民族考古学(ethnoarchaeology)作为一门有理论和方法的边缘学科,形成于20世纪60年代初。这一学科主要基于一个被许多考古学家都接受的基本假设,即社会文化体系中的一些文化行为要素具有一定的物质表现形式,也就是与一定的物质要素相关联。如果这些物质要素在考古资料中有所体现,那么我们就可以运用这类考古遗迹、遗物来推论与其相关联的文化行为。其间,如果用来进行比较的古今两种社会文化体系,其生活环境和生产技术存在许多相似之处时,对现代文化行为的观察,就更有助于深入理解和阐释古代社会的文化行为。民族考古学的研究,是从考古学的视角出发来对现代社会文化行为进行调查和研究。民族考古学家是要系统地阐述文化行为与物质文化之间 Ethnoarchaeology, as a marginal subject with theory and method, was formed in the early 1960s. This subject is largely based on the basic assumption accepted by many archaeologists that some elements of cultural behavior in a social-cultural system have some form of materialization that is associated with certain material elements. If these material elements are reflected in the archaeological data, then we can use such archaeological sites, relics to infer the cultural behavior associated with them. In the meantime, if there are many similarities between living environment and production technology, the observation of the modern cultural behavior will help to understand and interpret the cultural behavior of ancient society. The research of ethnic archeology investigates and studies the cultural behaviors of modern society from the perspective of archeology. Ethnic archeologists systematically elaborate the cultural behavior and material culture