Abstract
Cross-cultural approaches have been used widely in archaeological research. Comparative ethnology has provided a number of archaeological indicators of behavior, but large segments of the archaeological record have not yet been subjected to extensive comparative analysis. Comparative archaeology has aided in exploring variation among societal types (such as chiefdoms) and categories within the archaeological record (such as settlements). Diachronic comparisons have been used frequently by archaeologists, but these have often been based on unique samples and only rarely have employed statistics to aid in the discovery or testing of hypotheses. Archaeoethnology, comparative analyses of archaeological cases employing valid samples and statistical evaluation of theories and hypotheses, is introduced.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES CITED
Adams, R. M. (1966). The Evolution of Urban Society, Aldine, Chicago.
Allison, P. M. (ed.) (1999). The Archaeology of Household Activities, Routledge, London.
Ammerman, A. J., and Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (1984). Neolithic Transition and the Genetics of Populations in Europe, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Ascher, R. (1961). Analogy in archaeological interpretation. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 17: 317–325
Asher, H. (1983). Causal Modeling, 2nd edn., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Binford, L. R. (1990). Mobility, housing, and environment: A comparative study. Journal of Anthropological Research 46: 119–152.
Birnbaum, I. (1981). Introduction to Causal Analysis in Sociology, MacMillian, London.
Blanton, R. E. (1993). Houses and Households: A Comparative Study, Plenum, New York.
Blanton, R. E., Kowalewski, S. A., Feinman, G. M., and Finsten, L. (1993). Ancient Mesoamerica: A Comparison of Change in Three Regions, 2nd edn., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Blanton, R. E, and Taylor, J. (1995). Patterns of exchange and the social production of pigs in highland New Guinea: Their relevance to questions about the origins and evolution of agriculture. Journal of Archaeological Research 3: 113–145.
Brown, B. M. (1987). Population estimation from floor area: A restudy of "Naroll's constant. BehaviorScience Research 21: 1–49.
Carneiro, R. L. (1962). Scale analysis as an instrument for the study of cultural evolution. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 18: 149–169.
Carneiro, R. L. (1970). Scale analysis, evolutionary sequences, and the rating of cultures. In Naroll, R., and Cohen, R. (eds.), Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, Natural History Press, Garden City, NY, pp. 834–871.
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., and Feldman, M. (2003). The application of molecular genetic approaches to the study of human evolution. Nature Genetics Supplement 33: 266–275.
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Menozzi, P., and Piazza, A. (1994). The History and Geography of Human Genes, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Childe, V. G. (1951). Social Evolution, Watts, London.
Claessen, H. J. M., and Skalník, P. (1978). The Early State, Mouton, The Hague.
Clark, J. G. D. (1951). Folk-culture and the study of European prehistory. In Grimes, W. F. (ed.), Aspects of Archaeology in Great Britain and Beyond, Edwards, London, pp. 49–65.
Clark, J. G. D. (1953). Archaeological theories and interpretations: Old World. In Kroeber, A. L. (ed.), Anthropology Today, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 343–360.
Cohen, M. N. (1977). The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Davis, J. A. (1985). The Logic of Causal Order, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Diamond, J. (1999). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, W.W. Norton, New York.
Divale, W. T. (1974). Migration, external warfare, and matrilocal residence. Behavior Science Research 9: 75–133.
Divale, W. T. (1977). Living floors and marital residence: A replication. Behavior Science Research 12: 109–115.
Earle, T. K. (1997). How Chiefs Come to Power, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Ember, C. R. (1974). An evaluation of alternative theories of matrilocal versus patrilocal residence. Behavior Science Research 9: 135–149.
Ember, C. R. (1975). Residential variation among hunter-gatherers. Behavior Science Research 10: 199–227.
Ember, C. R. (2003) Cross-cultural research and its relevance for archaeological inference. Paper presented to the Working Group on Language and Prehistory, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM.
Ember, C. R., and Ember, M. (1972). Conditions favoring multilocal residence. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 28: 382–400
Ember, C. R., and Ember, M. (1992a). Resource unpredictability, mistrust, and war: A cross-cultural study. Journal of Conflict Resolution 36: 242–262.
