# Talk:Saxe–Goldstein hypothesis


### Saxe–Goldstein hypothesis
The Saxe–Goldstein hypothesis was one of the great insights of processual archaeology in the 1970s, and all the more remarkable for coming in a "mere" doctoral thesis. I'm having the quixotic idea of taking this to FAC at some point in the near future. It's not the most obviously accessible of topics, and archaeological theory is rarely an exciting read at the best of times, so I'm looking for help in making it as accessible as possible without sacrificing the degree of precision necessary for some of the points of argumentation. I've also had to write it in American English, of which I am only barely a competent speaker. Pinging Femke, who gave the article an excellent going-over at GA, and some archaeologically inclined FAC hands -- Generalissima, Gog the Mild, and Mike Christie. Your thoughts and those of any others would be extremely gratefully received. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:41, 21 September 2025 (UTC)


#### Comments from Mike Christie
Thanks for the ping.  A very interesting article on a topic I knew little about -- I knew of the correlation lurking in the "theoretical unconscious" of Neolithic archaeologists, as you put it, but didn't know the origins of the idea.
A couple of thoughts from an initial read, first.

Two terms used in the lead are technical enough that I wonder if they could be deferred to the body: "middle range theory" and "corporate group".  The latter could probably explained parenthetically in a couple of words, but the meaning doesn't seem complex enough to me for there to be any loss of nuance if we drop it from the lead.  The former took me a few minutes reading to fully understand, and I think would be very difficult to clarify in the lead, though I can see it will need to be used in the body.
I'm not sure what dropping "corporate groups" from the lead would look like, especially as it's such an important (and recurring) term in the discussion of the hypothesis: we could just cut to "groups", I suppose, but that seems to lose precision for no real benefit, since it's exactly what a reader taking the existing framing as "blah-blah groups" would understand. Could always footnote? Certainly could cut "middle-range theory" to "theory", though that would mean we end up leaning on the conventional meaning of "theory", and I'm sure we'll get some scientists come along and complain that a hypothesis and a theory are different things. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:10, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
I agree it's best to retain precise language, and per ONEDOWN I think both terms are appropriate in the lead. For "corporate groups" the issues is just the common meaning of "corporate", which is wildly misleading.  I think a footnote could work per NOFORCELINK but I'd be OK just leaving it if you prefer to.  For "middle range theory", how about cutting it to "theory" in the lead but still linking to middle range theory?  If you do want to keep it in the lead, I think a footnote would be helpful. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 14:38, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
I've put something in on middle-range theory (the obvious link from "theory" would be archaeological theory). At the moment it's only in the lead, since I think I did a reasonable job of the in-text explanation when the term comes up in the body. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:49, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
It seems there are three things being discussed: Saxe's original hypothesis 8, which is bidirectional; Goldstein's refinement, which is one-way; and the Saxe-Binford program, which you bold in the lead, indicating (I assume) that it's considered to be part of the topic of this article, and which is broader than either.  The account you give of research drawing upon these ideas seems almost entirely to be about Goldstein's revised version: Binford's work on the funerary practices of 40 different societies is an exception, as is the mention of Brown's work. In the body, almost all the descriptions in "Applications" date from after Goldstein's refinement.  If the article is about all three versions of the theory, is that a reasonable distribution of examples?  Does the Saxe-Binford program deserve a separate article, in other words?
I'm not sure tha Saxe–Binford program deserves all that much -- it's basically a "weaker" form of the hypothesis that states "we can maybe learn some stuff about people from what they do with their dead". I'm not saying nobody will ever write a decent article about it, but I think the redirect to this article serves a purpose and probably won't be usurped any time soon. On the distinction between the purely Saxean and the Saxe–Goldstein, see below -- basically, once Goldstein came along, the "old" Hypothesis 8 essentially ceased to exist in scholarship. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:10, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
A related point: given that almost all the applications quoted post-date Goldstein's reformulation, was Saxe's version regarded as influential in the 1970s?  Or was it only when Goldstein's work was published that it began to be more broadly used?
Yes, I think it's right to say that Saxe is rarely spoken of without Goldstein, and that the overwhelming majority of citations to Saxe are to Saxe–Goldstein. Ian Morris talks about it being popular in the 1970s (before Goldstein), but only actually says New Archaeologists seized on Hypothesis 8 in the 1970s as a way to examine prehistoric land tenure: he doesn't cite any examples, and on JSTOR the only ones I can find are Binford and Saxe himself EDIT: that was not quite true: there are one or two others towards the end of the 1970s that I'll read through and see if I can add.. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:10, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
