Talk:Middle-range theory (archaeology)

This article needs a complete rewrite. The idea that middle-range theory refers to site formation processes and how things were used is completely inaccurate - these are simply analogies applied to empirical data. Middle range theory actually refers to how basic social processes which are reconstructed from material culture (facts) connect with 'grand social theory' - see Raab and Goodyear 1984 for details.

Plagiarism?

This article steers disturbingly close to the rocky shoals of plagiarism... please compare from the article: "The middle range theory answers questions such as "Why do we think that this stone tool was used for scraping hides and not for scraping wood to make a boat?" and "Why do we know that these bones were purposefully and forcefully damaged by humans instead of gnawed on by animals?""

And this quotation from a paragraph regarding middle range theory in Thomas and Kelly's 4th Edition of Archaeology: "Here the archaeologist answers questions such as "Why do we think that this stone tool was used for scraping wood (and not hides)?" or "Why do we know that these bones came from an animal hunted and butchered by humans, and not killed and eaten by lions?"

This is merely one demonstration of a striking similarity throughout. This article could use a full rewrite. I would also note that Lewis Binford either needs his own section or should be removed from the article.

-Jonas 15:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Sophomoric

This article is at best sophomoric. As Schiffer pointed out in American Antiquity in 1988, Binford misuses Merton's concept of middle-range theory. Binford construed middle-range theory to be, simply, conceptual apparatus used by archaeologists to arrive at inferences about the past. Schiffer, as early as 1975 in American Anthropologist, had already given that conceptual apparatus content in terms of correlates, c-transforms, and n-transforms.