The use of ethnographic analogies in archaeological reasoning

Authors

  • Zorica Kuzmanović Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v4i1.7

Keywords:

arheološka epistemologija, zaključivanje po analogiji, teorija srednjeg opsega, etnoarheologija, relaciona analogija

Abstract

As a met­ho­do­lo­gi­cal prin­ci­ple ana­logy is pre­sent in all sci­en­ti­fic di­sci­pli­nes even tho­ugh, from a lo­gi­cal stand­po­int, strictly ob­ser­ved, it do­es not sa­tisfy the cri­te­ria which wo­uld qu­a­lify it as a re­li­a­ble me­ans of de­duc­tion. The qu­e­a­sti­on of re­le­vacy of the ana­lo­gic de­duc­tion was par­ti­cu­larly im­por­tant for ar­chae­o­logy which, stri­ving to­wards sci­en­ti­fic ob­jec­ti­vity, tried to find out what was the past li­ke. Ho­we­ver, the hi­story of that aca­de­mic ten­dency to a sci­en­ti­fic ideal has un­co­ve­red an es­sen­tial un­re­li­a­bi­lity (du­bi­o­u­sness), lo­gi­cal in­con­si­stency and fi­nally the bi­as of all ar­chae­o­lo­gi­cal con­clu­si­ons abo­ut the past, po­in­ting to the fact that everything we le­arn abo­ut the past, we le­arn, or bet­ter said, we in­ter­pret by ana­logy of (on) the pre­sent.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Binford, L. 1977. General Introduction. In: For Theory Building in Archaeology: Essays on Faunal Remains, Aquatic resources, Spatial Analysis, and Systemic Modeling. L.R.Binford (ed.). New York. Academic Press.

Binford, L. 1978. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York. Academic Press.

Binford, L. 1981. Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. New York. Academic Press.

Binford, L. 1983a. In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record. New York. Academic Press.

Binford, L. 1983b. Working at Archaeology: The Late 1960s and Early 1970s. In: Working at Archaeology. L.R.Binford (ed.). New York. Academic Press.

Borčić, B. 1998. O metodu analogije. Nastava matematike XLIII/4: 1-6.

Cunningham, J. J. 2003. Transcending the „Obnoxious Spectator“: a case for processual pluralism in etnoarchaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22: 389-410.

David, N. and Kramer, C. 2001. Etnoarchaeology in Action. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.

Gibbon, G. 1989. Explanation in Archaeology. Oxford. Basil Blackwell.

Gould, R.A. 1977. Some Current Problems in Ethnoarchaeology. In: Experimental Archaeology. D. Ingersoll, J.E. Yellen and W. Macdonald (eds.). New York. Columbia University Press. 359-377.

Gould, R.A. 1980. Living Archaeology. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.

Gould, R.A. and Watson, P. J. 1982. A dialogue on the meaning and use of analogy in ethnoarchaeological reasoning. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 355-381.

Hodder, I. 1982. The Present Past, London. L.T.Batsford.

Kelly, J. H. and Hanen, M. P. 1990. Archaeology and The Metodology of Science, Albuqerque. University of New Mexico Press.

Kobylinski, Z. 1989. Ethno-archaeological cognition and cognitive ethno-archaeology. In: The Meanings of Things: Material Culture and Symbolic Expression.I. Hodder (ed.). London. Routledge.

Koen, M. i Nejgel, E. 2004. Uvod u logiku i naučni metod. Beograd. JASEN.

Lucas, G. 2001. Critical Approaches to Fieldwork. London. Routledge.

Olsen, B. 2002. Od predmeta do teksta. Beograd. Geopoetika.

Primorac, Z. i Ule, A. 2006. Mjesto i uloga metafora i analogija u kompleksnom i pojmovnom mišljenju. Prolegomena Vol. 5 No. 1: 29-51.

Porčić, M. 2006. Etnoarheologija - sadašnjost kao ključ za prošlost. Етноантрополошки проблеми 1. св.2: 105-121.

Spencer, C. S.1992. Homology, Analogy, and Comparative Research in Archaeology. Behavior Science Research 26: 163-168.

Trigger, B.G. 1989 A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press .

Trigger, B.G. 1998. Sociocultural Evolution. Oxford. Blackwell.

Džonson, M. 2008. Arheološka teorija. Beograd. Clio.

Schiffer, M. B. 1988. The Structure of Archaeological theory. American Antiquity Vol. 53. No. 3: 461- 485.

Wylie, A. 1982. An analogy by any other name is just as analogical: a commentary on the Gould – Watson dialogue. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 382-401.

Wylie, A. 2002. Thinking from Things. Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology. Los Angeles. University of California Press.

Downloads

Published

2009-06-18

How to Cite

Kuzmanović, Zorica. 2009. “The Use of Ethnographic Analogies in Archaeological Reasoning”. Etnoantropološki Problemi Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology 4 (1):133-48. https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v4i1.7.

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2009): Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology

Section

Scientific Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 > >>