by Hugh M. Lewis

A basic critique of archaeological theory is that there is frequently little consensus in the use and meaning of terms in the literature. At the same time, concepts, lacking a tight denotative base, often are used in many different ways that presume many different kinds of meanings for such ideas. This is especially the case in archaeology because so much of archaeological theory and method rests upon systems of classification and typology. Periodically a call is made for more disciplined terminologies, but such calls do not go very far, not because they are not heeded, but because, even if concerted efforts were made to reinforce some kind standard of linguistic conformity in archaeological knowledge, this would probably result in a more overly restrictive use of the language than is desirable.

While the call for terminological agreement and careful denotative use of terms in archaeological description and analysis is a worthwhile goal, I am not sure that it is a very linguistically realistic course of action to pursue. Linguistic evidence suggests that terminological agreement will be achieved when there occurs semantic and conceptual agreement, and perhaps is not really what one might be after, in the case of building archaeological consensus and consistency. Rather, the course is in explicating in a concise, succinct and realistic manner the conceptual implications and foundations of archaeological thought and praxis, and to seek a sense of agreement on an abstract level concern archaeological systems theory and method.

The goal of this second part is to explore the conceptual foundations and underpinnings of archaeological systems theory that is, first and foremost, a special kind of knowledge system with its own logic, its own arguments, its own standards and practices. Far too little attention has been paid to conceptual problem solving and to the systematic use and construction of conceptual systems of knowledge, even though conceptual systems are in all the sciences key to theoretical generalization and unification of knowledge within a general explanatory framework. The problems of conceptualization are particularly apparent in anthropology in general, in part because its methods are considered for the most part "qualitative" (meaning evaluative and descriptive) and its vigorousness is therefore limited by the vast scope and derivative complexity of the problems it must solve. This is particular acute in archaeology, which, though it is an artifact-driven empirical science, still depends primarily upon its conceptual systematicity to achieve any sense of synthetic integration at all.

Thus, the epistemological basis for archaeological theory and method is systematically explored beyond the challenges of its stylistics in language for its structural value in helping us to get at the sense of order and system that may underlie and account for different kinds of archaeological systems. In this second part, I claim that there exist a key set of concepts underlying archaeological knowledge and systems that requires clear and succinct elucidation. I would not even claim that they are concepts that are terminologically clear cut in any monothetic, the term-is-the-thing , kind of way. They are rather a central set of conceptual complexes that constitute the epistemological foundations of a working, functional archaeology, and which serve to integrate on an implicit level, archaeological knowledge with other knowledge systems.

I present conceptual complexes that I take to be key to unraveling the philosophical underpinnings of archaeological thought. For archaeologists, whatever their self-professed guise and manner, to believe that they work completely outside of any kind of philosophical framework, whether they realize it or not, is simply absurd. Archaeological knowledge interacts with and forms a part of a larger and broader system of knowledge and understanding about the world, and thus shares basic presuppositions and structural underpinnings with this larger knowledge base. The conceptual complexes that I deal with in this second part are not necessarily the only or most important ones that archaeology must contend with. Different archaeologists will prioritize their conceptual values and orientations differently depending upon the priorities they pursue in their work and their larger personal lives, or fail to. The key to achieving greater linguistic and semantic agreement between archaeologists is not ramming an archaeological dictionary down everyone's throat--though this would be a worthwhile desk-reference--but in achieving some degree of shared understanding, even a level of expertise, regarding the essential conceptual foundations underlying archaeological theory and method.

As long as some of these conceptual foundations are left vague and indefinite, they will continue to be used in an uncritical manner that tends to undercut the productivity and functionality of its conceptual systems at all levels. All knowledge systems of a kind are ordered implicitly in some manner that is unique to that system. This ordering goes beyond the mere application of a certain set of techniques, nor even a standardized vocabulary of terms and their definitions. It embraces the sense of conceptual order and understanding upon which theoretical generalization rests, and it demands and therefore results in the generation of empirical research to see whether or not these generalizations may be demonstrated in real life.

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The fundamental challenge of all archaeological theory and method is fundamentally empirical and epistemological. It has to do with the identification and definition of what I will call in general an "archaea-fact" which can be considered to be any "fact" or bit of material or objective evidence that is archaeologically relevant in one frame of reference or another. Archaeafacts therefore comprehends and encompasses a smaller class of objects and things found in the ground called "artifacts" that have been the conventional currency of archaeologists. Archaeafacts encompasses both the set of artifacts (those objects made by human beings) with a more diverse set of "naturfacts" (those things or objects that are physically present at a site but are not the product of human production), which may or may not have been manipulated somehow by human beings.

