Processual archaeology, also known as the “New Archaeology,” emerged in the 1960s as a scientific approach to studying the past. It emphasizes systematic, objective, and quantifiable methods to understand cultural change and human behavior. Key principles include:
- Scientific Method – Archaeology should be a rigorous, hypothesis-driven science that formulates and tests explanations about past societies.
- Cultural Process – Instead of merely describing artifacts, processual archaeologists seek to explain cultural change through underlying processes such as environmental adaptation, technological innovation, and social organization.
- Systems Theory – Cultures are viewed as adaptive systems with interrelated components, such as economy, environment, and social structure, influencing each other.
- Environmental Determinism – Human behavior and cultural evolution are often seen as responses to environmental constraints and opportunities.
- Quantification and Data Analysis – Emphasis on statistical and computational methods to analyze archaeological data objectively.
- Middle-Range Theory – Uses ethnographic and experimental studies to link artifacts with human behaviors (e.g., experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology).
- Objectivity and Explanation – Seeks to move beyond descriptive archaeology by explaining why changes occurred, rather than simply recording what happened.
- Comparative and Cross-Cultural Approaches – Focuses on finding universal principles of human behavior by comparing different societies across time and space.
Processual archaeology revolutionized the field by making it more scientific, but it has since been critiqued for being too rigid and deterministic, leading to the rise of post-processual archaeology.