Applying Evolutionary Archaeology

by O'Brien, Michael J.; Lyman, R. Lee

• ISBN13: 9780306462542
• ISBN10: 0306462540
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Plenum Pub Corp

Summary

This book is an in-depth treatment of Darwinian evolutionism and its applicability to the investigation of the archaeological record. The authors explain the unique position that this kind of evolutionism holds in science and how it bears on any attempt to explain change over time in the organic world, demonstrate commonalities between archaeology and paleobiology, and explain the principles, methods, and techniques - the systematics - inherent in the approach.

Table of Contents

Darwinian Theory and Archaeology	1	(24)
The Long Search for a Workable Evolutionism	4	(6)
Sorting through the Issues	10	(15)
Two Kinds of Science: Essentialism and Materialism	25	(48)
One View of Science	30	(1)
Two Contrasting Views of Reality	31	(5)
The Materialist Paradox and the Study of Species	36	(37)
The Materialist Paradox in Archaeology	73	(56)
On the Eve of Culture History	77	(11)
Culture History and Measuring Time with Artifacts	88	(25)
Culture History and the Classification of Artifact Aggregates	113	(14)
At the End of the 1950s	127	(2)
The Place of History in Modern Paleobiology and Archaeology	129	(58)
History: The Heart of the Matter	130	(9)
Paleobiology as the Science of Organic Evolution	139	(25)
Processual Archaeology	164	(15)
Darwinian Archaeology: A Retooled Culture History	179	(8)
Archaeological Units and Their Construction	187	(58)
Ideational and Empirical Units	190	(3)
Groups and Classes	193	(7)
Biological Species as Classes	200	(7)
Archaeological Types as Units	207	(23)
Fossil Species as Groups and Classes	230	(12)
Beyond Unit Construction	242	(3)
Building and Testing Historical Lineages	245	(56)
Biological Lineages as Heritable Continuity	248	(9)
Historical Continuity, Heritable Continuity, and the Study of Artifacts	257	(14)
Seriation	271	(30)
Tempo and Mode in Evolution	301	(44)
Graphing Fine-Scale Biological Change	303	(17)
Measuring the Tempo and Mode of Change in Prehistory	320	(22)
Classification and Clade Diversity	342	(3)
Explaining Lineage Histories	345	(40)
Putting the Pieces Together	350	(32)
Replicators and Interactors Revisited	382	(3)
Evolutionary Archaeology: An Epilogue	385	(12)
Heredity and Taxonomy	387	(5)
In Defense of Systematics	392	(2)
A Concluding Note	394	(3)
Glossary	397	(10)
References	407	(48)
Index	455