The basis of all archaeofacts is that these are forms of consistent information that may be observationally recognized and denotatively defined in terms of one language or another. In order to recognize an archaeofact, it must be isolated as a distinctive figure in a background field or ground of possible relations. The fact of its perceptual isolation as a piece or "bit" that has informational significance or value, and that can be independently and intersubjectively recorded as such, is what makes an archaeofact an observational object with independent significance. All archaeofacts must be therefore either direct observational facts, or indirect inferential facts. We may also distinguish archaeofacts in terms of whether these archaeofacts are numerically defined through some standards scale of measurement or count, or whether they are only descriptive defined in terms of the distinctive attributes that we may apply to such archaeofacts--such as gross descriptions of size, shape, form, color, texture, etc. Descriptive facts should be at least hopefully basic and unelaborated, and though they are fundamentally qualitative, they are no less useful or expendable from our analysis than would be the numerical facts, which may in fact prove to be somewhat irrelevant or at worse even misleading as to the significance of the archaeofacts being so defined and measured. The size of an object may be irrelevant to its abundance or fact of occurrence, compared with some qualitatively determined characteristics attributed to the object.

I believe it is important to explicate a third type of descriptive "fact" relevant especially to archaeological knowledge, and this can be referred to as an "aspectual fact"--those dimensions or aspects of a fact that can be made explicit through the typological classification or definition of the fact in a certain category, whether this category is preconceived or a priori to the data base, or implicit to the natural organization of the data base itself. The general attribution of a stone artifact as a kind of "tool" is an aspectual fact about that stone artifact that fits it somewhere into a broad system of categorization important in archaeological knowledge having to do with stone technology and the systematic range and variation of stone artifact types over time and place. To refer to the stone artifact as a "scraper" or a "micro-lith" or a "burin" is to further delineate aspectual "facts" that relate that particular object to a larger framework of knowledge.

We may also distinguish at sites what can be called "relational facts" which is another subset of archaeofacts that cross-cut and encompass both artifacts and naturfacts. Relational facts have to do with the contextual provenience of objects and things, and their relationships with other objects or things, or, of the relationships between archaeologically defined "units of analysis" upon different levels. Thus layers, sites, or assemblages may be broadly categories and compared, or we may at the same time classify and systematically compare the attributes and distinctive features characteristic of artifacts and naturfacts. Distinctive features of artifacts or other units of archaeological analysis I would define as analytic-facts. Furthermore, I would also distinguish what I define as "holo-facts" and "synthetic facts" as being those facts of total context or whole systems that encompass the entire set and framework of relationships between other kinds of archaeo-facts. We can approach what can be called a factual description and objective representation of an entire site or complex in considerable detail. On yet another level, I would also identify what I would refer to as three broad classes of derivative facts: 1. "inferential facts" being those that are able to be logically inferred from other kinds of archaeofacts; 2. "referential facts," consisting of those generalizations or attributions capable of being made by the indexical contextualization of archaeofacts into larger and explicitly defined frames of reference that are based upon other forms of scientific knowledge; 3. "hypothetico-facts" which consist of a range of hypothetical, alternative or possible "facts" that may be derived from or attributed to any set of archaeofacts. In this last class of "possible facts" we must recognize or be capable of drawing a relatively clear boundary between what is possible and impossible, and, of what remains possible, what is likely or most probably from what is less likely or highly improbable. This relates hypothetico-facts to the last class of facts that is of special relevance to archaeological systems theory and method, and this is what can be called "statistico-facts" or those numerical facts that can be derived via the application of measurement theory and descriptive statistics to archaeofacts. Thus, even though there may exist no average artifacts in any actual site, the average of artifacts remains nonetheless a realistic descriptive fact about the site.

We understand an archaeo-fact as a basic archaeological unit of analysis. All such units of analysis must be seen as being contextually defined within a general frame of reference that is pertinent to that kind of unit or that level or area of analysis. Different frames of reference will produce different units of analysis at different scales of size or value. At the same time, different frames of reference will lead to emphasis upon different dimensions of analysis, and dimensions of analysis, and how we at least implicitly use if not explicit define these, affect and interact with our definitions and recognition of units of analysis.

