Methodologies/Sources of Data:

 

  • Analysis of Archaeological Literature: 11
  • Textual (historical, philosophic, etc. ): 8
  • Ethnography: 7

  • Spatial Distribution Analysis: 7
  • Ethnoarchaeology: 6

 

Textual analyses truly dominated the literature in 1992.  The dataset most frequently referenced in articles was actually no dataset at all.  Rather, authors in this year spent time revaluating past research and writing critical analyses of published studies.  This can be attributed, at least in part, to the ongoing postprocessual critique.  Another factor influencing the number of critical papers was the date of publication itself.  The quincentennial of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus was commemorated not with celebration but with a introspection.  Numerous scholars discussed the state of the relationship between archaeologists and the native Native Americans they study, concluding that cooperation must be sought in future endeavors.  Historical and ethnographic documents were also frequently cited sources of data, adding to the textual tradition of the year.  Closely behind were studies of spatial patterning and ethnographic work.

  

 

Major Themes:

 

  • Prehistoric Archaeology: 14
  • Methodological: 13
  • Subsistence: 11
  • Ecology: 9
  • Hierarchy/Power: 9   
  • Ritual/Ideology/Religion: 9

 

Prehistoric archaeology was the most prevalent theme found in articles published in 1992.  Closely following this was discussion of methodology, including critiques of methods applied in previous studies but also presenting new ways of looking at data.  Many of these were spurred by developments in the archaeological application of technologies, such as GIS.  Subsistence practices and ecology, two concerns closely allied with the New Archaeology were still highly visible in the literature, however, in some cases archaeologists sought to augment this work with ideas coming out of postprocessualism.   Notably, ritual, ideology and religion appear just as frequently as either of these topics, again reflecting this theoretical shift.

 

 

General Theory:

 

  • Processual: 23
  • Processual/Postprocessual: 12
  • Postprocessual: 12
  • Culture Historical/Processual: 3
  • Culture Historical: 2
  • Historical Reflection: 2

 

Though the postprocessual critique was in full swing by 1992, processualist papers were still the most common in the literature.  Upon compiling the information, I was surprised by the relative paucity of postprocessual articles.  After tabulating the results, however, I saw that as many archaeologists were incorporating postprocessual approaches into their paper, though not all were doing this to the exclusion of processualism.  Many researchers still took a systematic and scientific approach to their studies but applied some of the newly emerged theoretical viewpoints.  Some of the authors with a distinctly postprocessual bent revisited previously published work from a postprocessualist standpoint.  A few of the papers were open critiques of archaeological practices. 

 

Region:

 

  • North America: 18
  • South America: 6
  • Europe: 6
  • Africa: 5
  • Asia: 5
  • Comparative: 5

 

Due in large part to the overwhelming number of articles published on North America by American Antiquity, this region was discussed thoroughly in 1992.  Again, the emphasis on the Americas is in part due to the quincentennial and the special series of articles devoted to it.  South America, Europe, Africa and Asia also appeared with some frequnecy.  Papers taking a comparative, cross-cultural approach were not numerous, but were relatively well represented.

 

 

Authors:

  •  Number of Authors

               1: 37

               2: 12

               3+: 5

 

  • Lead Author Gender

               Male: 36

               Female: 18

 

Across the board, articles by a single author formed the majority.  World Archaeology was the journal that had the most frequent occurrence of multiple authors (of course, it also had more articles).  Interestingly, the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology and American Antiquity had the exact same proportions in the number of authors category.

Men acted as the lead author twice as often as did women.  Looking at the statistics for each journal individually reveals that 79% of World Archaeology’s lead authors were men.  American Antiquity showed slightly more equality with men still leading with 64% of lead author roles.  The Journal of Anthropological Archaeology had an even split.

 

 

Institution:

 

  • University of Arizona: 5
  • Smithsonian Institution: 3
  • University of Missouri-Columbia: 2                                                                    
  • University of Wisconsin, Madison: 2
  • University of Nebraska: 2
  • American Museum of Natural History: 2
  • University of Western Ontario: 2
  • University of California, LA: 2
  • University of Maryland: 2

 

The University of Arizona swept the 54 institutions represented in the literature with 5 articles.  The Smithsonian followed with 3 and a number of others had multiple publications as well.   Alison Wylie (University of Western Ontario) was the only person to be published as the lead author twice.  Miriam Stark (University of Arizona), had two articles as well but only served as the lead for one of them.

 

 

 Alison Wylie, most published   

TrendsData.doc                                                                                                                 TrendsResults.xls