ABSTRACT
Application of the Hempelian deductive–nomological model of explanation to archaeology (as was proposed by the American New Archaeology) requires knowledge of a number of well-confirmed laws or law-like statements describing sociocultural systems and their material, archaeologically visible remains. Before it reaches an archaeologist, information on the past sociocultural reality has gone through a succession of stages, during which it has been subject to various transformations and reductions. These are: (a) the sociocultural; (b) the depositional; (c) the post-depositional; and (d) the archaeological. It is only the last of these stages that is subject to the will of an archaeologist, who can select optimal methods of excavating and recording. The description of these transformations should be expressed in terms of relatively universal rules, related neither to time nor space, but only to the sociocultural (socio-economic in particular) and environmental conditions. Consequently, the further development of archaeology requires the construction of an archaeological theory. This theory should consist of a system of interrelated statements describing the trajectories of processes at work from the past sociocultural reality to the present archaeological evidence. These trajectories would probably vary according to the actions of some prerequisite independent factors. A hierarchy of such factors conditioning a given phenomenon can be called its ‘essential structure’ (Nowak 1977).
