Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-mggfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-21T18:33:17.880Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Nature of Archaeological Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John M. Fritz  and
Fred T. Plog
John M. Fritz
Affiliation:
Department of AnthropologyUniversity of California, Santa Cruz
Fred T. Plog
Affiliation:
Department of AnthropologyUniversity of California, Los Angeles
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We argue that the development and use of law-like statements by archaeologists to explain characteristics of the archaeological record has been and should continue to be one of the most important goals of archaeological research. Using a model for explanation developed by the philosophers of science, Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, we indicate the role of such statements in archaeological classification. However, in archaeology such statements are found to be implicit, untested, and extremely general in referent.

We further argue that the testing of potential laws requires a shift from an inductive procedure, or from one in which undirected data collection forms the first and the "abstraction" of laws from data forms the last research step, to a deductive procedure in which the explicit formulation of potential laws and their empirical consequences precedes and directs the collection of data.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , October 1970 , pp. 405 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Hanson, Norwood Russell 1965 Patterns of discovery. An inquiry into the conceptual foundations of science. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. 1966 Philosophy of natural science. Prentice-Hall (Foundations of Philosophy Series).Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G., and Oppenheim, Paul 1948 Studies in the logic of explanation. Philosophy of Science 15:135–175.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1964 The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press (Phoenix Books).Google Scholar
Nagel, Ernst 1961 The structure of science. Problems in the logic of scientific explanation. Harcourt, Brace, and World.Google Scholar
Swartz, B. K. 1967 A logical sequence of archaeological objectives. American Antiquity 32:487–497.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Raymond H. 1958 Modern Yucatecan Maya pottery making. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology, No. 15.Google Scholar