Archaeological data-bases are defined by the kinds of facts that are recognized and applied to the collection, identification and organization of evidence at a site. They are also defined by the categories and classification systems that are developed and applied in reference to a site. A fundamental aspect of archaeological relativity is not only the variability and hence inconsistency with which different people may approach the same site in different ways to yield different results, but application of different kinds of frames of reference in the recognition and definition of the facts that are "discovered" at a site. A great deal of useful information may be permanently lost from a site context by the haphazard methods or the failure for the resident archaeologists to clearly define all relevant forms of facts or data-types that might be forthcoming from any particular excavation. To call all archaeological excavation fundamentally destructive is to both underscore and downplay the fact that once a site has been completely excavated, the original depositional framework of that site is permanently lost, along with all potential information that might be relevant to that site.

It is especially clear in archaeological theory that one's persons fact may be another's fiction. It is less clear but perhaps more telling in importance that one person's fact, depending on her or his frame of reference, may also be another person's "noise" or clutter in the background of the site itself, to be completely ignored and discounted from the final accounting or reconstruction of the site.

Relatively little ink has been spilled dealing centrally with the question of archaeological relativity. Relativity in anthropology is usually associated with cultural and linguistic relativity, and less frequently, with social relativity and sometimes even psychological relativity. It is worthwhile therefore to reconsider what can be called the epistemological problem of relativity from an exclusively archaeological perspective.

The problem of relativity in general revolves around the inherent limitations of human knowledge and their knowledge systems to ascertain the reality of structures of understanding, referred to in this case as "inference structures" with any degree of absolute or non-relative certainty. The basic dilemma of epistemological relativity I have referred to in a general sense as anthropological relativity, or the relativity characteristic of and intrinsic to human knowledge systems in particular, though this sense of relativity should not be confused with other forms of relativity found within anthropology, particularly the doctrines of cultural relativity, linguistic relativity, social relativity, rational relativity, cognitive relativity, historical particularism and what I would call the hermeneutic or ethnographic relativity of anthropological texts. Anthropological relativity in the general sense of human and natural systems theory stems from the observation that all sciences and all natural systems theory are fundamentally and irrevocably human based knowledge systems. As much as we may like to, we cannot ultimately remove ourselves from the equations of reality produced by our understanding, perception and knowledge. In this regard, a general framework of anthropological relativity is not very different from, and related to, the conception of physical forms of relativity in the natural sciences, in particular quantum relativity of the very small and indiscreet, and the observational and inferential relativity of the very large.

In another work I have identified many different and distinct forms of relativity and relativism as this occurs. In general, relativity is an intrinsic limit and constraint of all human knowledge systems to know something in an absolutely true or real sense. The closest we come to absolute, non-relative knowledge systems takes the form of pure mathematical logic and language systems, but the certainty and non-relativity of mathematical knowledge breaks down in its application to real systems that do not strictly follow perfect models and instead obey the laws of thermodynamics, or the maximization of entropy in a system.

Archaeological relativity is therefore but a variant of a more general problem of relativity, and it comes to focus specifically upon the inherent problem of inferring conclusions from archaeological samples, especially when these samples, their analysis and interpretation, are considered to be fundamentally limited and problematic in the first place. Archaeological relativity stands in the way of culture historical reconstructions, or of any synthetic approaches to its data-bases. This problem becomes especially acute when it is recognized that often even our typological frameworks and classification systems we apply to our archaeological samples are fundamentally groundless or relative to the conceptual categories of the classifier.

All archaeological knowledge faces the dilemma of the inherent uncertainty of inductive inference, because all archaeological knowledge, being scientific, is based upon empirical information from which inferences are drawn. Because all archaeological information is finite and incomplete, by definition a subset of a larger universe of possible but unknown archaeological information, then there is no way of knowing for certain if one's conclusions and models will hold true in all cases, or if there may not occur exceptions or an anomaly that destroys one's inferences structure and demands the reconstruction of an new inferential framework. We may conclude, after days of observation, that all swans in Australia are white, but we may not have sampled the total universe, and we may discover that in fact an occasional black swan is born to white feathered parents, thus destroying the validity of our original inference. If we initially concluded that "most swans in Australia are probably white" then this is a proper kind of statistical inference to make (actually, a more accurate statistico-fact) but such a statement would be inherently relativistic in that it intrinsically implies as sense of built-in or residual uncertainty, thus it remains a weaker kind of statement than the strong absolute kind of conclusion that we want to have in our scientific knowledge. There is really no way of overcoming this kind of dilemma, either in archaeological knowledge or in any other kind of scientific knowledge system.

