Page "Archaeological theory" Paragraph 21

In the 1960s, a number of young, primarily American archaeologists, such as Lewis Binford, rebelled against the paradigms of cultural history.

They proposed a " New Archaeology ", which would be more " scientific " and " anthropological ".

They came to see culture as a set of behavioural processes and traditions.

( In time, this view gave rise to the term processual archaeology ).

Processualists borrowed from the exact sciences the idea of hypothesis testing and the scientific method.

They believed that an archaeologist should develop one or more hypotheses about a culture under study, and conduct excavations with the intention of testing these hypotheses against fresh evidence.

They had also become frustrated with the older generation's teachings through which cultures had taken precedence over the people being studied themselves.

It was becoming clear, largely through the evidence of anthropology, that ethnic groups and their development were not always entirely congruent with the cultures in the archaeological record.