashioned, arranged, or substantially modified by humans, for example a basket, a circle of unworked megaliths, or the mark of a plough on a buried land surface. Although the concept covers machines and facilities – airplanes, traps, buildings, and the like – we are concerned in this chapter rather with small, transportable objects, tools, weapons, clothing, and decorative items.