Systems Theory in Archaeology - Criticism

Criticism

Unfortunately archaeologists found it was rarely possible to use Systems Theory in a rigorously mathematical way. While it provided a wonderful framework for describing interactions in terms of types of feedback within the system, it was rarely possible to put the quantitative values that Systems Theory requires for full use, as Flannery himself admits. The result was that in the long run Systems Theory was less useful in explaining change as it was in describing it.

Systems Theory also eventually went on to show that predictions that a high amount of cultural regularities would be found were certainly overly optimistic during the early stages of Processual archaeology. Ironically enough this is exactly the opposite of what Processual archaeologists were hoping it would be able to do with Systems Theory. However it was not completely a disappointment and Systems Theory is still used to describe how variables inside a cultural system can interact.

If nothing else the use of Systems Theory was an important early step in the rise of the New Archaeology. It was a call against the Culture-Historical methods of the “old timers”. It was “proof” that archaeology could be done scientifically and objectively and that information about past lifeways could be discovered, and that the pitfalls that seemed so overwhelming could, perhaps, be sidestepped as long as archaeologists were rigorous enough.