Abstract

Abstract The concept of 'cultural process' has been of interest to anthropologists since the late 19th century. Franz Boas indicated that investigating cultural processes was central to anthropology, but his failure to define the concept set a disciplinary precedent. Process has seldom been discussed in theoretical detail because the basic notion is commonsensical. A.L. Kroeber provided a definition in 1948 and distinguished between short-term dynamics of how cultures operate and long-term dynamics resulting in cultural change. Leslie White conflated the two families of processes. Archaeologists working before 1960 focused on processes resulting in the diachronic evolution of cultures; many of these involved cultural transmission. Initially, processes involving the synchronic operation of a culture were conflated with diachronic evolutionary processes by processual archaeologists. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lewis Binford, David Clarke, and Frank Hole and Robert Heizer all discussed cultural processes within the framework of systems theory. Simultaneously, growing concern over the formational processes that created the archaeological record shifted attention from the original conception of cultural processes. Models of the temporal duration, scale, and magnitude of cultural processes illustrate their complexity and suggest avenues for further conceptualization. Key Words cause • cultural process • description • process • sequence of events [W]e must develop not only better theory for conceptualizing processes but also more adequate methods for studying them. (E.Z. Vogt, 1960: 28) Like other fields, archeology is cursed with terms so vague and ambiguous that they tend to obscure more than they clarify. (K.V. The commonsensical understanding of (cultural) process held by anthropologists and archaeologists concerns the dynamic of some (cultural) thing developing into some (other cultural) thing that may be different from the original. A series of stages or events can be used to illustrate a process but is descriptive rather than explanatory if the cause or causal mechanism producing the series is unspecified. Common sense understanding resulted in conflation of two families of cultural processes, a shift in the meaning of cultural processes to the actions forming the archaeological record, and a muddling of the dynamic of becoming and the static state of being. This is not to say that the concept of process has been useless, as evidenced, for example, by the plethora of research accomplished under the banner of processual archaeology (see articles introduced by A.L. Johnson [2004] and references therein). Some argue that terminological clarity is either unnecessary In this article I do several things. First, I make four points with respect to the term culture/cultural process (both forms occur in the literature). In no particular order, these ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY 7(2) points are: (1) labels for particular processes often conflate the dynamic of becoming with the result or state of being, and also conflate process as cause with process as description; (2) processes concerning the synchronic operation of a culture are sometimes conflated with those concerning the diachronic evolution of a culture; (3) a list of processes gleaned from the literature published in the 1940s and 1950s includes nearly all of those included in a list gleaned from the literature published in the 1970s and 1980s; and (4) in archaeology, the concept of cultural process was subsumed within formation processes in the 1970s, exacerbating terminological ambiguity. To make these points, I explore the history of the term 'cultural process' to determine what it is thought to mean. My historical sketch is not exhaustive; such would take a book-length treatment. Instead, I summarize what is necessary to make the points I have just listed. I first review how the concept has been used in cultural anthropology, where my focus is on the pre-1960 literature. This provides a context for discussing the concept of culture process as it was used in archaeology; processual archaeology first emerged in North America where archaeologists are trained in departments of anthropology. Because I am particularly interested in the meaning(s) of the term with respect to processual archaeology, I outline the history of the term in archaeology from the 1930s through the 1980s. The historical review demonstrates that many who used the term often conflated two families of processes. I term these the diachronic (historical) evolutionary family and the synchronic operational family. The former are generally processes of long duration, result in cultural change, and implicitly indicate that culture is transmitted; processes include acculturation, enculturation, socialization, and diffusion. Synchronic operational processes are of relatively short duration and repetitive or cyclical; the state of a culture might fluctuate as that culture operates over time, but the culture eventually returns to the state in which it began. One example is a first fruits ceremony held annually, and another would be a repetitive land-use pattern of seasonal transhumance. Conflation of the two families was likely caused by common-sense understanding of the general concept; explicit definitional and theoretical understanding would likely have precluded such conflation. Common-sense understanding also seems to