Debating Archaeology

by Lewis Roberts Binford

In this book, Biford collects and comments on the twenty-eight substantive papers he has published in the 1980's, just as he collected and commented on his papers of the 1970's in Working at Archaeology (Academic Press, 1983) and his papers of the 1960's in An Archaeological Perspective (Academic Press, 1972). This ongoing collection of self-edited papers, together with the extensive and very candid interstitial commentaries, provides an invaluable record of the development of "The New Archaeology" and a challenging view into the mind of the man who is certainly the most creative archaeological theorist of our time.

Key Features
* As the leading theoretician and principal spokesman of the "New Archaeology" for the past thirty years, all archaeologists find Binford's Debating Archaeology an important addition to the literature
* This book
* Extensive discussions of empiricism and the assumptions of "post Processual" archaeology
* Discussions of science as a learning process in conflict with empiricism
* Examination of the current scholarly conflict over the nature of early hominids
* Examination of the current scholarly conflicts in archaeological theory
* A reexamination of several old, established sites, which does not support their traditional interpretations

534 pages, Hardcover

First published March 28, 1989

About the author

Lewis Roberts Binford (November 21, 1931 – April 11, 2011) was an American archaeologist known for his influential work in archaeological theory, ethnoarchaeology and the Paleolithic period. He is widely considered among the most influential archaeologists of the later 20th century, and is credited with fundamentally changing the field with the introduction of processual archaeology (or the "New Archaeology") in the 1960s. Binford's influence was controversial, however, and most theoretical work in archaeology in the late 1980s and 1990s was explicitly construed as either a reaction to or in support of the processual paradigm. Recent appraisals have judged that his approach owed more to prior work in the 1940s and 50s than suggested by Binford's strong criticism of his predecessors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Bi...