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Archaeology as Behavioral Science 1
Author(s) -
SCHIFFER MICHAEL B.
Publication year - 1975
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.1975.77.4.02a00060
Subject(s) - nomothetic , nomothetic and idiographic , component (thermodynamics) , order (exchange) , archaeology , history , sociology , epistemology , anthropology , philosophy , physics , finance , economics , thermodynamics
Archaeology is argued here to have a significant behavioral science component. Various kinds of laws used in the study of the past—correlates, c‐transforms, n‐transforms, and the laws of socio‐cultural variability and change—are not readily borrowed from other sciences. It is shown that in order to fill these substantial gaps in scientific knowledge, archaeologists have for some time been carrying out nomothetic studies.