title: Ethnographic analogy, the comparative method, and archaeological special pleading.
abstract: Ethnographic analogy, the use of comparative data from anthropology to inform reconstructions of past human societies, has a troubled history. Archaeologists often express concern about, or outright reject, the practice--and sometimes do so in problematically general terms. This is odd, as (or so I argue) the use of comparative data in archaeology is the same pattern of reasoning as the 'comparative method' in biology, which is a well-developed and robust set of inferences which play a central role in discovering the biological past. In pointing out this continuity, I argue that there is no 'special pleading' on the part of archaeologists in this regard: biologists must overcome analogous epistemic difficulties in their use of comparative data. I then go on to emphasize the local, empirically tractable ways in which particular ethnographic analogies may be licensed.
authors.affiliation: Philosophy Department, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr NW, Calgary T2N1N4, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: adrian.currie@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Currie
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001106:Archaeology / Q000379:methods*; D049690:History, Ancient; D015186:Hominidae; D006801:Humans
keywords: Archaeology; Comparative method; Ethnographic analogy; Evidence; Uniformitarianism