Ha -- so there are three articles from before 1979 that mention Saxe on JSTOR, other than those by Saxe himself and Binford's "Study and Potential". One doesn't mention Hypothesis 8 at all, one merely nods to Saxe as an example of recent renewed interest in the link between burial and social organization, and the final one (Joseph Tainter, who certainly is a big name in New Archaeology) immediately brings in this clever young scholar called Goldstein! If we were allowed to do OR, I'd say that (pace Morris) the hypothesis doesn't really seem to have got off the ground as a theoretical tool until Goldstein tightened it up, though Saxe's work in general clearly made a very big splash for a PhD thesis. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:16, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
OK, glad to see that a little can be added.  Re the overall clarification on the relative importance of the three strands, can that be made more explicit in the article?  I can see that a summary statement like that might be hard to source, however. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 14:43, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
I've added what I think I can, which is a brief mention of Tainter's work in Hawaii (he has an earlier publication which applies different parts of Saxe's thesis, but not Hypothesis 8). It would be nice if we had such a categoric statement of how the three fit together: I'm not sure we do, unfortunately. On the other hand, I'm not sure I have quite understood the problem that it would solve: are you saying it would be nice to be able to concretely state Goldstein's importance in "popularising" Saxe's ideas? UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:41, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
The problem, if there was or still is one, is that the article seemed to me to declare it was about three things which did not seem to be quite the same, but it went on to discuss only one of those in great detail.  How about unbolding Saxe-Binford program, and creating a redirect for that phrase to the "Parallel work by Lewis Binford" subsection?  To me the bolding means "this is another name for this topic", not just "everything about the bolded topic is within this article.Yes, it would be nice to be able to say something categorical about the change in the popularity or influence of the hypothesis between hypothesis 8 and Goldstein's version.  If it's not in the sources, that's not possible.  I do find it interesting that per Morris it was "widely adopted and developed" in the 1970s but you have not found much evidence of this work. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:24, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
So do I. I suppose not all of the work he's talking about needs to be in the public domain today -- most doctoral theses from that era are hard to get hold of outside university libraries, and even Saxe's took some serious digging. But however much I'm sceptical of his framing, that's ultimately OR and I wasn't there, so I'm not sure I'm ready to overrule him. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:20, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
The applications section reads rather like a list in prose form.  I'm not sure what can be done about that.  You already have some connective tissue in there: "did the same in 1996"; "also in 1995".  If there's any way to give this more flow that would be helpful.  I don't think this is the right suggestion, but it does occur to me that if you dropped the names of the researchers, and perhaps even the dates, it might be easier to draw the parallels between the uses of the hypotheses without making it feel like a list.
Good observation. Will think on it. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:10, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
I've had quite a gentle go at it -- trying to create a structure that isn't just chronological. We now have a paragraph on the early studies in which the hypothesis "caught on", and early evidence that it was useful, and then go into one on the more anthropological side of it, one on how the idea spread across people studying different regions and different time periods, and one on how it has been integrated into more post-processual thinking. This means using uncited summary sentences, but those should be OK under WP:NOTCITE. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:37, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
I think that's an improvement.  The summary sentences let the reader know that the material is being presented in an organized way. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:19, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
More later, after more coffee. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 13:03, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

"and that mortuary differentiation according to age correlated negatively with the level of hereditary inequality in a society".  The source has "in egalitarian societies, social status would be acquired through personal achievements over time, and therefore, it would be expected, for example, that young individuals would have little social prestige. Thus, in egalitarian societies, there would be a marked differentiation of mortuary practices according to age. More specifically, Binford predicted that this age differentiation would be expressed through the burial of young individuals outside the physical space of the community". I don't think the way you say this is wrong, but unless I'm misreading the source I think this could be clearer, since it's not apparent (to me, anyway) that "mortuary differentiation according to age" means that younger people might be buried outside the community burying grounds.  The source uses more egalitarian societies as examples which makes it easier to explain what the difference is.
-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:24, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
Having read through a couple of times I think I have enough of a grasp of the topic to go through in a bit more detail.

