Systems theory in archaeology is the application of

systems theory Systems theory is the Transdisciplinarity, transdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or artificial. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, de ...

and

systems thinking Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts.Anderson, Virginia, & Johnson, Lauren (1997). ''Systems Thinking Ba ...

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

. It originated with the work of

Ludwig von Bertalanffy Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, app ...

in the 1950s, and is introduced in archaeology in the 1960s with the work of Sally R. Binford and

Lewis Binford 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 influe ...

's "New Perspectives in Archaeology" and Kent V. Flannery's "Archaeological Systems Theory and Early Mesoamerica".

Overview

Bertalanffy attempted to construct a

general systems theory Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or artificial. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its struc ...

that would explain the interactions of different variables in a variety of

systems A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and is exp ...

, no matter what those variables actually represented. A system was defined as a group of interacting parts and the relative influence of these parts followed rules which, once formulated could be used to describe the system no matter what the actual components were. Binford stated the problem in ''New Perspectives in Archaeology'', identifying the low range theory, the middle range theory, and the upper range theory. * The low range theory could be used to explain a specific aspect of a specific

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

, such as the archaeology of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

. * A middle range theory could describe any cultural system outside of its specific cultural context, for example, the archaeology of agriculture. * An upper range theory can explain any cultural system, independent of any specifics and regardless of the nature of the variables. At the time Binford thought the middle range theory may be as far as archaeologists could ever go, but in the mid-1970s some believed that systems theory offered the definitive upper range theory. Archaeologist Kent Flannery described the application of systems theory to archaeology in his paper ''Archaeological Systems Theory and Early Mesoamerica''. Systems theory allowed archaeologists to treat the

archaeological record The archaeological record is the body of physical (not written) evidence about the past. It is one of the core concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record. Archaeological t ...

in a completely new way. No longer did it matter what was being looked at, because it was being broken down to its elemental system components. Culture may be subjective, but unless the model of systems theory is attacked in general and as long as it is treated mathematically the same way a retreating glacier is treated, the results were objective. In other words, the problem of cultural bias no longer had any meaning, unless it was a problem with systems theory itself. Culture was now just another natural system that could be explained in mathematical terms.

Criticism

Archaeologists found it was rarely possible to use systems theory in a rigorously mathematical way. While it provided a framework for describing interactions in terms of types of feedback within the system, it was rarely possible to put the

quantitative Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...

values that systems theory requires for full use, as Flannery himself admits. The result was that in the long run systems theory turned out to be more useful in describing change than in explaining it. Systems theory also eventually went on to show that predictions that a high amount of cultural regularities would be found were certainly overly optimistic during the early stages of

processual archaeology Processual archaeology (formerly, the New Archaeology) is a form of archaeological theory. It had its beginnings in 1958 with the work of Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips, ''Method and Theory in American Archaeology,'' in which the pair stated ...

, (Trigger, 1989:312). the opposite of what processual archaeologists were hoping it would be able to do with systems theory. However, systems theory is still used to describe how variables inside a cultural system can interact. Systems theory, at least, was important in the rise of processual archaeology and was a call against culture-historical methods of past generations. It held argument that one could contemplate the past impartially and sidestep pitfalls through rigour.

Overview

Criticism

See also

References

Further reading