Method and Theory in American Archaeology (Phoenix Books) - Softcover

Willey, Gordon R.; Phillips, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226898881 ISBN 13: 9780226898889

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1962

Synopsis

In 1958 Gordon R. Willey and Philip Phillips first published Method and Theory in American Archaeology - a volume that went through five printings, the last in 1967 at the height of what became known as the new, or processual, archaeology. The advent of processual archaeology, according to Willey and Phillips, represented a ""theoretical debate...a question of whether archaeology should be the study of cultural history or the study of cultural process."" Willey and Phillips suggested that little interpretation had taken place in American archaeology, and their book offered an analytical perspective; the methods they described and the structural framework they used for synthesizing American prehistory were all geared toward interpretation. Method and Theory served as the catalyst and primary reader on the topic for over a decade. This facsimile reprint edition of the original University of Chicago Press volume includes a new foreword by Gordon R. Willey, which outlines the state of American archaeology at the time of the original publication, and a new introduction by the editors to place the book in historical context. The bibliography is exhaustive. Academic libraries, students, professionals, and knowledgeable amateurs will welcome this new edition of a standard-maker among texts on American archaeology.

About this title

Review

This newly edited edition will give the large number of new millennium archaeologists a chance to read and own a pivotal work in American archaeological theory. - Stephen Williams Harvard University

About the Author

Gordon R. Willey is Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology Emeritus at Harvard University and author or editor of numerous books, including New World Archaeology and Culture History. Philip Phillips, who is deceased, authored or coauthored numerous books including the classic Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley 1940-1947. R. Lee Lyman is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia and edited, with Michael J. O'Brien, Measuring the Flow of Time: The Works of James A. Ford, 1935-1941. Michael J. O'Brien is Professor of Anthropology and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia. With Robert C. Dunnell, he edited Changing Perspectives on the Archaeology of the Central Mississippi Valley.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1962
• ISBN 10: 0226898881
• ISBN 13: 9780226898889
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 279