Ember, C. R., and Ember, M. (1992b). Warfare, aggression, and resource problems: Cross-cultural codes. Behavior Science Research 26: 169–226.
Ember, C. R., and Ember, M. (2001). Cross-Cultural Research Methods, AltaMira, Walnut Creek, CA.
Ember, C. R., Ember, M., and Pasternak, B. (1974). On the development of unilineal descent. Journal of Anthropological Research 30: 69–94.
Ember, M. (1967). The emergence of neolocal residence. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 30: 291–302.
Ember, M. (1970). Taxonomy in comparative studies. In Naroll, R., and Cohen, R. (eds.), Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, Natural History Press, Garden City, NY, pp. 697–706.
Ember, M. (1973). An archaeological indicator of matrilocal versus patrilocal residence. American Antiquity 38: 177–182.
Ember, M. (1974). The conditions that may favor avunculocal residence. Behavior Science Research 8: 203–209.
Ember, M., and Ember, C. R. (1971). The conditions favoring matrilocal residence versus patrilocal residence. American Anthropologist 73: 571–594.
Ember, M., and Ember, C. R. (1995). Worldwide cross-cultural studies and their relevance for archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 3: 87–111.
Feinman, G. M., and Neitzel, J. (1984). Too many types: An overview of sedentary prestate societies in the Americas. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 7: 39–102.
Fischer, J. (1961). Art styles as cultural cognitive maps. American Anthropologist 63: 80–83.
Fried, M. (1967). The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology, Random House, New York.
Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Gould, R. A. (1980). Living Archaeology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Gould, R. A., and Watson, P. J. (1982). A dialogue on the meaning and use of analogy in ethnoarchaeological reasoning. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 355–81.
Hallpike, C. R. (1986). The Principles of Social Evolution, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Hammer, M. F., and Zegura, S. L. (2002). The human Y chromosome haplogroup tree: Nomenclature and phylogeography of its major divisions. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 303–321.
Harris, M. (1968). The Rise of Anthropological Theory, Harper and Row, New York.
Harris, M. (1977). Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Culture, Vintage, New York.
Harris, M. (1979). Cultural Materialism, Vintage, New York.
Hodder, I. (1986). Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Kamp, K. A. (1998). Social hierarchy and burial treatments: A comparative assessment. Cross-Cultural Research 32: 79–115.
Kent, S. (1990). A cross-cultural study of segmentation, architecture, and the use of space. In Kent, S. (ed.), Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 127–152.
Kidder, A.V., and Guernsey, S. J. (1919). Archaeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 65, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Knoke, D., and Burke, P. (1980). Log-Linear Models, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Kuper, A. (1988). The Invention of Primitive Society, London, Routledge.
Mcnett, C. W. (1967). The Inference of Socio-Cultural Traits in Archaeology: A Statistical Approach,PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New York.
Mcnett, C. W. (1970). A settlement pattern scale of cultural complexity. In Naroll, R., and Cohen, R. (eds.), Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, Natural History Press, Garden City, NY, pp. 872–886.
Mcnett, C. W. (1979). The cross-cultural method in archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 2: 39–76.
Mcneill, J. R., and Mcneill, W. H. (2003). The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History, W. W. Norton, New York.
Montelius, O. (1888). The Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times, Macmillan, New York.
Moore, C. B. (1916). Some aboriginal Sites of Green River, Kentucky. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 16(3): 430–511.
Morgan, L. H. (1877). Ancient Society, H. Holt, New York.
Murdock, G. P. (1957). Anthropology as a comparative science. Behavior Science 2: 249–254.
Murdock, G. P., and Provost, C. (1973). Measurement of cultural complexity. Ethnology 12: 379–392.
Naroll, R. (1962). Floor area and settlement population. American Antiquity 27: 587–589.
Nelson, S. A., and Rosen-Ayalon, M. (2002). In Pursuit of Gender: Worldwide Archaeological Approaches, AltaMira, Walnut Creek, CA.
Nisbet, R. A. (1969). Social Change and History, Oxford University Press, New York.
O'brien, M. J., and Lyman, R. L. (2002). Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils: The Backbone of Archaeological Dating, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
Odell, G. H. (1988). Addressing prehistoric hunting practices through stone tool analysis. American Anthropologist 90: 335–356.