In fact, science demands in its statements this kind of relativistic qualification, and this kind of relativistic statement about truth value in reality is preferred over a more absolute and hence probably erroneous kind of statement. The best we can do scientifically when dealing with a larger unknown universe of possible sample points is to arrive at a statistical approximation, a statement of probabilities, about reality. That we cannot generate absolute knowledge or absolutely certain knowledge is an intrinsic feature of natural scientific knowledge systems that are tied to empirical observation. This does not mean that just because we can never have absolute certainty in our knowledge we must discard all relativistic forms of knowledge as being equally inadequate or insufficient to our model building. To discard a weak form of relativism that is pertinent to all kinds of scientific knowledge in favor of a strong and absolutist doctrine of relativism is to abnegate the possibility of achieving progress in scientific knowledge in the first place. A realistic and weaker form of relativism permits the possibility of achieving more certain knowledge, such that we can eventually make the kind of statement "All swans in Australia will be white, with a .001 % probability that the next swan encountered will not be white." We may be stumped on the 100,000^th Swan, but there is a redeeming heuristic aspect about most natural systems that goes something this, "most naturally occurring systems tend toward general states that can be probabilistically defined, simply because all natural systems are ultimately constrained by the laws of entropy and are stochastically based systems."

The relativity of archaeological knowledge has come to a central focus in the problem of defining and using in an archaeologically appropriate manner the question and dimension of time, that is so important to the construction of archaeological records and sequences. When there were no "absolute" dating techniques, the inferences of relative age and sequential order of deposits could only be arrived at through stratigraphic analysis or seriational analysis, or some combination of both methods, as well as the reliance and building up of a fund of index fossils or types that could serve as markers for various widespread traditions and horizons of culture historical development. Without absolute dates, the intervals assigned to sequences were in fact qualitative rather than quantitative definitions of time. We referred to periods, or phases, or "traditions" as being something that existed in some fundamental sense "without real time" and we tended to see the continuous passage of time therefore as primarily, or even exclusively, as the stratigraphic succession of such epochs, cultures, phases, traditions, horizons, etc. Such schema of conceptual time were rendered especially relative when the problem of account for transitions between periods and inbetween or intermediate types arose. In general, such transitions were depicted as the sudden disappearance and replacement of one group or culture or tradition by another, even though no other historical or empirical evidence existed to confirm or disconfirm such a conclusion.

With the advent and refinement of Carbon-14 and other radio-isotope dating methods, as well as the building of a dendrochronological, and more recently, a ice-core index, the problem of the relativity of time in the archaeological record has been given an anchor point so to speak, even though most things uncovered in archaeology remain undated or undatable, and even though these dating methods themselves do not adequately cover all periods of human prehistory nor do they do so with the degree of certainty or specificity that we may sometimes desire.

But the relativity of archaeological knowledge becomes expressed in other ways than in the challenges of dating and building chronological sequences of sites and assemblages. Even when dates can be applied to sites, the problems of the culture historical significance of these sites still remains as a fundamentally uncertain challenge for archaeologists. Most often, the evidence available within a site context will be insufficient to allow for a detailed or very general interpretation to be made about the larger significance of the evidence. This even affects how artifacts may be seen, construed, analyzed and classified, depending upon the working models and categories that the archaeologists carries in her or his head. It is often expected of archaeologists that they can wax lyrical and in substantial detail in explanation of the general significances of the evidences of their sites, but this interpretive parallax characteristic of archaeology's evidence, data-bases, analytical tools and its heuristic models, remains in a fundamental way to undermine the sense of certainty and credibility of archaeology as a science.

Another form of relativism that has become in the last couple of decades a focus for a new direction in archaeology has been the explicit recognition of the role that the archaeologists own cultural life-world, values and constructs may play in every aspect of archaeological research, from framing a research design and defining a problem, to the actual gathering and analysis of evidence, to the final write up and interpretation of the data in larger frames of reference. A great deal of critique of conventional archaeological models and theory building has therefore come from directions of feminism, ethnicity, Marxism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, all seeking to challenge the implicit presuppositions and uncritical, culturally biased models that archaeologists may bring with them to the field, and carry back out with them from the field.

To adopt an extreme relativist perspective in regard to archaeological knowledge, is to accept, in one version or another, what can be called as a strong form of an implicit doctrine of archaeological relativism, which claim would go something like that of Edmund Leach that, because all archaeological facts are "factitious" constructs of the archaeologists, there can be no certain, non-arbitrary archaeological knowledge, and therefore all archaeological interpretation is nothing more or other than mere interpretation without any objective foundation. As with most strong versions of a relativist doctrine, these extreme kinds of arguments are based themselves upon an internal contradiction of relativism, that something or some field of knowledge may be "absolutely relative." If all forms of knowledge are relative, and everything relative is by definition non-absolute, then there can be no forms of knowledge that are absolutely relative, though there remains the residual possibility for some forms of knowledge to be relatively absolute. While a weak form of relativism is demanded by scientific objectivity and interest in reality, adoption of a weak form of relativity in relation to any knowledge base precludes and is contradictory to the adoption of the strong case of relativism, which amounts to a form of philosophical solipsism of knowledge that denies any objective basis in knowledge whatsoever.

