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Training Ethnoarchaeologists and Experimental Archaeologists

In an era of fake news and alternative facts, archaeologists need to think carefully about what it takes to make an effective argument and how best to train students to do so. While the unfettered enthusiasm for positivism and science evinced by some in the 1960s and 70s is rare in the wake of post-processual critiques, archaeological interpretations of the past are and must still be evidence-based. Interpretations of the past originate in the archaeological evidence, but the meaning of the material remains requires interpretation. Ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology provide the two most important pillars for interpreting archaeology’s material evidence and the best prepared archaeologists should be able to both consume and produce ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology. Understanding what percentages of macro-botanical remains actually mean depends upon a knowledge of differential preservation. Asserting that a tool was used for scraping hide demands an understanding of how hides are scraped and how patterns of use-wear result. Arguing from fingerprints that children made a figurine can only be done based on a knowledge of fingerprint metrics and the way they change over a life course. The basic research for all of these interpretations is experimental archaeology. Estimating population sizes from architectural remains requires an understanding of the relationship between architectural spaces and their occupants and how this may vary with context. Making a case for increasing stratification using grave goods demands arguments about the relationship between personal identity and funerary ceremony among other things. These kinds of complex cultural interpretations require an understanding of the way human behaviors and culture affect the material world and are ideally based on the research of ethnoarchaeologists. Doing first-rate research in either ethnoarchaeology or experimental archaeology requires a grounding in archaeology, but perspectives and skills from other disciplines as well. Since most ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology is done by archaeologists, graduate schools should be providing students not just with the theory and method of archaeology, but also with the tools needed to do first-rate ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology and to use the results in their research. In his commentary on Edwin Wilmson’s retrospective, David Killick (this issue) notes that the kind of 4-field training that Wilmsen received in the 1960s as a University of Arizona graduate student has largely disappeared. Today some graduate schools do not demand broad accountability in even one field, much less four. This change from broad to specialized training may well be logical in light of the increasing literature accumulating in every area of study and the pressure to have students finish their degrees in a reasonable amount of time, but it is a distinct loss for archaeology. This is particularly true when archaeologists are not assured a strong background in cultural anthropology. Surely, if archaeologists want to write about the cultures of the past, they should at minimum be well-grounded in the cultures of the present. The ramifications for ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology are just as serious, if not more so. Neither ethnoarchaeological nor many experimental studies that do not start with