Renowned Archaeologist & Founder of New Archaeology, Lewis Binford Expired

Lewis Binford, a renowned archaeologist and founder of the New Archaeology movement died at the age of 80 on 11 April 2011. Professor Binford revolutionised archaeology in the 1960s and 1970s by elevating its status from a descriptive study of antiquities to a scientific discipline devoted to anthropological understanding of ways of life of ancient societies. He suggested the archaeology as anthropology proposition went on to become a dominant paradigm in contemporary archaeology.

New Archaeology, laid emphasis on a regional approach to archaeological sites, method of hypothesis testing and culture as a system of inter-related components serving as means of human adaptation. These concepts put forth by Binford have become central tenets of modern archaeology and made Professor Binford a legendary figure.

Professor Binford's field studies covered archaeological sites in North America, Europe, Africa and Middle East. His major contributions in the field of study include interpretation of differences in prehistoric stone tool assemblages in terms of seasonal variations in human activity, emergence of agricultural way of life due to innovative initiatives of splinter hunter-gatherer groups that moved away from their parent communities.

He also made pioneering contributions to ethnoarchaeology and conducted prolonged investigations of the Nunamiut Eskimos of Alaska.

He published about a dozen major books on archaeology like- New Perspectives in Archaeology, Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology, Bones; Ancient Men and Modern Myths and In pursuit of the Past. Three volumes, entitled An Archaeological Perspective, Working at Archaeology and Debating Archaeology are collections of his major research papers. His last major publication- Constructing Frames of Reference, was published by the Chicago University Press in 200l and dealt with 400 hunter-gatherer societies across the world.