Debating Archaeology

Lewis R. Binford is regarded as the founder of the processual archaeology movement and a leading archaeological theorist for over past 40 years. He taught at University of Chicago, University of New Mexico, Southern Methodist University, and Truman State University. He is author of a dozen books on archaeological theory and archaeology of the far north. He was recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for American Archaeology.

"He makes us think, and no scholar can ask for higher praise than that." PLAINS ANTHROPOLOGIST "This book consists of twenty-nine papers published over a period of years concerning the research interests of an individual who has made--and will no doubt continue to make--important contributions to the archaeological literature and to archaeological theory...This is...an important book and a significant addition to the Binford canon. It should be read, critically but in no sense negatively; but most of all it deserves to be read by all serious students of archaeology." ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW "This third collection of articles by arguably the most important archaeologist and prehistorian of the last three decades follows Binford's An Archaeological Perspective and Working at Archaeology ... Like all of Binford's work, this collection deserves close reading." --CHOICE "To his many admirers he is the greatest archaeological thinker of his generation and a true prophet... These chapters are full of robust common sense and, as an exercise in debunking theoretical pretention, are a delight to read... In future histories of archaeology, Binford... certainly deserves a place as a teacher and polemicist, a person who has forced us all to think." NATURE "This book is a 'must-read' for students of both archaeology and anthropology in that it questions the 'taken for granteds' so often indoctrinated into their theoretical frame of reference." NEXUS

• I: Introduction; 1: “Culture” and Social Roles in Archaeology; 2: The New Archaeology, Then and Now; II: Much Ado about Nothing; 3: Science to Seance, or Processual to “Post-Processual” Archaeology; 4: In Pursuit of the Future; 5: Data, Relativism, and Archaeological Science; 6: Review of Hodder, Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology; III: Empiricism and Other Problems in Contemporary Archaeology; 7: Coping with Debate Tactics; 8: Reply to “More on the Mousterian: Flaked Bone from Cueva Morín,” by L. Freeman; 9: “Brand X” versus the Recommended Product; 10: “Righteous Rocks” and Richard Gould: Some Observations on Misguided “Debate”; 11: Richard Gould Revisited, or Bringing Back the “Bacon”; 12: An Alyawara Day: The Stone Quarry; 13: An Alyawara Day: Flour, Spinifex Gum, and Shifting Perspectives; 14: An Alyawara Day; 15: Butchering, Sharing, and the Archaeological Record; 16: Styles of Style; 17: Researching Ambiguity: Frames of Reference and Site Structure; IV: Models and Accommodating Arguments versus Pattern Recognition: What Drives Research Best?; 18: Multidimensional Analysis of Sheep and Goats: Baa-ck and Forth; 19: The Hunting Hypothesis, Archaeological Methods, and the Past; 20: Letter to H. T. Bunn; 21: Bones of Contention: A Reply to Glynn Isaac; 22: Human Ancestors; 23: Fact and Fiction about the Zinjanthropus Floor: Data, Arguments, and Interpretations; 24: Hyena Scavenging Behavior and Its Implications for the Interpretation of Faunal Assemblages from FLK 22 (the Zinj Floor) at Olduvai Gorge; 25: Were There Elephant Hunters at Torralba?; 26: Searching for Camps and Missing the Evidence? Another Look at the Lower Paleolithic; 27: Technology of Early Man: An Organizational Approach to the Oldowan; 28: Isolating the Transition to Cultural Adaptations: An Organizational Approach; V: Conclusions; 29: Coping with Culture