The Relevance of Ethnoarchaeology: An Egyptian Perspective

Abstract

Ethnoarchaeology is employed to better understand a wide range of archaeological subjects ranging from depositional and post-depositional processes, ancient technology, and social interaction to religious belief systems and cognition. Ethnoarchaeological research has been criticized as limiting explanations and interpretations, but in fact this is ultimately a critique of various levels of sophistication in analogous reasoning. The use of ethnoarchaeology in Egypt has been mostly implicit in the form of quite unsophisticated comparisons of ancient and modern Egypt, and especially of Pharaonic Egypt and present-day rural village life. Ethnoarchaeology has been used in political arguments and as part of the formation of cultural identity. More recent scholarly attitudes have moved away from using ethnoarchaeology in a direct historical approach, but instead employ ethnoarchaeological research to develop directed archaeological methods that answer specific research questions.