It is unfortunate in the history of anthropology and of science in general that the general problem of relativity and relativism of human knowledge has not been more explicitly delineated. It has allowed people who hate science to adopt an extreme form of relativist doctrine that is itself, in the final analysis, non-relativistic. At the same time, it has alienated most scientists from adopting a more sober view of the general relativity of knowledge and how this may condition how and what we know. This same issue has plagued the problem of what has come to be known as the "constructivist" interpretations or models of science. The original constructivist models that came out of the sociology of knowledge, and by extension, the philosophy and history of science, recognizes that all knowledge is in its final analysis "human" knowledge and hence subject to the social and human constraints intrinsic to our situation and our capacity to know. The original constructionist models of human knowledge systems were based upon objectivist, functionalist models of human society that had very general, even universal relevance. Hence they consisted of general theoretical frameworks that represented valid scientific theories of human systems. That these functionalist and objectivist aspects of the constructionist models of human knowledge has been in general ignored, and only the counter-ideological components of such an approach highlighted in terms of the culture of knowledge, has led to the unfortunate twist of academic fate that those who stand most to gain from such approaches are turned completely off by those who in a sense are their own worst enemies and hypocrites and have the most to lose by the misinterpretation of their own constructions.

There is a scientific manner of construing the relativity of systems, and this should include archaeological systems to the extent that these can be considered to be naturally occurring systems. We can say that any system is relative to the structural principles that govern that kind of system. If we have two systems that behave alike under similar circumstances, we can conclude that the principles governing both systems are the same or at least comparable. This constitutes the comparative basis for archaeological research. If two systems vary under similar circumstances, we can conclude that the principles governing the two systems are different as well. It follows that in order to understand the structural principles governing the systems, we must seek to understand as fully as possible the circumstances within which the systems operate.

In general, relativity of knowledge entails that we must qualify somehow our knowledge in an explicit frame of reference, either by the elaboration of context, or conditions or exceptions or anomalies or variations to the general rules we apply, or else by the proveniencing of such knowledge in its framework with other knowledge. This remains as true in the examination of physical systems upon any level, as it is in the examination of human or biological or any other kind of natural or real system. Thus the relativity of knowledge, including archaeological knowledge, is of great scientific value, for it not only tends to objectively preclude the possibility of the paradigmatic or ideological closure of archaeological knowledge systems, but by definition relativity of knowledge demands a methodological approach that requires the systematic "unpacking" or explication of context or provenience relating to any particular unit of analysis or general frame of reference. Anyone acquainted with Archaeological knowledge will understand the vital importance that provenance plays in the building of archaeological context and in the analysis and synthesis of archaeological knowledge form its empirical base. To say that all archaeological facts, or "archaeo-facts" are simply, necessarily, relative to both the provenience of the archaeological site in which they were found, and to the contextual frames of reference that the archaeologists seeks to explicitly apply to the recognition, definition, analysis and interpretation of "facts," is simply to express in a precise form what it is that archaeologists are supposed to be doing in the first place, as well as to build a case for self-critically examining the relativity of archaeological knowledge.

If context can be built systematically and excoriated sufficiently relative to archaeological knowledge, then it is possible, through successive approximations and corroborations, to arrive at a form of archaeological knowledge that can be said to be "relatively absolute" in the sense that it is said to be historically "tested" and verified by "time-tested" models and frames of reference.

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All useful archaeological models of cultural systems are functionally defined, primarily in terms of the ordering of relations between human beings and their environment, and secondarily between different human beings, and lastly, with the individual human herself, from moment to moment and day to day. All such models were actually materialist out of necessity, as in general the basis of archaeological evidence was artifactual and rooted in the observation and analysis of material culture leftover from the passing of a cultural tradition. Furthermore, all such materialistic and functionalist models are also by definition structuralist models, in that they seek some underlying sense of order or predictive consistency of pattern that can be used to explain cultural processes and the patterning of archaeological data as this is defined in the ground. All objective archaeological models can be said to be of necessity structuralist models.

