ABSTRACT
Cultural evolution had long been out of favor in archaeological circles, until there was a revival of interest in the subject during the 1950s and 1960s. The new evolutionary theories exercised a profound influence on a new wave of archaeological theory that developed during the 1960s and 1970s. The new interest in evolution was part of an intense theoretical ferment, a seeming change in archaeological direction that became known, erroneously, as the “new archaeology.” Today, it is more commonly known as “processual archaeology,” the subject of this chapter.
