ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapters we have occupied ourselves with the hierarchy of entities and patterns displayed by aggregates of cultural artefacts. These artefacts have deliberately been treated in an abstract and disem bodied w ay in order that the regularities of their aggregate ‘behaviour' in space and time might become apparent, without prejudice from our feelings about the nature of hominid culture. T h e result has been the gradual construction of an internally consistent hierarchy of entities, each carefully defined and ranked in order of com plexity - from attribute to artefact, type, assemblage, culture, culture group and technocom plex (fig. 49). Now, whether our purpose is culture-historical and dominated by interest in sequence, or whether it is cultural-ecology and dominated by system relationships - at some stage a statement or hypothesis must be form ulated to relate the ranks of these artefact entities with the ranks of social, linguistic, and racial entities. T h e range of connection of the archaeological entities must be specified in human terms if their inform ation value is to be m axi mized. Once this intermediate relationship has been outlined we can return in the final chapter of this part to the overall im plications of the hierarchical model for archaeological theory.