underpin the 1970s conflation of culture process with formation process by archaeologists. As a step toward replacing common sense with explicit models of cultural processes, I present a formal definition of the concept prior to presenting the historical overview. This should also help with perception of strengths and weaknesses in anthropological and archaeological use of the term. Toward the end of the discussion, I consider the implications of differences in the duration and results of the two families of processes in detail, and also the scale and magnitude of processes. My intention is not to provide the final word on the concept. Rather, I present this discussion as a catalyst for additional conceptualization of cultural process and how that term is used in the future. Archaeologist Irving Rouse provided an excellent place to start the discussion: By pattern is meant a configuration discernable in the archaeological [or anthropological] record and by process, the actions that have produced the pattern. A pattern is an empirical observation and a process, an explanation of that observation; it tells us how the pattern came into existence. Boas (1896: 905) stated that 'the object of [anthropological] investigation is to find the processes by which certain stages of culture have developed' (emphasis in original). Boas had in mind historical processes that accounted for why culture traits were found where they were and in the forms that they were In the earliest explicit definition of which I am aware, Kroeber (1948: 344) defined 'processes of culture [as] factors which operate either toward the stabilization and preservation of cultures and their parts, or toward growth and change'. This statement refers to both synchronic operational processes and diachronic evolutionary ones, respectively. Kroeber listed the usual historical processes of diffusion, invention, and the like (e.g. The notion that society itself is a process and is continuously becoming was part of the 'Chicago school' of sociology in the 1920s and 1930s The International Symposium on Anthropology held in 1952 resulted in a large volume of papers Spindler and Spindler (1959: 37) equated cultural processes with 'culture change'. They noted that prior to the 1940s, the focus was on cultural traits as particles of culture; groups of people were culturally differentiated and interacted via diffusion. After the 1940s, in Spindler and Spindler's view (see also For White, the culture process not only is transmission (dynamic becoming), it involves adaptation (as both dynamic becoming and a state of being) and also interaction (a state of being). White (1959: 16, 17) later reiterated that culture was 'a stream flowing down through time [comprising a] process' and added that the 'interrelationship of [culture traits] and their integration into a single, coherent whole comprise the functions, or processes, of the cultural system'. The operation of a culture involved 'life-sustaining processes: subsistence, protection from the elements, defense from enemies, combating disease, etc.' (White, 1959: 19). He used the term process to denote both the diachronic evolution and the synchronic operation of a culture. Others did likewise (e.g. Carneiro, a student of White and Steward, along with Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown When theoretically oriented discussions of cultural processes appeared in the 1960s, there was no guarantee they would clarify matters. Beals et al. (1967: 6) provide one of the only explicit definitions of process in the general anthropology literature of which I am aware: 'A process is a series of [causally, functionally, mechanically] interlinked events which commences under certain defined conditions and which concludes under certain defined conditions'. This definition leaves one wondering if the 'defined conditions' are specified by the people whose actions comprise the events or by the anthropologist. Beals et al. (1967: 258-9) also imply that 'processual analysis' in cultural anthropology involves, first, observing the same process multiple times, keeping track of all variables that seem to be interlinked, and those that seem to be independent and free to vary. Second, arranging observations in a temporal series such that 'acts and circumstances and variations that occur when the process is repeated', both within a cultural system and in multiple cultural systems, facilitates comparative analyses and the building of abstract models of processes (Beals et al., 1967: 258-9). Whether the model comprised only a sequence of events, or the sequence plus their interlinkages, or the sequence plus the interlinkages plus any causal variables is unclear. Steward (1968: 321) clarified things a bit when he commented that the presentations at the 1966 Man the Hunter conference indicated a discipline-wide failure to perfect 'a methodology for determining cause-and-effect relationships in the evolution of different kinds of culture'. He noted that the flaw of the comparative method resided in the presumption that similar cross-cultural patterns denoted similar processes (and admitted to here contradicting his 1949 discussion). 