Material Inference

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Topic 10 Material Inference
Text Chapter 9
pp. 201-217
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Mechanisms of Culture Change

• Internal Mechanisms

• External Mechanisms

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Internal Mechanisms

• inevitable variation

• cultural invention

• cultural selection

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Internal Mechanisms

• cultural drift

• cultural revival

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External Mechanisms

• environmental change

• diffusion

• trade

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External Mechanisms

• migration

• conquest

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Dimensions of Inference
Contextual Dimensions
Cultural Dimensions
4. material
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4 Material
Assumption
Culture is determined by the material conditions
of human life
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Inference at the Material Dimension

• Cultural History

• Processual Archaeology

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Culture History

• i.e, what?, when? where?

• 'normative' generalist

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Processual Archaeology
culture process
how a cultural system works how it changes
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Processual Archaeology
materialist generalist
humans have adapted to a material world by means
of evolutionary processes
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Processual Archaeology

• Systems Theory

• Darwinian Models

• Cultural Ecology

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Systems Theory

• negative feedback

• positive feedback

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Darwinian models
Culture
extrasomatic means of adaptation
cultural selection
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Cultural Ecology

• physical landscape

• biological environment

• cultural environment

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The Origins of Resource Production

• Material Explanations

• Social Explanations

• Ideational Explanations

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Transition to Resource Production
Materialist Models
focus on subsistence change
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• Technology

Changes in

• Environment

• Demography

• Subsistence

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Culture-History
Internal
Cultural Invention
Technology
prime mover
progress
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Culture-History
External
Childe
Environment
prime mover
Post-Pleistocene environmental change
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Processual
External
Cohen
demographic pressure
prime mover
absolute population pressure
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Processual
External
Binford
environment demography
prime movers
environmental change
demographic stress
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Processual
Internal
Flannery
systems theory
prime mover
changes in seasonal scheduling
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Processual
Internal
Rindos
Darwinian evolution
prime mover
cultural evolution
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Middleport pipes

• formal

different pipe styles

• spatial

Crawford Lake cluster

• temporal

conical trumpet pipes contemporaneous
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Material Inference

• Environment

• Subsistence

• Exchange

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Subsistence
northern mixed economy
Horticulture
maize, beans, squash
Foraging
wild plants animals
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Gender Division of Labour
Women
plants (wild cultivated)
Men
animals
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Horticulture

• swidden (slash burn) cultivation

• fields used for 10-12 years only

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Foraging

• wild plants e.g., fleshy fruits

• mammals e.g., white-tailed deer

• fish

• birds

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Iroquoian Village

• home base for farmer / forager community

• relocated every 25-30 years