Socio-archaeology [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract

This article represents another attempt to combine archaeology and social anthropology in order to investigate the possibility of reconstructing some major features of prehistoric social systems. As man has always had to come to terms with the ecosystem of which he is an integral part, ecology comes to be extremely important, the more so since it is a truly holistic science dealing with the entire homeostatic balance in nature. The main difference between archaeology and social anthropology is that archaeologists have dealt with artifacts arranged in types or classes, while social anthropologists work with functional coherent systems. As a holistic view on socio-culture grows increasingly important, archaeology will have to draw heavily upon disciplines maintaining a holistic theoretical view. Both archaeology and social anthropology will have to abandon their positivistic philosophical premisses, whose "holism" is just a mechanistic watchwork model. Through Pleistocene geology, palaeoclimatological and osteological research, etc., it should generally be possible to ascertain the ecological niches exploited, and excavations of total sites will yield the local groups. Functional (but not functionalist) studies will in many cases produce the general features of the kinship system and the sociopolitical structure. Ethnogenetic studies would also in many cases provide fruitful results.