Lewis R. Binford

1930-present

    Lewis R. Binford was born on November 21, 1930 in Norfolk Virginia. He attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute where he studied wildlife biology. Binford became interested in anthropology while serving in the military in Japan after the Korean War. He was working with a group of anthropologists as their interpreter while they worked to resettle displaced persons off Saipan, Iwo Jima, and other islands, at the end of the war. While with them, he did some archaeology and learned a little about anthropology. He entered and graduated from the University of North Carolina where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree. Binford later attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,  from 1957-1961, where he earned his Master of Arts degree and his Ph.D.  In 1961 he became as assistant professor at the University of Chicago, but Binford taught mainly at the University of New Mexico.

    After college he married Sally, who was also an archaeologist. Binford is best known as the pioneer of a movement called the "New Archaeology" which began along with a few others in the 1960's; part of this was ethno-archaeology, which is a prevalent specialization in modern archaeology which argues that an understanding of the archaeological record is only possible through an understanding of the process through which it was formed; thus, ethno-archaeology includes the study of living peoples and their material cultures with the goal being the more complete understanding of the archaeological record. Proponents of New Archaeology believed in the use of quantitative methods and the practice of archaeology as a rigorous science. 

    Lewis Binford wrote many books and articles, many of which were controversial and received criticism from others, which he was quick to provide rebuttals to. Many of Binford's ideas have been incorporated in the theory and methodology of modern archeology and can be found in the books he has authored or co-authored:

An Archeological Perspective (1972)

Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology (1972)
Bones: Ancient Men & Modern Myths (1981)

Faunal Remains From Klasies River Mouth (1984)
In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archeological Record (2002)
Working At  Archeology (1983)

 

 References

Former link, http://www.biography.com/cgi-bin/biomain.cgi, 2006

Binford, Lewis R., Toolworks Multimedia Encyclopedia

Binford, Lewis R., An Archeological Perspective

An Interview With Lewis Binford by Colin Renfrew.    Current Anthropology, 1987.  

Written By: Anthropology Students at Minnesota State University, Mankato, 1998

Edited By: Lillian Dolentz , 2008