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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 April 2011
Archaeologists have long sought to identify the key indicators which would allow them to measure the level and rate of cultural development. Technology and energy capture are two of the indicators which have been proposed, but there are grounds for objecting that these are still variables dependent on another factor: the capacity of a culture to record and process information. The communication of information has been studied by archaeologists but their paradigms, such as the diffusionist model, have been found wanting and discarded. The goal of studying ancient communication processes is an ideal, but achieving it with the data available to archaeologists will be very difficult.
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