ABSTRACT
T h is chapter will be used to cover a selective appraisal of the prim ary dispositions underpinning analytical archaeology and fram ing its orientation. M ost of the contents, it is true, w ill have been covered in the preceding texts but the intention here is to draw together much that has only been obliquely discussed. M ost of these prim ary dis positions represent the diffusion into archaeology of m ajor develop ments in allied disciplines; a derivation, however, that does not neces sarily make them peripheral to the organization of archaeology as a discipline in its own term s and dimensions. Certainly, scientific aids no more make archaeology a ‘science’ than a wooden leg makes a man into a tree - isotope dating, chemical analysis, and proton magnetometers remain adjuncts. By contrast, the prim ary attitudes which now perm it tentative form ulations in generalizing archaeologi cal theory are central to the whole structure of the d iscip lin e-arisin g for the most part from cybernetics, inform ation theory, behavioural studies, and not least from m athematics - sym bolic logic, probability theory, set theory, game theory, inductive statistics, topology and num erical taxonom y (cf. Clarke, 1968, 19 72 , 19 7 3 ; Doran and Hodson
1975)- T h e prim ary contributions to analytical archaeology are for the
most part mathematical rather than scientific, sym bolic and abstract rather than tangible. T h is sim ply emphasizes the im portant function of mathematical apparatus as sym bolic m achinery for m odelling the central theory of organized disciplines in term s of structured deductive system s. A t the same time these external contributions are possible because the relationship between analysts and their data m ay be as much enlightened by sim ple changes in viewpoint as by direct augmentation of the quantity of data. Archaeologists have
concentrated far too m uch upon increasing the quantity of their data and far too little upon increasing the quality of their conceptual apparatus.
