Open AccessWas There a Santa Maria Culture? A Discussion of a Commonly Used Concept in Argentine Archaeology
Author(s) -
Per Cornell,
Nils Johansson
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
current swedish archaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.256
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2002-3901
pISSN - 1102-7355
DOI - 10.37718/csa.1998.03
Subject(s) - interpretation (philosophy) , a priori and a posteriori , epistemology , archaeology , history , philosophy , linguistics
In this article the Santa Maria culture, a commonly used concept in Argentine archaeology, is discussed. Historically, this concept has been given varying definitions, which all have to be evaluated. As far as we understand, only aspects of the variability in artifacts, etc., have been used to define cultural units. A more fruitful and perhaps more empirical approach estimates the general variability without a priori assuming one single explanation or interpretation for this variability.