ABSTRACT
Two general levels of theory can be defined: general paradigms and middle range. First, most archaeologists operate within a general paradigm in which the past is seen as empirical, objective, and knowable. Within this paradigm are innumerable bodies of theory for specific issues or questions, all of which operate under the premise that past societies were similar to contemporary ones. In essence, this approach contends that because contemporary groups have formal funerary systems, it is reasonable to expect that past societies did as well. Middle-range theories attempt to connect present behaviors to past ones through analogy or experiment. A research design is developed to integrate data sets into a coherent study, although sample size remains an important issue. Information on an individual (a biocultural profile) can be developed, and once sufficient profiles have been obtained, an overall biocultural understanding of an entire group, a bioethnography, can be developed.
