Middle-range theory (archaeology)

[2][3] He conducted ethnographic fieldwork amongst modern hunter-gatherer peoples such as the Nunamiut Eskimo, the Navajo, and Aboriginal Australians in order to understand the pattern of waste their activities generated.

Its critics argued that it rested on the unjustified assumption that there is a uniform link between behaviour and physical remains that holds true throughout human history.

Binford's structure for middle-range theory consists of four components: 1) documentation of causal relations between relevant dynamics and observable statics; 2) recognition of signature patterns in static remains; 3) inference of past dynamics from observation of signature patterns in archaeological record; and, 4) evaluation of these inferences.

In archaeology, Binford's method states that a strong relation to natural science will withstand close evaluation in that the theories and evidence should tie together.

The falls middle-range theory are on par with archaeology and anthropology as a whole because only small segments of people and material can be studied to produce an accurate depiction of past life.