Archaeological Inference Papers

All in all, I was pleased with the quality of the papers the class submitted yesterday.  While your well-done papers shows that many of you already "get" this, I just want to reiterate how central inference is to the archaeological process. As noted in the Torso and Oblong blog

For archaeological theory, one of the most important processes is the transformation of a living society into the remains that archaeologists encounter. Archaeologists must theoretically account for this in any inference that reconstructs some ancient behavior based on the static material remains of the present. Like other social scientists, archaeologists are interested in describing, understanding and sometimes explaining what human beings do. Like other social scientists, they seek to document the dynamic interplay of groups and individuals within their societal context.

Unluckily for archaeologists, they cannot actually observe people do what they do; even if that is what they want to study. By the very nature of the discipline, archaeologists are often left without living informants to tell them anything about how their particular society worked. Luckily for archaeologists, people have almost always lived in a sea of material culture. Projectile points, pots, wheels, masks, houses, temples, malls and iPads are just some of the almost infinite variety of material culture that makes human life as we know it possible. So, it is material culture that provides us our window onto the past dynamics of an ancient society--much of it remains after its makers and users are dead.

The papers you just handed in were your first forays into that intellectual process. Overall, nice job.