Page "Processual archaeology" Paragraph 5

During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, archaeologist Kent Flannery began championing the idea that Systems theory could be used in archaeology to attack questions of culture from an unbiased perspective.

Systems theory has proved to be a mixed bag for archaeology as a whole.

It works well when trying to describe how elements of a culture interact, but appears to work poorly when describing why they interact the way that they do.

Nevertheless, Systems Theory has become a very important part of processualism, and is perhaps the only way archaeologists can examine other cultures without interference from their own cultural biases.