The Epistemological Ladder in Archaeology

At any given moment, a multitude of theories are in use in the broad spectrum of archaeological research. We can see different layers of theory as being nested within a continuum. Generally, theories can fly at different altitudes, but not all aircrafts fly at the same altitude. Flying high or low is, as such, neither better nor worse, but different. In biology, a theory within population ecology flies at a different altitude than the general theory of evolution. This also holds true for archaeology. Aversion against theory in archaeology often stems from the impression of archaeologists that there is too large a distance between the archaeological record and some satellite altitude of general theories stemming from the remote stratosphere of social theory formation. Another aspect of this impression states that there are unwarranted jumps from some empirical data to general theories – and vice versa. This impression, however, should not have the final say about the roles of different theories in archaeology. Obviously, the concept of theory has many meanings. Building on the metaphor of altitude, we see a continuum of theory formation in archaeology. This array can be organized as different layers or levels of theory formation, leading to a kind of an epistemological ladder. A layer model gives a static picture of theoretical altitudes, while a dynamic perspective would explain, why and how theories can reach specific different altitudes and how layers can come into contact. What is needed, then, would be a fleshed-out, meta-theoretical, hierarchical layer model of theories within archaeology. We argue that such a model would serve archaeology far more than a naive dismissal of theory. Most archaeologists would agree that theory in archaeology is either implicit or explicit, but never absent. The pitfalls of implicit and uncontrolled theorising are more severe than the thorny, but explicit debates about concepts, hypotheses, models, middle-range theories, formation theories and the like. The present project is intended to form an epistemological ladder-model of theorising in archaeology.