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The Quality of Tribute Cloth: The Place of Evidence in Archaeological Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Elizabeth M. Brumfiel
Elizabeth M. Brumfiel*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Albion College, Albion, MI 49224
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Abstract

This paper continues the discussion of objectivity, subjectivity, and the place of evidence in archaeological argument begun by Wylie (1992a), Little (1994), and Fotiadis (1994). First, it describes my expectations concerning Indian women’s resistance to tribute cloth extraction in Aztec and colonial Mexico. Then, it explains how I tested my expectations against several bodies of archaeological data. Finally, it analyzes how I did and did not alter my initial beliefs in the face of a gap between the expected and the actual data. This study supports earlier conclusions by Trigger (1989) and Wylie (1992b) that data are somewhat independent of the archaeologists who collect them and that data have some impact on the larger edifice of assumptions that archaeologists bring to their research.

Este artículo continúa la discusión sobre la objectividad, la subjectividad, y elpapel de los datos en la argumentación arqueológica empezada por Wylie (1992a), Little (1994), y Fotiadis (1994). Primero, describo mis expectativas sobre la resistencia de las mujeres indígenas contra la expropiación tributaria de mantas en el México azteca y colonial. Entonces, explico la manera en que contrasté mis expectativas con algunos conjuntos de datos arqueológicos. Luego, analizo cómo mis hipótesis initiales se modificaron o se mantuvieran gracias a la diferencia entre los datos esperadosy los datos obtenidos. Este estudio apoya las conclusiones anteriores de Trigger (1989) y Wylie (1992b) que los datos son independientes hasta cierto punto de los arqueólogos que los recogen y que los datos tienen cierta influencia sobre la estructura de presupuestos que los arqueólogos traen a sus investigaciones.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , July 1996 , pp. 453 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1996

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