The main challenge of objective archaeological models that can be said to be functionalist, materialist and structuralist in design is that such models tend by definition to be what can be called ahistorical or synchronic models that are analogous to mechanical systems that have a cyclical state-path trajectory over time. Such models tend to be construed as well in a broadly linear and non-dynamic manner. It is therefore the case that such models do not do well in explaining historical change processes or the dynamics of non-linear change processes, or state-transformations of systems, especially when such pattering can be construed to occur and be influenced by a larger field of contextual relations.

The fundamental problem of the archaeological relativity of time therefore takes clear theoretical significance in the reliance upon mechanical and somewhat static-state models of archaeological systems based upon conventional functionalist and materialist interpretations. The question asked and answered in this essay is "if not functionalist, then what would be an adequate substitute for objective archaeological model building" and if functionalist, then how can such models be logically and realistically modified to sufficient account for historical process and evolutionary transformations?

Part of the problem, as an extension of archaeological relativity, is that conventional model building in archaeology tends to be oversimplifying of the complex realities that occur, and at the same time, such models are have in general been conceived in a conventional paradigm of classical science that tended to equate cultures and living systems with the functioning of watches and time pieces. Explaining the spring and lever mechanisms of the watch explained its movements, and hence explained time in as both a cycle and an arrow. If cultural systems did not perfectly replicate its mechanical design without substantial variation, such variation of pattern was dismissed as the imperfect fit of the culture to the model, an intrinsic flaw of human nature and reality, rather than of the model, or more appropriately, the kind of model to the system of the actual reality that occurred. In other words, if models do not fit well the data, without contradiction, it is not unusual for archaeologists committed to a certain kind of modeling paradigm to ignore, fudge or blame the archaeological evidence, rather than to rethink and find fault with the model itself. We can look behind such a paradigmatic commitment to a particular form or kind of model to the ideological reification of an abstract conceptual system as if it were something real, as something like a scientific law or a mathematical equation that is more true than the things used to represent it. Conceptual models and the knowledge systems they represent, the facts, units of analysis and frames of reference, are nothing but constructions of human reason and imagination. They always fall in the face of contradictory evidence, and any good fact is worth a thousand lousy theoretical models.

It seems therefore as though in our archaeological model building we need some form of functionalist construct by which to make sense of our information, but any such construct is liable or prone to be either inaccurate or at best approximate. The most any such construct can accomplish is something known as a "covering law model" that waits for a time before it becomes embedded in a larger and more sophisticated system of knowledge. The lack of terminological specificity or agreement on a basic level, as well as a lack of conceptual integration or consensus on an abstract level, also entails that archaeological systems theory, unlike physical systems theory, will be prone to a lack of paradigmatic closure or unification on very basic levels of its knowledge. Hence there appears to be little scientific progress though there has been significant progress in terms of local or middle-range sophistication and refinement of arguments, models and techniques, but not in terms of general models or theories.

I offer therefore a "reformed" and refined functionalist model of archaeological systems in the chapters that follow. My intention immediately is to focus primarily upon the epistemological implications of functionalist kinds of models for human systems in particular, and upon general approaches by which such models can be possibly modified to be capable of explaining both systematic and random change in a realistic manner.

The models I have constructed for understanding human systems as a function of time and for explaining state-path changes of such systems stems from application of a sophisticated eco-evolutionary framework to a model of cultural patterning that is inherently flexible and multi-level in its articulation and stratification in reality. The model is derived from non-linear dynamics of systems in which the variables are governed by multiple factors that may influence the outcomes of the patterning in different ways. Within such a framework, it becomes necessary to invoke an understanding of complex, dynamic cultural equilibrium of systems that are to some extent governed within a larger transculturational framework. Exogenous changes occurring in the larger framework of such systems reverberate and influence the equilibrium of the cultural system, which in general should attempt to restore equilibrium, albeit upon a new level of adaptation.

Cultural groupings are seen to exist in a complex kind of game, of a competition, with other groupings, and as of the result of this competition, there occurs various patterns of cultural selection that determines that some cultural patterns will in the long run fail while others succeed. The trait patterning of cultural systems depends not on the kind of vertical transmission characteristic of genetic transmission, but upon horizontal transmission between peoples and between groups upon different levels of articulation.

