ABSTRACT

By the 1950s, increasing numbers of archaeologists were uncomfortable with the narrow culture-historical perspective that dominated most archaeological thinking. This discomfort was reflected in the new interest in ecological archaeology and cultural ecology, the emergence of the functionalist perspective, and Gordon Willey’s pioneering settlement research. This chapter continues the story of a changing archaeology in the 1950s, of changes triggered both by dissatisfaction among a younger generation of archaeologists and by the development of radiocarbon dating. This new chronological method made it possible to think of a truly global archaeology-a world prehistory.