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Problems in “Avant‐Garde” Archaeology 1
Author(s) -
JOHNSON LEROY
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1972.74.3.02a00080
Subject(s) - confusion , interpretation (philosophy) , epistemology , sampling (signal processing) , simple (philosophy) , descriptive statistics , archaeology , sociology , state (computer science) , history , statistics , mathematics , philosophy , computer science , psychology , linguistics , psychoanalysis , filter (signal processing) , algorithm , computer vision
“Avant‐garde” archaeology has emphasized the use of statistics and social‐scientific reconstruction, but has fallen into a state of partial confusion and error. Its failings involve a misunderstanding of the philosophy of science, the use of unvalidated generalizations and models of society to interpret archaeological data, a tendency to reach overly simple solutions for problems of site sampling, as well as a misunderstanding of the use of inferential statistics. Also, this school has often failed to consider the problems caused by data interdependence and has tended to mix unnecessarily descriptive analysis with explanatory interpretation. The above points are discussed and some solutions for current problems and errors are suggested.