nonprocessual

Nonprocessual is a term used in archaeology and related disciplines to describe approaches that emphasize historical particularity, description, and typological organization of artifacts and cultures rather than modeling broad processes of cultural change or testing general laws. It is often associated with culture-history or descriptive archaeology that seeks to reconstruct past lifeways from material remains within specific regions or populations.

Historically, nonprocessual approaches prioritized the contextual meaning of artifacts, site sequences, and regional stylistic differences. Methods commonly employed include artifact inventories, typologies, stratigraphic correlation, and the construction of regional cultural histories. The aim was to understand what past societies were like by documenting patterns, sequences, and relationships among material remains, rather than explaining why those patterns emerged through universal mechanisms.

Nonprocessual archaeology is typically contrasted with processual archaeology, which emerged in the 1960s and sought generalizable explanations based on systems theory, functional analysis, and environmental or economic factors. In later decades, post-processual or interpretive approaches challenged some processual assumptions by foregrounding meaning, symbolism, agency, and multiple interpretations. The term nonprocessual is sometimes used in discussions of these debates to denote non-theoretical or non-explanatory descriptions, though its usage has varied and is less common as a formal label today.

Critics of nonprocessual approaches argue that a focus on description can neglect questions of causation, change over time, and social dynamics. Proponents counter that historical specificity and contextual interpretation are essential for understanding past cultures on their own terms. Today, the term is used more as a historical reference than as a standing scholarly program, with debates often framed in terms of structure, agency, or methodological pluralism.