Odell, G. H. (1998). Investigating correlates of sedentism and domestication in prehistoric North America. American Antiquity 63: 553–571.
Parsons, T. (1966). Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives, Prentice-Hall, Engelwood-Cliffs, NJ.
Pauketat, T. (2001). Practice and history in archaeology. Anthropological Theory 1: 73–98.
Peregrine, P. N. (1993). An archaeological correlate of war. North American Archaeologist 14: 139–151.
Peregrine, P. N. (1996a). Ethnology versus ethnographic analogy: A common confusion in archaeological interpretation. Cross-Cultural Research 30: 316–329.
Peregrine, P. N. (1996b). The birth of the gods revisited: A partial replication of Guy Swanson's 1960 cross-cultural study of religion. Cross-Cultural Research 30: 84–112.
Peregrine, P. N. (2001a). Outline of Archaeological Traditions, Human Relations Area Files, New Haven, CT.
Peregrine, P. N. (2001b). Cross-Cultural Comparative Approaches in Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 1–18.
Peregrine, P. N. (2002). World Prehistory: Two Million Years of Human Life, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Peregrine, P. N. (2003). Atlas of cultural evolution. World Cultures 14(1): 2–88.
Peregrine, P. N., Ember, C. R., and Ember, M. (2003). Universal patterns in cultural evolution: An empirical analysis using Guttman scaling. American Anthropologist 106(1): 145–149.
Peregrine, P. N, and Ember, M, (eds). (2001-2002). Encyclopedia of Prehistory, 9 vol., Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers, New York.
Robbins, M. C. (1966). House types and settlement patterns. Minnesota Archaeologist 28: 2–26.
Sanderson, S. (1990). Social Evolutionism, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Service, E. (1965). Primitive Social Organization, Random House, New York.
Service, E. (1975). Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution, W. W. Norton, New York.
Shanks, M., and Tilley, C. (1992). Re-Constructing Archaeology, Routledge, London.
Spencer, H. (1898-1899). Principles of Sociology, 3 vol., D. Appleton, New York.
Steward, J. H. (1942). The direct historic approach to archaeology. American Antiquity 7: 337–343.
Steward, J. H. (1949). Culture causality and law: A trial formulation of early civilizations. American Anthropologist 51: 1–27.
Steward, J. H. (1955). Irrigation Civilizations: A Comparative Study, Pan American Union, Washington, DC.
Steward, J. H. (1977). Wittfogel's irrigation hypothesis. In Steward, J. C., and Murphy, R. F. (eds.), Evolution and Ecology, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, pp. 87–99.
Stokes, G. (2001). The fates of human societies: A review of recent macrohistories. American Historical Review 106: 508–525.
Swanson, G. (1960). The Birth of the Gods, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Thomas, C. (1898). Report on mound explorations of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 12: 3–742.
Trigger, B. G. (1989). A History of Archaeological Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Trigger, B. G. (1998). Sociocultural Evolution, Blackwell, Oxford.
Trigger, B. G. (2003). Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Tylor, E. B. (1871). Primitive Culture, 2 vols., J. Murray, London.
Wason, P. K. (1994). The Archaeology of Rank, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Webb, W. S., and Dejarnette, D. L. (1942). An Archaeological Survey of the Pickwick Basin in the Adjacent Portions of the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 129, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Webb, W. S., and Haag, W. G. (1939). The Chiggerville Site. Site1, Ohio County, Kentucky, Report in Anthropology and Archaeology 4(1), University of Kentucky, Lexington.
White, L. A. (1959). The Evolution of Culture, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Whiting, J. W. M., and Ayres, B. (1968). Inferences from the shape of dwellings. In Chang, K. C. (ed.), Settlement Archaeology, National Press Books, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 117–133.
Wittfogel, K. (1957). Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power,Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Wright, H. T., and Johnson, G. A. (1975). Population, exchange, and early state formation in southwestern Iran. American Anthropologist 77: 267–289.
Wylie, A. (1982). An analogy by any other name is just as analogical: A commentary on the Gould-Watson dialogue. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:382–401.
Wylie, A. (1985). The reaction against analogy. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8: 63–111.
