Representational and Experimental Modeling in Archaeology

Abstract

I distinguish, by specificity and representational function, several different types of archaeological models: phenomenological, scaffolding, and explanatory models. These take the form of concrete, mathematical, and computational models (following Weisberg’s taxonomy), and they exemplify what Morgan describes as the double life of models; they vary significantly in the degree to which they are intended to accurately represent a particular target, or are media for experimental manipulation of idealized cultural processes. At the phenomenological end of the spectrum, representational models of data include typological constructs that selectively represent variability in archaeological data on several dimensions: formal (material), spatial, and temporal. Archaeologists also build phenomenological models of data drawn from nonarchaeological sources – cultural and natural – that are relevant for interpreting archaeological data as evidence. Assemblages of these target and source models provide the necessary scaffolding for building and evaluating more ambitious explanatory and experimental models of cultural systems and processes, actual and hypothetical.