Internet Archaeol. 16. Rajala. Philosophy, archaeology and GIS

2.2 Philosophy, archaeology and GIS

All archaeological schools of thought have had a philosophical orientation. Cultural historical archaeology was related to idealism (cf. e.g. Collingwood 1946). The positivistic nature of processual archaeology has been widely discussed (cf. Shanks and Tilley 1987) whereas post-processual archaeology is connected with idealism (Hodder 1986) and relativism (Shanks and Tilley 1987). Epistemologically, processual archaeology had objectivity as a goal but post-processual and interpretative archaeologies rejected the objectivity of research and admitted the theory-laden, semi-subjective nature of data (cf. Hodder 1986; Shanks and Tilley 1987; also Johnson 1999). Post-processual critique resulted in the realisation that GIS as a tool is not neutral (cf. Huggett 2002).

The examination of the historical development of GIS shows a large influence of the dichotomy between processual and post-processual archaeological theory. Harris and Lock (1995) described early GIS studies as the spatial statistics tradition and the later developments as the landscape archaeology tradition. Gaffney and van Leusen (1995) called the traditions Ecologically Deterministic and Cognitive models whereas Exon et al. (2000, 9) referred to the binary oppositions of archaeological thinking. Historically, we are discussing the processual nature of early American GIS and the cognitive-processual and post-processual characteristics of later European GIS studies (cf. Gidlow 2000, 26; also Whitley this volume). Ultimately, different philosophical frames of reference define the trends.