Yoffee, N. (1993). Too many chiefs? (or, Safe texts for the '90s). In Yoffee, N., and Sherratt, A. (eds.), Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 60–78.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RECENT LITERATURE
Adler, M. A., and Wilshusen, R. H. (1990). Large-scale integrative facilities in tribal societies: Cross-cultural and southwestern US examples. World Archaeology 22: 133–146.
Algaze, G. (1993). Expansionary dynamics of some early pristine states. American Anthropologist 95: 304–333.
Binford, L. R. (2001). Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter-Gatherer and Environmental Data Sets, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Bentley, R. A., and Maschner, H. D. G. (2003). Complex Systems and Archaeology, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Beyries, S., and Pétrequin, P. (eds.) (2001). Ethno-archaeology and Its Transfers, Archaeopress, Oxford.
Bradley, C., Moore, C. C., Burton, M. L., and White, D. R. (1990). A cross-cultural historical analysis of subsistence change. American Anthropologist 92: 447–457.
Buchli,V., Lucas, G., and Cox, M. (2001). Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, Routledge, London.
Burton, M. L., Moore, C. C., Whiting, J. W. M., and Romney, A. K. (1996). Regions based on social structure. Current Anthropology 37: 87–123.
Chattopadhyaya, U. C. (1996). Settlement pattern and the spatial organization of subsistence and mortuary practices in the Mesolithic Ganges Valley, north-central India. World Archaeology 27: 461–476.
Chick, G. (1997). Cultural complexity: The concept and its measurement. Cross-Cultural Research 31: 275–307.
Connah, G. (2001). African Civilizations, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Delaney-Rivera, C. M. (2000). Mississippian and Late Woodland Cultural Interaction and Regional Dynamics: A View from the Lower Illinois River Valley, PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Drooker, P. B. (ed.) (2001). Fleeting Identities: Perishable Material Culture in Archaeological Research, Occasional Paper No. 28, Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Drooker, P. B., and Webster, L. D. (eds.) (2000). Beyond Cloth and Cordage: Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Earle, T. (2001). Archaeology, property, and prehistory. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 39–60.
Ember, C. R., and Ember, M. (1998). Cross-cultural research. In Bernard, H. R. (ed.), Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology, Alta Mira, Walnut Creek, CA, pp. 647–687.
Ember, C. R., Ember, M., and Russett, B. (1992). Peace between participatory polities: A cross-cultural test of the "democracies rarely fight each other" hypothesis. World Politics 44: 573–599.
Ember, C. R., and Levinson, D. (1991). The substantive contributions of worldwide cross-cultural studies using secondary data. Behavior Science Research 25: 79–140.
Feinman, G. M., Lightfoot, K. G., and Upham, S. (2000). Political hierarchy and organizational strategies in the Puebloan Southwest. American Antiquity 65: 449–470.
Feinman, G. M., and Manzanilla, L. (eds.) (2000). Cultural Evolution: Contemporary Viewpoints, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
Fuller, J. E., and Granjean, B. D. (2001). Economy and religion in Neolithic revolution: Material surplus and the proto-religious ethic. Cross-Cultural Research 35: 370–399.
Gillings, M., Mattingly, D. J., and van Dalen, J. (eds.) (2000). Geographical Information Systems and Landscape Archaeology, Oxbow, Oxford.
Graber, R. B. (1995). A Scientific Model of Social and Cultural Evolution, Thomas Jefferson University Press, Kirksville, MO.
Hart, J. P. (1990). Modeling Oneota agricultural production: A cross-cultural evaluation. Current Anthropology 31: 569–577.
Hunt, T. L., Lipo, C. P., and Sterling, S. L. (eds.) (2001). Posing Questions for a Scientific Archaeology, Bergin and Garvey, Westport, CT.
James, S. R. (1994). Regional Variation in Prehistoric Pueblo Households and Social Organization: A Quantitative Approach, PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe.
Johnson, A. L. (2002). Cross-cultural analysis of pastoral adaptations and organizational states: A preliminary study. Cross-Cultural Research 36: 151–179.
Johnson, A., and Earle, T. (1987). The Evolution of Human Societies, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Jones, A. (2002). Archaeological Theory and Scientific Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Jones, A., and MacGregor, G. (eds.) (2002). Colouring the Past: The Significance of Colour in Archaeological Research,Berg, Oxford.
