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Measuring Time with Artifacts

Measuring Time with Artifacts

A History of Methods in American Archaeology

by R. Lee Lyman and Michael J. O'Brien
Paperback
Publication Date: 01/07/2006

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Combining historical research with a lucid explication of archaeological methodology and reasoning, Measuring Time with Artifacts examines the origins and changing use of fundamental chronometric techniques and procedures and analyzes the different ways American archaeologists have studied changes in artifacts, sites, and peoples over time. In highlighting the underpinning ontology and epistemology of artifact-based chronometers-cultural transmission and how to measure it archaeologically-this volume covers issues such as why archaeologists used the cultural evolutionism of L. H. Morgan, E. B. Tylor, L. A. White, and others instead of biological evolutionism; why artifact classification played a critical role in the adoption of stratigraphic excavation; how the direct historical approach accomplished three analytical tasks at once; why cultural traits were important analytical units; why paleontological and archaeological methods sometimes mirror one another; how artifact classification influences chronometric method; and how graphs illustrate change in artifacts over time.

An understanding of the history of artifact-based chronometers enables us to understand how we know what we think we know about the past, ensures against modern misapplication of the methods, and sheds light on the reasoning behind archaeologists' actions during the first half of the twentieth century.
ISBN:
9780803280526
9780803280526
Category:
Archaeological science
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
01-07-2006
Language:
English
Publisher:
University of Nebraska Press
Country of origin:
United States
Pages:
348
Dimensions (mm):
229x152x18mm
Weight:
0.5kg

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