旧石器考古学的目标、制约和挑战

旧石器研究可以设法解决包括现代人起源和扩散在内的最重大的考古学问题,因此常常会引起公众的关注和想象。要重建旧石器时代人类生活状况显然也面临着很多问题,既有数据局限性导致的实践上的限制,也有试图理解发现本身时遇到的解释性的困难。过去的研究已经证明了实验考古学和民族考古学可以解决其中一些问题,但这也突显了考古学家所面临的限制。

Goals,constraints and challenges of palaeolithic archaeology

Palaeolithic research can address some of archaeology’s biggest questions, including the origins and spread of modern humans. As a result, research often attracts much public attention and imagination. It is clear, however, that the reconstruction of life in the Palaeolithic faces many problems, both practical in terms of the limitations of the data and interpretive in trying to make sense of the finds. Both experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology have proven useful in dealing with some of these problems, but they also emphasize some of the constraints archaeologists face.