What Can Systems Theory Do for Archaeology?

Citation: Merrilee H. Salmon (1978) What Can Systems Theory Do for Archaeology?. American Antiquity 43(2) (RSS)
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Summary

Archaeologists want to graft science or scientific approach onto their studies. About this tendency, the author wants to analyze the relevance of systems theory for archaeology and show that archaeological theory cannot be derived from either systems theory in this article. In the categories of systems theory, there are two different theories, General Systems Theory (GS) and Mathematical Systems theory (MS).

Systems is the notion of organized wholes and knowledge of systems can be divided into two, of the structure (type of “synchronic” in anthropology), and of behavior (“diachronic”) in short. For example, in the principle of car, knowledge of the structure deals with the visible process of the principle such as from putting the key and turn it to movement of the car while knowledge of behavior focuses on the hidden mechanism from the stage of using key to the movement under the cover of the car. In this status, if there is only the knowledge of behavior with no of structure, then we can call it as a “black box”.

GS, in generalizing the notion of a system can depict certain tendencies but it is hard to explain the tendency due to its vagueness and broad meaning. And this absence of specific definition is a serious limitation to apply to archaeology because GS cannot explain causes of certain results.

MS is pure scientific theory and well developed to use. Actually it is used successfully in biology. But the author thinks that MS is also hard to be applied in archaeology which studies complex systems which have a ton of exceptions. For example, if MS can make certain tendency with pattern using formula, still, it doesn’t explain the cause of the tendency and Why-question. In this condition, Clarke who regards culture as systems suggests a notion of subsystem to help to understanding but this method also has some difficulties. Because Clarke’ assertion has not sufficient evidence, not every system can contain subsystem, and systemic relation cannot simply be derived.