37
greatly, ranging from solid spheres to planetary- like systems to combinations of wave functions, quarks, and gluons. And each representation implied different predictions and led to different experiments.
Entities and Processes: Natural, Quasi-Natural, and Supernatural
Beginning in the seventeenth century, practitioners of early modern science sought to set off their theories from others by insisting that entities and processes must be natural not supernatural. “Natural” is ordinarily understood to be material in con-trast to something in the spiritual realm whose existence is maintained exclusively through faith. The dichotomy of natural and supernatural entities seems clearcut, but is not. When a scientifi c theory is fi rst advanced, its unobservables may not appear to be material at all. René Descartes, though an ardent advocate of material processes, created models of invisible vortices that purportedly accounted for plan-etary motion, light, and magnetism ( Hall 1956 ). In explaining why the speed of planets in their orbits decreased with distance from the sun, Kepler invoked a “mov-ing spirit” ( anima motrix ) that inhabited the sun whose force weakened over longer distances ( Hall 1956 :123). In his celestial mechanics, Newton rejected Kepler’s moving spirit yet relied on an unobservable force—gravitation—that had material effects but no apparent material existence. According to Newton, “All bodies … are endowed with a principle of mutual gravitation” (quoted in Shapin 1996 :61).
Because gravitation itself could not be represented as a material phenomenon, Leibniz viewed it as occult (Shapin 1996 :42, 63).
Modern investigators have been no less prolifi c in positing materially ambiguous unobservables. Some of them—e.g., antimatter, black holes, and gene—gained acceptance as material phenomena when supported by experiments with new appa-ratus and buttressed by further theoretical developments. Others were abandoned or, like dark matter, strings, and sterile neutrinos, remain in the realm of the “possible.”
To have believed at fi rst that all such unobservables were material phenomena was partly an act of faith. Recently, theoretical physicist Patrick Huber, referring to the diffi culties of validating “sterile neutrinos,” remarked in Science that “It’s like try-ing to prove the existence of God” (Huber, quoted in Cho 2011 ). Let us apply the term quasi -natural to theoretical agents that are not unambiguously natural or super-natural, acknowledging that they may later become super-natural, fall into disuse, or be deemed occult or supernatural.
Tree spirits and gods fall beyond the scope of modern science, not merely because they are clearly supernatural, but because their ascribed dispositions pro-duce erratic—i.e., unpatterned—performances. Whether occult or not, gravitation yields experimental laws having precise predictions. A malevolent tree spirit may cause misfortune, a god may unleash a furious storm, but not even probabilistic laws could ever link these entities to their purported effects. Even so, people attempt to control the uncontrollable through rituals: giving offerings to a tree spirit, praying to a god. Such a ritual’s manifest function is unachievable, but its performance often has benefi cial social and psychological effects on participants and witnesses.
Generalizations
Like gravitation, quasi-natural entities and processes may have patterned effects and so can be investigated. In search of predicted effects, investigators develop mediating apparatus. Throughout the twentieth century, for example, a succession of complex devices has been built in search of theorized subatomic particles, and many were “observed.” Proposals have been put forward to build apparatus that might detect sterile neutrinos, but funding is uncertain (Cho 2011 ). Archaeologists of science could profi tably study the succession of apparatus constructed to yield evidence of a quasi-natural entity’s existence. It might be interesting to focus on a quest that ended in failure.
Models
Models, which furnish potentially useful simplifi cations of reality, may be symbolic or mechanical (in two or three dimensions). We are all familiar with mechanical models of molecular structure, but at the cutting edge of science today they have been largely superseded by computer models, some of which simulate the folding of proteins in living cells and express the results in polychrome graphics. Dynamic models iterate complex processes over long periods such as Earth’s climate system, nuclear fusion, and the birth of the universe. Digital models are highly malleable, as investigators tinker, adding and subtracting parameters and variables, and altering the latter’s values.
Models are not new. William Gilbert ( 1958 [1600]), court physician to Queen Elizabeth, wrote about his model of Earth, which he called a terrella . It was a globe of magnetite, which is a magnetic mineral. In experiments with his terrella , Gilbert showed that Earth itself could very well be a magnet. Beginning in late medieval times in the West, there was a proliferation of highly visible machines that affected peoples’ lives, including clocks, looms, and windmills. Signifi cantly, these tech-nologies also provided models for thinking about nature. Yet, as Shapin ( 1996 :30) notes, “the very idea of construing nature as a machine, and using understandings derived from machines to interpret the physical structure of nature, counted as a violation of one of the most basic distinctions of Aristotelian philosophy … the contrast between what was natural and what was contrived or artifi cial.” Despite controversies over their use, mechanical models of natural processes continued to be employed. By the end of the seventeenth century, the clockwork model of the universe, handiwork of humans, had prevailed, while the universe itself presumably had been constructed and set in motion by a deity.
Archaeologists can study surviving mechanical models just as they study any artifact, with perhaps the added availability of oral history and documentary materi-als. As for digital models, I do not foresee archaeologists rooting around in soft-ware, but other kinds of research seem possible, such as learning how changes in computer hardware affected the kinds of systems that could be modeled as well as the complexity of models.
39
References
Aczel, Amir D. 2003. Pendulum: Léon Foucault and the triumph of science . New York: Washington Square Press.
Adams, Jenny L. 2002. Ground stone analysis: A technological approach . Salt Lake City:
University of Utah Press.
Atran, Scott, and Douglas Medin. 2010. The native mind and the cultural construction of nature . Cambridge: MIT Press.
Barnes, Barry, David Bloor, and John Henry. 1996. Scientifi c knowledge: A sociological analysis . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bell, Catherine. 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and dimensions . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carlson, R.L. 1970. White Mountain Redware: A pottery tradition of east-central Arizona and Western New Mexico. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona , No. 19.