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The definition of culture remains important to archaeological systems theory and its functionalist constructs, though the definitions of culture employed, whether explicit or implicit to the models, remains often quite vague and often presumed without further critical elucidation. All archaeologically theory can be said to focus somehow on the problems of culture pattern and process as these can be determined within the framework of available archaeological evidence. Models of archaeological culture have been alleged to be fundamentally different from anthropological models of culture that are employed primarily by cultural anthropologists. It should perhaps come as no surprise to find that there is probably greater implicit consensus and agreement on a general level of what constitutes cultural models in archaeological knowledge systems than in anthropological knowledge systems, though there is almost no agreement on a local or regional level as to exactly what cultures or cultural sequences may have occurred. It should also not be too surprising to assert that the interrelationship and mutual interdependency of archaeological and anthropological knowledge systems is demonstrated nowhere as clearly as it is demonstrated in terms of definitional and operational models of culture that both employ. If they are different models from an operational perspective, the former being primarily excavational or depositional cultures, the latter being primarily ethnographic, on a general level the models are roughly parallel and, to use an archaeological pun, homologous.

I have adopted a clear operational and theoretical definition of culture as empirically demonstrable pattern that I have given in the introduction to this second part. In this section, it is my intention to explore the concept of culture as it has been used by archaeologists especially, how this relates to and differs from the anthropological conceptioning and use of culture, and what the implications of these conceptual models of culture are for archaeological systems theory in particular.

It should go almost without saying to remark that the conventional or received archaeological definition of culture is "hard" while the standard or usual model of cultural anthropology is "soft" by comparison. The reasons for this reflect primarily the different nature of the data-types and problems pertinent to each field of inquiry. The hard model of archaeological culture reflects the material nature of most archaeofacts, and the tight contextual dependencies that such archaeofacts are constrained by. It also reflects the basic problem sets of interpreting these archaeofacts and of constructing sufficient middle range theories that can be tested by further excavation. It is to be expected in such problem sets that priority and deterministic primacy should be given to those relations that are most obviously demonstrated by the material depositional data. On the other hand, the soft model of cultural anthropology reflects the human and social nature of its field of inquiry that depends upon participant observation and interviews with living subjects. Thus, what can be called "anthro-facts" would tend to reflect the social, behavioral and at times manipulative and self-determinative nature of the primary sources of data. That much of this would be seen on one level or another as "symbolic" should go without further comment. The problem sets characteristic of most ethnography and ethnology tend to be rooted to the idea of understanding the underlying sense of order or cultural patterning of people in situ as this is being articulated in the ethnographic present, rather than in the depositional past. Cultural anthropology is at least implicitly cross-cultural and comparative in its methodologies, if nothing more than the fact that the anthropologist herself should cross some kind of cultural boundaries and at least implicitly compare a foreign culture with the embedded values and sense of order of one's own native culture. Hence, I do not believe that cultural models of anthropology are as contextually determined to the same degree or in quite the same way as would be analogous models in archaeology. The assumption of universals in human nature and cultural patterning is built into the comparative framework of anthropology in the first place, and many ethnographers come to feel quite relaxed in generalizing across broad and wide cultural distances based upon what remains rather "ify" and immaterial data.

Finally, it is an important distinction to make between the temporal and pre-historical distance, and hence relativity, of cultures that characterized archaeological problems of culture, compared to the largely geographical and historical distance, and hence, relativity of cultures characterizing cultural anthropological problems. Distance in cultural time is not exactly equivalent to distances of cultural space and pattern. The problem of historical relationship that would confound a genuine cross-cultural or comparative anthropology that depends upon the independence and separateness of its cultural units of analysis, is in essence the object of archaeological research that aims to establish the continuities and relationships of culture through time and across space that is defined temporally in terms of geographic transitions or migrations.

A further distinction to make between archaeological and anthropological definitions of culture is in terms of the standard units of analysis each employs in the effort to delineate cultural patterning. Archaeology depends upon primarily artifacts, assemblages, phases, sites and intersite complexes for its construction of cultural models. Cultural anthropology typically depends upon the delineations of the individual, the family or small group, the gemeinschaft community, tribe, clan, village, that can be somehow geographically localized, and the larger "ethno-national" socio-political unit or, alternatively, regional or areal framework by which to define and research its cultural models. That such units of analysis are not interchangeable or parallel in any strict sense, and are may be only compared by means of rough analogy, again brings up basic issues of both archaeological and anthropological relativity of knowledge. To equate a particular assemblage at a particular level in a site with a particular cultural grouping of some specific level is perhaps to run the risk of conducting safe archaeological analysis by doing dangerous archaeological speculation. On the other hand, excavation of a foundation of a house structure might reveal something interesting about the domestic structure of a family unit that must have belonged to some larger cultural context on some level and at some point in time. Similar, we can recognize the limits of a small village or city and this can be roughly correlated with similar anthropological units that were assumed to be primarily sedentary. Just because such interpretation is dangerous and inherently uncertain and problematic, does not mean it is not worthwhile to attempt.