'Processes may be considered causes in one sense, [but] for present purposes [he defined them] as changes set in motion when more ultimate cultural and environmental factors are utilized by human societies' (Steward, 1968: 322). Instead of discussing processes per se, PRE-PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY The programmatic literature produced by processual archaeologists during the 1960s and 1970s gives the impression that earlier archaeologists were doing descriptive history and were not interested in cultural processes (e.g. Steward and Setzler (1938: 6-7) noted that archaeology 'can shed light not only on the chronological and spatial arrangements and associations of [cultural traits], but on conditions underlying their origin, development, diffusion, acceptance, and interaction with one another. These are problems of cultural process, problems that archaeology and anthropology should have in common'. Although the terms differed from author to author between about 1920 and 1960, the cultural processes Steward and Setzler listed were the standard historical ones. McGregor (1941: 49) stated that the archaeologist is 'interested in three sorts of relationships: a local series of genetically, or developmentally, related events; the influence which this series had on other regions; and the influence outside areas had on its development'. Here, 'influence' can be loosely glossed as 'pathways or modes of cultural transmission'. McGregor's graph Taylor (1948: 108) stated that 'cultural processes are the dynamic factors involving cultural traits; they . . . comprise the relationships between cultural traits'. Cultural traits for Taylor were mental, ideological, conceptual. He explicitly identified the cultural processes of 'diffusion, culture contact, and acculturation' and implied that there were others (1948: 108). He insisted that archaeologists determine prehistoric 'cultural contexts', defined as the 'associations and relations of [cultural traits], of the balance between them, [and] of their relative quantitative and qualitative positions within the [cultural] whole ' (1948: 110). Study of artifact types that represented cultural traits Taylor's insistence on the importance of cultural context means that he was interested in studying the synchronic operation of a culture. The 'chronological development' of those contexts was, apparently, to be discerned by 'comparative study of the nature and workings of culture in its formal, functional, and/or developmental aspects' (Taylor, 1948: 41). Willey and Phillips (1958: 4-5) were interested in 'processual interpretation' of cultural chronologies. 'Processual interpretation' was a rewording of what Phillips (1955: 248) had termed 'functional interpretation'. Willey (1953) had earlier equated the two. Willey and Phillips (1958: 5) indicated that by 'processual interpretation' they meant 'any explanatory principle that might be invoked'. They emphasized that processual interpretation was 'explanatory' and that their favored agents of change were human groups because of the latter's 'social reality ' (1958: 6). Adams (1956, 1960) mentioned 'processes', 'processes of growth', 'historical processes', 'agencies of change', and 'social forces', but did not indicate what these might be. Adams was following WHAT IS A CULTURAL PROCESS IN PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY? Willey and Sabloff (1993: 221) believe that the 'central concern [of processual archaeologists] was the elucidation of cultural processes', new archaeologists of the 1960s 'felt that the time had come for serious attack on questions of process', and processual archaeologists sought to 'reveal and explain cultural processes'. They equate a cultural process with a 'causal factor' (Willey and Sabloff, 1993: 170). In the 'birth announcement' of processual archaeology, Binford (1962: 217) indicated that a culture was an extrasomatic adaptive system, and that 'process' concerned 'the operation and structural modification of systems'. He had both synchronic and diachronic processes in mind if by 'the operation' he meant how the culture system worked at any one point in time and if by 'structural modification' he meant change in how the system worked over time. Binford (1965: 204) characterized the culture history approach as assuming one particular culture process: 'the dynamics of ideational transmission'. The process or dynamic was 'learning [based on] cultural transmission between generations and diffusion between social units not linked by regular breeding behavior' (Binford, 1965: 204). Additional 'dynamics' that contributed to the effects of cultural transmission were 'barriers to social intercourse ', migration, 'drift' and innovation (1965: 204). Binford sought to replace this notion with a different conception of culture in order 'to deal adequately with the explanation of cultural process ' (1965: 205); he followed White (1959: 8) and defined culture as 'an extrasomatic adaptive system' and stated that 'the locus of cultural process is in the dynamic articulations of [cultural] subsystems'; this is process as synchronic operation. Understanding of cultural processes demanded comparative study of the 'rates and patterns of change in different classes of cultural phenomena' (Binford, 1965: 209); this is diachronic evolution and seems to echo The volume of which Binford spoke is New Perspectives in Archeology . All contributors to that volume may indeed have subscribed to the definition Binford presented, but only one of them used the term 'process'. Sackett (1968: 69) was concerned with 'the processes that determined [the] form and mode of change' of cultural units within the upper Paleolithic of France. Binford (1968a) accuses Wauchope (1966) of using 'cultural process' to refer to patterns of artifacts. Wauchope was, among other things, noting that the assumption underpinning archaeological studies of cultural process -stability in artifacts represents cultural stability, change in artifacts represents cultural change -was problematic. He was not saying that patterns in artifacts were processes or even that they were representative of processes, but rather that they might not represent cultural processes. I refer to this hereafter as Wauchope's dilemma and note that it anticipates the concern with formation processes that emerges in the 1970s. Wauchope was also concerned that there was no satisfactory means to 'weigh the importance of different categories of cultural stability [and change]' such as whether, say, 'changes in the amount of temper used in pottery paste [was equivalent to] changes in the design or style of ceramic decoration' (Wauchope, 1966: 20). The magnitude of change among artifacts might not be directly related to the magnitude of a cultural process (assuming that it was related at all). But Wauchope (1966) was concerned with only the family of diachronic evolutionary processes; Binford was interested in both families, as were others (e.g. In the second sentence of the text of what might arguably be the first programmatic textbook for processual archaeology, There are many examples of using but not defining the definitive concept of processual archaeology (e.g. Arnold, 1985; SHIFTING MEANINGS OF CULTURAL PROCESS I suspect that what made the concept of cultural process difficult to discuss in the 1970s and 1980s was that it was a 'vogue word' -a word that was used to show that the user had acquired the term and all the supposed intellectual accessories that went with it The distinction is made by an archaeologist interested in contributing to anthropological theory (Binford, 1962 ultimately led to refocusing the processual approach not on what might be thought of as the ultimate goal of identifying category 2 processes -those involving the operation and evolution of dynamic cultural systems -but on the more archaeologically proximate goal of category 1 processes -what became known as processes that result in the formation of the archaeological record Additional evidence that formation processes usurped the priority of cultural processes is found in recent perspectives on Wauchope's dilemma. DISCUSSIONS OF CULTURAL PROCESS BY PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS Clarke Changes in Hole and Heizer's multi-edition introductory textbook capture the growing importance of culture processes in archaeology. There is minimal mention of culture processes in the first two editions Heizer, 1965, 1969), but the 1969 edition contains a discussion of the importance of systems theory to understanding cultural dynamics. The third edition (Hole and Heizer, 1973: 439) discusses cultural processes explicitly. The term 'process' or 'processes' crops up frequently in the writings of scientific archeology, and it is also used in history, in manufacturing, and in analysis. As we understand the term colloquially it refers to the sequential set of operations that lead from A to B . . . [Given examples in history, manufacturing and research one] can readily see that process means two quite different things. First, it may refer to a sequence of events. Second, it may refer to the causes of the sequence of events. In both meanings, process is conceptually linked with the states or conditions of the things under observation at different times. As process is used in archeology, it refers to an analysis of the factors that cause changes in state. The authors provide the same discussion in an abridged version of their book (Hole and Heizer, 1977: 358), where they also define 'process' in the glossary as 'the operation of factors that result in a change of culture ' (1977: 387). Note that Hole and Heizer indicate that a process can be a simple description of a sequence of events, or it can refer to cause(s) of that sequence. Given processual archaeology's hopes to explain the archaeological record rather than just describe it One of the alleged benefits of archaeologists adopting systems theory was that 'questions phrased in terms of [systems] concepts direct our attention away from institutions and events and toward processes, away from efforts to discover the first appearance of particular cultural practices and toward efforts to understand their gradual evolution, and away from constructions of these events that are relatively hard to define in terms of archaeological observations toward ones that are more sensitive to the data with which we deal ' (Plog, 1975: 215). Plog is unclear, but I suspect he hoped to identify dynamic cause(s) rather than describe static events in temporal terms. Thus perhaps Plog was concerned with how a cultural system operates. Salmon (1978: 175), after all, pointed out that 'anthropologists were engaged in analyzing social and cultural systems long before the advent of modern systems theory' (see for example It would be all too easy to take systems theory as our model for archaeological [that is, sociocultural] processes and the cultural entities that generate them, without isolating precisely the kind of system these entities represent. This would simply extend systems theory and its terminology as yet another vague analogy of no practical potential. (Clarke, 1968: 39)