Middle-Range Theory, Behavioral Archaeology, and Postempiricist Philosophy of Science in Archaeology

This paper examines middle-range theory (MRT) within processual and postprocessual archaeology. An analysis of the Binford-Schiffer dispute serves as a means of clarifying what MRT in processual archaeology is or is intended to be. Postprocessualists, despite their vigorous criticisms of MRT-based approaches, are found to rely on the same resources and types of reasoning to make their inferences. In their practice they tacitly turn to processualist middle-range principles, and so the justification of postprocessual interpretations is equivalent to that of MRT-based processualist models. If the middle range is functionally defined -- a space within a research program occupied by varying theories that are taken from the body of general theory to which the program is committed and that function as background knowledge in the verification of theories -- MRT bridges the epistemological gap between processual and postprocessual approaches.