Stratigraphy and Practical Reason

Abstract

The organization of human behavior often defies utilitarian or practical reason. Inferences based in practical reason simplify behavioral variability and as a result obscure evidence of ritual organization contained in sequences of archaeological deposits. To expose such sequences, 1 offer a behaviorally based artifact life history approach to the study of prehistoric ritual stratigraphy. I illustrate this approach through a case study of ethnographic and archaeological evidence of ritual and warfare in the American Southwest. [Key words: theory, ritual, war, stratigraphy, Casas Grandes]