Lewis Binford
Lewis Roberts Binford ( born November 21, 1931 in Norfolk, Virginia, † April 11, 2011 in Kirksville, Missouri) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist. In the 1960s, he was one of the initiators of the New Archaeology (also: " Processual Archaeology" ).
Life
Lewis Binford studied until 1952, first at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and - after military service - Anthropology at the University of North Carolina to the bachelor's degree. He then moved to the University of Michigan, where he earned master's degrees in 1958 and in 1964 received his doctorate. As a university lecturer Binford was later at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago operates, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and from 1968 to 1991 at the University of New Mexico. From 1991 until his retirement in 2003, he was University Distinguished Professor Emeritus ( Emeritus) at Southern Methodist University in Dallas (Texas ).
In 2001 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2006 he was awarded with prize money of 60,000 euros International Prize of Fyssen Foundation.
Research priorities
Binford was first announced a high-profile debate over the southern French Mousterian, he fought out with the archaeologist François Bordes from the University of Bordeaux. While Bordes, the variability of different types of inventory Moustériens attributed to different strains, Binford saw the functionality of the stone tools and their interpretation in the foreground.
Binfords theoretical work had significant influence on the theoretical discussion and the self-understanding of archeology. His 1962 essay published "Archaeology as Anthropology " is the basis of the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, highly influential New Archaeology. Against the background of a greater interest of the subject to the natural sciences, he demanded as the basis of archaeological interpretations work in the areas of experimental archeology, ethnoarchaeology and the Historical Archaeology.
Binford himself gave significant methodological impact, such as the 1981 published monograph "Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myth" about taphonomic processes on animal bones. The study first systematized human manipulations, especially the cut marks on the bone surfaces. It served him ethnological studies waidmännischer processes of Nunamiut ( a group of Inupiat ) as a comparison.
Own Papers (selection)
- Archaeological and Ethno Historic Investigations of Cultural Diversity and Progressive Development among Aboriginal Cultures of Coastal Virginia and North Carolina. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. (1964)
- Edited: New Perspectives in Archaeology (1968 )
- An Archaeological Perspective (1972 )
- Edited: For Theory Building in Archaeology
- Edited: Nunamiut ethnoarchaeology (1978 )
- Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myth (1981 )
- In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record ( 1983) / German Translation: The antiquity was very different (1984 )
- Faunal Remains from Klasies River Mouth (1984 )
- Debating Archaeology (1989 )
- Constructing Frames of Reference ( 2001)