Explanation in Archaeology

Beginning with an introduction to logical positivism, this work goes on to give an account of New Archaeology and its inherent problems. The first two chapters of the book form the background against which Guy Gibbons sets his account of New Archaeology. This was a movement, which found favour with a significant number of archaeologists during the 1960s and early 1970s to make archaeology truly scientific. Traditional archaeological practice was felt to lack the power to explain archaeological data. Limiting itself to the recovery, description and classification of such data, it was little more than curio-collecting antiquarianism. Yet, the author argues, New Archaeology was doomed to failure, for several reasons. He reveals its flaws, and considers the extent to which its successor, Realist Archaeology, is better equipped to reveal the structures and processes of past societies which have produced the archaeological record. Dr Gibbon concludes with a discussion of a series of general questions concerning the history and methodology of archaeology and its relationship to other sciences.