Draft:Integrative Archaeology

Integrative Archaeology is a multidisciplinary approach that combines elements from cultural-historical, processual and post-processual archaeology to create a comprehensive understanding of past societies. This methodology emphasises the interplay of temporal, spatial and social dimensions in order to investigate historical processes, events and transformations.

Research history

It is important to note that the term Integrative Archaeology can be used by different authors, but means different things. For example, Ian Hodder uses it in a paper that attempts to synthesise different archaeological theories of human-object relations. This is included in the more recent definition of Integrative Archaeology, which is much more complex and draws on multiple approaches and disciplines.

Complex approaches to past societies began many decades ago with combining archaeology and other sciences in interdisciplinary resaerch projects, such as local and regional environmental reconstructions, geophysical methods and including osteology. With growing knowledge in other fields of research, the possibilities for studying past societies also received important new impulses. Geophysical methods have become much more sophisticated in recent decades. Moreover, biological information has increased and brought new perspectives to archaeology. Between 1990 and 2003, for example, the human genome was sequenced (Human Genome Project) and efforts were made to sequence other hominids (Neanderthal Genome Project). Isotope analysis provided information on human and animal subsistence strategies and mobility. AncientDNA (a breakthrough in archaeology since 2015) even represents what Kristian Kristansen calls the third scientific revolution in archaeology. In recent decades, several studies have been carried out using this complex data, sometimes under the name of Integrative Archaeology (e. g.). However, recently, the term was taken up by scentiest to define the complex interplay of multiple theories, approaches and disciplines. This is a crucial step after the third science revolution, becauseit runs the risk of turning archaeology into a methodologically uniform, inflexible and oversimplified discipline.

Schools that today are driving this research direction forward are Chicago, Santa Fe, Gothenburg and Kiel. Leading researchers include Gary Feinman, Johanna Brinkmann and Johannes Müller and his research team from the Collaboartive Research Centre 1266. Other institutes also use methods of integrative archaeology or structurally similar methods.

Description

Integrative archaeology seeks to resolve the contradictions between structural (processual) and post-structural (post-processual) approaches by drawing on diverse data to test hypotheses. It represents a reflective approach that integrates different research traditions to achieve a holistic understanding of the past. The aim is to develop nuanced narratives and models that illuminate the drivers of human adaptation, cultural change and socio-ecological interactions.

Methods such as palaeogenetics, isotope analyses, geographic information systems (GIS) and Bayesian statistics are used. This integration of empirical data makes it possible to test theoretical interpretations and limits the scope for speculative assumptions that were common in earlier archaeological models.

Integrative Archaeology addresses the dynamic relationship between humans and their environment and focuses on "biographies" (of individuals, groups, landscapes) and "timelines" (social and environmental developments), using them to construct interconnected narratives. It acknowledges the varying durations and rhythms of historical processes, from short-term events like natural disasters to long-term climatic changes. By examining socio-environmental connectivity, it identifies the feedback loops between ecological constraints, technological advancements, and societal behaviors.

Spatially, it examines scales from local settlements to global systems, taking into account emic (internal) and etic (external) perspectives on space. Socially, it analyzes the impacts of historical phenomena on different societal levels and spheres, such as households, social groups, and larger communities.

Literature

Feinman, Gary M. 2017. Economic aspects of globalization in past material world. In The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization. In: T. Hodos (eds.), Routledge, London/New York, 42–53.

Shin, Jaeweon, Michael Holton Price, David H. Wolpert, Hajime Shimao, Brendan Tracey, and Timonthy A. Kohler. 2020. Scale and information-processing thresholds in Holocene social evolution. Nature Communications 11:2394. (online)

Müller, Johannes 2025. Scales of Scientific Interaction: The New Integrative Archaeology.

Müller, Johannes, Kirleis, Wiebke and Taylor, Nicole 2024. Perspectives on Socio-environmental Transformations in Ancient Europe. Springer. (online)