Given the foregoing discussions of the different conception and uses of the cultural models in archaeology and anthropology, it stands to reason that there is a contribution that archaeological systems theory can make to the understanding of human culture that anthropology is unable to make. Anthropological models of culture that are by definition situated within an historical framework can deal with cultural variation within a contemporaneous framework, but they cannot deal with the problem of original cultural development or of its important past transitions. The most they can accomplish in this regard is based upon a specious presupposition that some kinds of extant cultural adaptations, for instance hunter-gathering societies, reflect in some manner primitive and pre-cultural foundations of all human socio-cultural patterning. To the extent that these cultures interact with and share a common historical framework with more developed systems, and may be critically influenced by their position vis-à-vis these other systems, this argument by analogy becomes tenuous at best. On the other hand, only archaeology that deals with the concept of culture as a function of depositional history is in a position to over substantive evidence of the actual processes that were involved in the important evolutionary transitions in the rise of human systems.

It follows from this also that if archaeologists are bound to rather linear and mechanical models of functional culture, then they are not likely to make much progress in the understanding of the developmental trajectory of human systems on earth as a function of evolutionary time. Much of the basic evidence regarding the larger themes of human transition and cultural transformation is already at hand. We understand many facets of the rise of modern Homo sapiens and the transition for instance to the neolithic during the Holocene, and the consequences of this transition for the subsequent course of human systems growth and development.

Understanding the recurrent processes and determinant factors of the change of human systems over the long term becomes a fundamental lesson to be learned from the conduct of archaeology, and therefore a common goal to be pursued by archaeologists. Archaeologists teaches us, for instance, that civilizations must in time rise and fall, and they have done so repeatedly the world over. From a systems standpoint, individual causal agents that may or may not affect the rise or sudden demise of a human system are of intrinsically less significance than are the systemic factors that created the critical conditions for structural change and transformation in the first place. Similarly, if the identity, voice and agency of the individual human being is lost completely from the archaeological record, we can at least in consolation assume a common human identity, the average archaeological John and Jane Smith, who were the main perpetuators of all archaeological traditions. We can remember that human systems are in the larger sense corporate affairs that extend beyond the life, the identity and the actions of any single individual actor in the archaeological drama.

It appears as if archaeological theory remains bereft of a central theoretical conception of human cultural dynamics, not as these are a synchronic process of continuous variation, but as these are the telescoped and long-term consequences of major stages and phases of human development on earth. Anthropological models of cultural dynamics as these have been developed, for instance by Melville Herskovits, and this forms the basis for short term or extended research designs in ethnology that aim at studying significant changes in populations within short frames of time as a consequence of known historical circumstances and events. This is becoming even more the case in recent decades as it appears that the pace of cultural change in the modern world is experiencing an accelerating tempo, and many of these kinds of changes appear not to be constructive but destructive of cultural traditions and institutions.

Models of cultural dynamics like that of Herskovits tended to reify cultural reality as something superorganic and disembodied within which individuals were conditioned and to some extent their fates were predetermined. Again, this general failure of cultural anthropological models is rooted, I believe, in the inability of this discipline to step outside of the normal boundaries of historical cultures and their operating constraints. Only the concept of archaeological culture offers the possibility of stepping completely outside of the historical continuum of culture and to systematically address realities of a remote past.

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The dialectics of archaeological theory appear to unfold around basic issues of theory and method that concern how archaeologists conceptualize the implicit foundations of their knowledge and employ this knowledge in the construction of different kinds of cultural models of the past. This dialectic continues well into the 21^st Century, and the basic problems and issues of archaeological theory and method have not dissipated or gone away in spite of the refinement of their techniques and the growing knowledge base with which archaeologists work. The dialectics of archaeological theory must turn on the central questions of the field, such as how did humankind come to be what it is today, and what was the long and convoluted trail and the basic processes that made us what we are now. These of course are not the only nor necessarily the most important questions remaining for archaeologists to try to answer. New sites will be discovered, and new artifacts and knowledge will be learned from these discoveries. Archaeologists working in different regions are slowly but methodically piecing together the detailed archaeological records of their past, and scholars are increasingly sharing information and insight across very broad distances.

It cannot be said that archaeological theory and method have been unsophisticated or unscientific. It has been bound by the nature of the data and the problems its method and knowledge entails for theoretical conceptualization. Archaeologists have always borrowed models from their present to try to understand the past. This is the only way we have to work as human beings, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with doing this if it is done wisely and with the kind of insight that is fundamental and universal to the human condition.