Jordan, P., and Shennan, S. (2003). Cultural transmission, language, and basketry traditions amongst the California Indians. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22: 42–74.
Kent, S. (1999). The archaeological visibility of storage: Delineating storage from trash areas. American Antiquity 64: 79–94.
Kirch, P. V. (1984). The Evolution of Polynesian Chiefdoms, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Kolb, M. J., and Snead, J. E. (1997). It's a small world after all: Comparative analyses of community organization in archaeology. American Antiquity 62: 609–628.
Kooyman, B. P. (2000). Understanding Stone Tools and Archaeological Sites, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Lekson, S. H. (2002). War in the Southwest, war in the world. American Antiquity 67: 607–624.
Levinson, D., and Malone, M. J. (1980). Toward Explaining Human Culture: A Critical Review of the Findings of Worldwide Cross-Cultural Research, Human Relations Area Files, New Haven, CT.
Mace, R., and Pagel, M. (1994). The comparative method in anthropology. Current Anthropology 35: 549–564.
Meadows, R. K. (2001). Crafting K'awil: A Comparative Analysis of Maya Symbolic Flaked Stone Assemblages from Three Sites in Northern Belize, PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin.
Moore, C. C., and Romney, A. K. (1994). Material culture, geographic propinquity, and linguist affiliation on the north coast of New Guinea: A reanalysis. American Anthropologist 96: 370–392.
Mulder, M. B. (2001). Using phylogenetically based comparative methods in anthropology: More questions than answers. Evolutionary Anthropology 10: 99–111.
Murdock, G. P., Ford, C. S., Hudson, A. E., Kennedu, R., Simmons, L. W., and Whiting, J. W. M. (2000). Outline of Cultural Materials, 5th edn. with modifications, Human Relations Area Files, New Haven, CT.
O'Rourke, L. C. (2002). Las Galeras and San Lorenzo: A Comparative Study of Two Early Formative Communities in Southern Veracruz, Mexico, PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge.
Pearson, J. L. (2001). Shamanism and the Ancient Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Archaeology,AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.
Rice, P. C., and Paterson, A. L. (1996). Bone art in the Upper Neolithic: Regional, temporal, and art class comparison. Cross-Cultural Research 30: 211–242.
Robb J. E. (1998). The archaeology of symbols. Annual Review of Anthropology 27: 329–346.
Roberts, J. M., Moore, C. C., and Romney, A. K. (1995). Predicting similarity in material culture among New Guinea villages from propinquity and language: A log-linear approach. Current Anthropology 36: 769–788.
Shelach, G. (2002). Apples and oranges? A cross-cultural comparison of burial data from northeast China. Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3: 53–91.
Tainter, J. A. (1988). The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Tehrani, J., and Collard, M. (2002). Investigating cultural evolution through biological phylogenetic analyses of Turkmen textiles. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21: 443–463.
Trigger, B. G. (2003). Artifacts and Ideas: Essays in Archaeology, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick.
VanPool, T. L., and VanPool, C. S. (eds.) (2003). Essential Tensions in Archaeological Method and Theory, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Wheatley, D., and Gillings, M. (2002). Spatial Technology and Archaeology: The Archaeological Applications of GIS, Taylor and Francis, New York.
Wilson, B., Henrickson, R. C., and Blackman, M. J. (1999). Displayed or concealed? Cross cultural evidence for symbolic and ritual activity depositing Iron Age animal bones. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 18: 297–306.
Winkelman, M. J. (1990). Shamans and other "magico-religious" healers: A cross-cultural study of their origins, nature, and social transformations. Ethos 18: 308–352.
Winkelman, M. J. (1998). Aztec human sacrifice: Cross-cultural assessment of the ecological hypothesis. Ethnology 37: 285–298.
Yoffee, N., and Cowgill, G. L. (eds.) (1988). The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Peregrine, P.N. Cross-Cultural Approaches in Archaeology: Comparative Ethnology, Comparative Archaeology, and Archaeoethnology. Journal of Archaeological Research 12, 281–309 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JARE.0000040232.61243.89
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JARE.0000040232.61243.89