Systems theory in archaeology is the application of

systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...

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. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...

. 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 & Lewis Binford'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 interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...

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 expresse ...

, 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 Upper may refer to: * Shoe upper or ''vamp'', the part of a shoe on the top of the foot * Stimulant, drugs which induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical function or both * ''Upper'', the original film title for the 2013 found f ...

. * The low range theory could be used to explain a specific aspect of a specific

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

, such as the archaeology of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

. * 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 was less useful in explaining change as it was in describing 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, (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