ABSTRACT
The use of models and analogies plays an important part in the explanation of scientific data. No scientist can make effective use of a model or analogy unless he understands the hybrid nature of the model or analogy concept. The Oxford English Dictionary (O.E.D .) states that one of the meanings of analogy may be understood from the phrase ‘ A species or tribe in one region or at one period, which represents a different species or tribe elsewhere or at a different epoch5, and develops a view that ‘ if things have some similar attributes they will have other similar attributes5, (O.E.D. 3rd ed., revised 1967, London). The close relation between analogy and model in common language may be seen in the O.E.D. definition o f ‘ model5 as ‘ something that accurately resembles something else’. It is immediately clear that both the analogy and the model concept have a crucial role to play in the scientific explanation of phenomena in the prehistoric context. Prehistory deals with behavioural phenomena in an unwritten context, inferred from material traces of the behaviour. The prehistorian is forced to draw analogies and use models partly taken from his experience of the world today where he is able to apply direct measurement to phenomena in order to explain his reconstruction of the world of the past, which has mainly vanished.
