TheProcessualApproach

The processual approach attempts to isolate and study the different processes at work within a society, and between societies, placing emphasis on relations with the environment, on subsistence and the economy, on social relations within the society, on the impact that the prevailing ideology and belief system have on these things, and on the effects of the interactions taking place between the different social units.

Itisacharacteristicofprocessualexplanationsthattheyhaveusuallyfocusedonecologicalandsocial factors the operation of which can be analyzed in some detail. Sometimes a systems model is used, looking at theinteractionofwhatmaybedefinedasthesubsystemsoftheculturesystem.Agoodearlyexampleofa processualexplanation,eventhoughtodayitisregardedasincomplete,isofferedbyLewisBinford’s explanation for the origins of sedentary society and of a farming economy.

In1968,Binfordpublishedaninfluentialpaper,“Post-PleistoceneAdaptations,” inwhichhesetoutto explain the origins of farming, or food production. Attempts to do this had been made by earlier scholars. ButBinford’sexplanationhadoneimportantfeaturethatdistinguisheditfromearlierexplanationsandmadeit verymuchaproductoftheNewArchaeology:itsgenerality.Forhewassettingouttoexplaintheoriginsof farmingnotjustintheNearEastortheMediterranean—althoughhefocusedontheseareas—butalso worldwide. He drew attention to global events at the end of the last Ice Age (i.e. at the end of the Pleistocene epoch,hencethetitleofhispaper).

Binford centered his explanation on demography: he was concerned with population dynamics within smallcommunities, stressing that once a formerly mobile group becomes sedentary—ceases to move around—itspopulationsizewillincreasemarkedly.Forinasettledvillagetheconstraintsnolongeroperatethat,ina mobilegroup,severelylimitthenumberofsmallchildrenamothercanrear.Thereisnolongerthedifficulty, for instance, of carrying children from place to place. Crucial to the question was the fact that in the Near Eastsome communities (of the Natufian culture around 9000 BCE) did indeed become sedentary before they werefood-producing.Hecouldseethat,oncesettled,therewouldbeconsiderablepopulationpressure,inviewof thegreaternumberofsurvivingchildren.Thiswouldleadtoincreasinguseofsuchlocallyavailableplantfoods as wild cereals, which had hitherto been considered marginal and of little value. From the intensive use ofcereals, and the introduction of ways of processing them, would develop the regular cycle of sowing and harvesting,andthusthecourseofplant-humaninvolvementleadingtodomesticationwouldbewell underway.

But why did these pre-agricultural groups become sedentary in the first place? Binford’s view was that rising sea levels at the end of the Pleistocene (caused by the melting of polar ice) had two significant effects. First, they reduced the extent of the coastal plains available to the hunter-gatherers. And second, the new habitats created bytheriseinsealevelofferedtohumangroupsmuchgreateraccesstomigratoryfishandtomigrantfowl.

Using these rich resources, rather as the inhabitants of the Northwest Coast of North America have done inmore recent times, the hunter-gatherer groups found it possible for the first time to lead a sedentary existence. They were no longer obliged to move.

In some respects Binford’s explanation is seen today as rather too simple. Nevertheless, it has many strengths. Although the focus was on the Near East, the same arguments can equally be applied to other partsoftheworld.Binfordavoidedmigrationordiffusion,andanalyzedtheoriginsoffarminginprocessualterms.

 

MarxistArchaeology

FollowingtheupsurgeintheoreticaldiscussionthatfollowedtheinitialimpactoftheNewArchaeology,there

wasareawakeningofinterestinapplyingtoarchaeologysomeoftheimplicationsoftheearlierworkofKarl Marx.Marxwasanextremelyinfluentialnineteenth-centuryphilosopherandpoliticaleconomist.Althoughhis workcoveredawiderangeofissues,heismostfamousforhisanalysisofhistoryintermsofconflictsbetween social classes.

 

ThekeyfeatureofMarxist archaeology,then,isthatchangewithinapastsocietywascausedmainlybythe contradictionsthatarisebetweentheforcesofproductionandsocialorganization.Characteristicallythese contradictions emerge as a struggle between classes (if this is a society where distinct social classes have already developed).EmphasisonclassstruggleandinternaldifferencesisafeatureofmostMarxistexplanations:this isaviewoftheworldwherechangecomesaboutthroughtheresolutionofinternaldissent.Itmaybe contrastedwiththe“functionalist”viewfavoredbytheearlyNewArchaeology,whereselectivepressures toward greater efficiency are seen to operate and changes are often viewed as mutually beneficial.

IntraditionalMarxismtheideologyofasociety—thewholesystemofknowledgeandbelief—isseenas largely determined by the nature of the economic base. This point is disputed by the “neo-Marxists”who regardideology and economics as interrelated and mutually influential, rather than one as dominant and the othersubordinate.

Karl Marx has influenced the interpretations of many archaeologists, especially concerning how change occurs in a society.

 

 

There are many positive features that Marxist analyses share with processual archaeology, but, incomparison with the processual studies of the New Archaeologists, many such Marxist analyses seem rathershort on the handling of concrete archaeological data. The gap between theoretical archaeology and field archaeology is not always effectively bridged, and the critics of Marxist archaeology sometimes observe thatsinceKarlMarxlaiddownthebasicprinciplesmorethanacenturyago,allthatremainsfortheMarxist archaeologists to do is to elaborate them: research in the field is superfluous. Despite these differences, processualarchaeologyandMarxistarchaeologyhavemuchincommon.