Ethnoarchaeology

How it is used

Analogy needs justification; living people are not unchanged representatives of a prehistoric stage.

Example sentences

1. Ethnoarchaeology documented how potters discarded failed vessels.

   Observed disposal helps formulate questions about archaeological deposits.

2. The team used ethnoarchaeology cautiously when comparing two different environments.

   Environmental differences can limit the strength of an analogy.

Common collocations

• ethnoarchaeological research
• ethnoarchaeological analogy

Related terms

• archaeologyThe study of the human past through the material remains people left behind, such as buildings, tools, pottery, bones and traces in the soil.
• interpretationA particular explanation of what past events meant or why they happened, based on the evidence and on the historian's questions and point of view.

More terms: Archaeology Basics

• artifact
• excavation
• archaeological site
• radiocarbon dating
• stratigraphy
• ruins
• dendrochronology
• seriation
• sherd
• debitage
• microlith
• biface