The Notion Site

Abstract

Good paper on why archaeology needs to move past the notion of 'site' as the principle unit of analysis. Discusses the ontological and epistemological position of site within archaeology, and finds that the site concept lacks rigour. Dunnell believes that the notion of the 'site' has been uncritically adopted from other less specialised usages, and because of this uncritical acceptance, site should be abandoned in favour of the non-site approach to both research and management. Dunnell concludes "site, as an archaeological concept, has no role to play in the discipline. Its uses are not warranted by its properties. It obscures crucial theoretical and methodological deficiencies, and it imparts a serious and unredeemable systematic error in recovery and management programs. in spite of the technical problems its abandonment will cause, the concept of archaeological site should be discarded" (p.37) Pages 33 through 37 are probably the most important part of this paper, looking at the 'siteless conception of the archaeological record'.