Cartwright, Nancy. 1994. Fundamentalism vs. the patchwork of laws. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 94: 279–292.
Childs, Terry S., and David Killick. 1993. Indigenous African metallurgy: Nature and culture.
Annual Review of Anthropology 22: 317–337.
Cho, Adrian. 2011. The sterile neutrino: Fertile concept or dead end? Science 334: 304–306.
Cotterell, Brian, and Johan Kamminga. 1990. Mechanics of pre-industrial technology: An intro-duction to the mechanics of ancient and traditional material culture . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
D’Andrade, Roy G. 1995. The development of cognitive anthropology . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dibner, Bern. 1961. Oersted and the discovery of electromagnetism. Burndy Library Publication , No. 18.
Edgeworth, Matt. 2012. Fields of artefacts: Archaeologies of contemporary scientifi c discovery. In Modern materials: The proceedings of CHAT Oxford, 2009 , eds. Brent Fortenberry and Laura McAtackney, 7–12. British Archaeological Reports , No. 2363.
Fischer, Alysia. 2008. Hot pursuit: Integrating anthropology in search of ancient glass-blowers . Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Gilbert, William. 1958[1600]. De Magnete . Trans. P. Fleury Mottelay (1893). New York: Dover.
Gooding, David 1990. Experiment and the making of meaning: Human agency in scientifi c obser-vation and experiment. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Griffi tts, Janet. 2006. Bone tools and technological choice: Change and stability on the Northern Plains. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona.
Hall, A.R. 1956[1954]. The scientifi c revolution, 1500–1800: The formation of the modern scien-tifi c attitude . Boston: Beacon Press.
Hutchins, Edwin. 1995. Cognition in the wild . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Keeley, Lawrence H. 1980. Experimental determination of stone tool uses: A microwear analysis . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Krause, Richard A. 1985. The clay sleeps: An ethnoarchaeological study of three African potters . Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
Kuhn, Thomas. 1970. The structure of scientifi c revolutions , 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Levey, Martin. 1959. Chemistry and chemical technology in ancient Mesoamerica . Amsterdam:
Elsevier.
Lunbeck, Elizabeth (ed.). 2011. Histories of scientifi c observation . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1954[1948]. Magic, science and religion, and other essays . Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.
———. 1961[1922]. Argonauts of the Western Pacifi c . New York: E.P. Dutton.
Metzger, Duane G., and Gerald E. Williams. 1966. Some procedures and results in the study of native categories: Tzeltal “Firewood.” American Anthropologist 68: 389–407.
References
Nagel, Ernest. 1961. The structure of science . New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
Oppenheim, A. Leo, Robert H. Brill, Dan Barag, and Axel von Saldern. 1970. Glass and glassmaking in ancient Mesopotamia: An edition of Cuneiform texts which contain instructions for glassmakers with a catalogue of surviving objects . Corning, NY: The Corning Museum of Glass.
Price, Derek J. De.Solla. 1984. Notes towards a philosophy of the science/technology interaction.
In The nature of technological knowledge , ed. R. Laudan, 105–114. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1924. The mother’s brother in South Africa. South African Journal of Science 21: 542–555.
Reichenbach, Hans. 1966[1951]. The rise of scientifi c philosophy . Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rothbart, David. 2007. Philosophical instruments: Minds and tools at work . Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Sargent, Rose-Mary. 1994. Learning from experience: Boyle’s construction of an experimental philosophy. In Robert Boyle reconsidered , ed. Michael Hunter, 57–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scerri, Eric R. 2007. The periodic table: Its story and signifi cance . New York: Oxford University Press.
Schiffer, Michael B. 1976. Behavioral archeology . New York: Academic Press.
———. 1996[1987]. Formation processes of the archaeological record . Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
———. 2010. Behavioral archaeology: Principles and practice . London: Equinox.
Schiffer, Michael B., Kacy L. Hollenback, and Carrie L. Bell. 2003. Draw the lightning down:
Benjamin Franklin and electrical technology in the age of enlightenment . Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schiffer, Michael B., and Andrea R. Miller. 1999. The material life of human beings: Artifacts, behavior, and communication . London: Routledge.
Schiffer, Michael B., and James M. Skibo. 1987. Theory and experiment in the study of techno-logical change. Current Anthropology 28: 595–622.
———. 1997. The explanation of artifact variability. American Antiquity 62: 27–50.
Semenov, S.A. 1964. Prehistoric Technology. Trans. M. W. Thompson. London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay.
Shapin, Steven. 1996. The scientifi c revolution . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Skibo, James M. 1992. Pottery function: A use-alteration perspective . New York: Plenum.
———. 2013. Understanding pottery function . New York: Springer.
Staudenmaier, John M. 1985. Technology’s storytellers: Reweaving the human fabric . Cambridge:
MIT Press.
Part II
43 M.B. Schiffer, The Archaeology of Science, Manuals in Archaeological Method,
Theory and Technique 9, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-00077-0_4,
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013
Experiments yield knowledge about a wide range of subjects that contribute to archaeological recovery, analysis, and inference (for recent overviews, see Coles 1979 ; Cunningham, Heeb, and Paardekooper 2008 ; Ferguson 2010 ; Mathieu 2002 ; Millson 2011 ; Saraydar 2008 ; Shimada 2005 ; Skibo 1992 , chapter 2). Archaeologists also do experiments to illuminate the science of prehistoric societies.
This chapter presents examples and case studies that illustrate two experimental approaches for modeling a technology’s scientifi c generalizations: (1) replication or imitative experiments (Ascher 1960 ), which produce recipes, empirical generaliza-tions, and experimental laws, and (2) controlled experiments that yield experimental laws (Schiffer et al. 1994 ).