"As a result, it became known as the Saxe–Goldstein hypothesis": perhaps "this revised version became known as ..."?  The reason it became known this way is not just because of what Goldstein said, but because it was more widely accepted.
"it was applied to (among others) the distribution of megalithic tombs in the European Stone Age, to prehistoric Aboriginal burial grounds near Australia's Murray River, and to the different levels of state control over cemeteries in classical Athens and ancient Rome": I think "(among others)" has to be before the "to" if you want to leave the "to" in the two later clauses.  Or just add something like "... and many other mortuary practices" at the end instead.
"Processual archaeology emphasized": does the past tense mean there are no longer any processual archaeologists?
You'll have a better sense of this than me, but... I think so? Very few of the big names are still with us, even fewer are still publishing, and as far as I know even they have had to move with the current into the generally post-labels world of loosely post-processual thinking. Isn't there a much-quoted line from the 1980s that "real" processualism was already looking like a relic of 1960s hippyism? But then I wouldn't particularly object to the present tense: we write "Marxist theory considers X" without having to first check that there are any living Marxists. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:03, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
I'm OK with leaving it as is or changing it to present tense, as you prefer.  I just tried searching for evidence one way or the other, and the (non-RS) sources I found all talk about processual archaeology as a thing of the past, and/or say that every archaeology department now has incorporated post-processual ideas in some way. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:23, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
You describe Saxe as an anthropologist.  As far as I can tell, the three examples Saxe gives are of then-extant societies.  Was Saxe presenting his eight hypotheses as anthropological hypotheses,  or was he explicitly proposing that these anthropological observations could be used to make archaeological deductions?  You do say further down of Binford's comments that "Saxe later did" as Binford proposed so it seems that way but I wanted to check.  Saxe's comment that his own hypotheses needed further testing implies anthropological, not archaeological testing.
I will need to read the thesis again, but I think Saxe was sticking firmly to anthropology -- he envisaged people going and testing the hypothesis by talking to living people. Binford, famously, thought that all archaeology was either anthropology or stamp-collecting. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:03, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
If it can be clearly seen (e.g. because it's explicit in her chapter) that Goldstein was the one who turned it from an anthropological hypothesis to a tool for archaeological deduction, I think that would be worth saying directly, but it may not be clear in the record. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:26, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
This may be the fault of the linked articles, but when you say "rather than as consequences of the ancestry of different cultural groups or of contacts between them (the cultural diffusionist or culture-historical model then prevalent in archaeology)", it appears that cultural diffusionism is not quite the same thing as a culture-historical approach, so should this not be "models"?
"Joanne Curtin, in 2017, described the work of Saxe and Binford as the most significant recent development in funerary archaeology": this refers to the Saxe-Binford program, I assume?  Can we say that directly?  It also seems a bit odd to me that a source could say this in 2017 whereas you have multiple sources confirming that the related Saxe-Goldstein hypothesis is widely regarded as a "disused theoretical tool".
I think two things can be true: Darwin was one of the most significant scientists of modern times and was wrong about almost everything (or at least, we only use his ideas as refined by people who came later). I think that's what Curtin was getting at -- not that they were right, but that their work created the direction of travel that made the field what it is today. See below on distinctions of terminology. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:45, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
In the applications section, Saxe and Gall's argument that the Swidden farmers behaviour was evidence for hypothesis 8 is not clear to me.  I don't know if you want to give enough detail for the reader to be able to follow their argument, though -- after all I can go read that paper if I'm interested.  What I don't follow is who the corporate group is in this situation.  The only group we've named is the entire community of farmers.  Similarly in the Bloch and Brown example I don't know who the corporate group is.  As I say you may not think this matters, or perhaps I'm missing something.
"In 1981, Brown described the methods of Saxe and Binford as ...": if this is not directly about the Saxe-Goldstein hypothesis, does it belong here?  Or is the source of my confusion above that the Saxe-Binford program is really a subtopic of this article?
To me, they're fundamentally the same thing: or, at least, Hypothesis 8/Saxe–Goldstein is the largest (impact-wise) and really the only surviving plank of the rather woolly idea that is Saxe–Binford. Intellectually speaking, Saxe doesn't really exist outside Saxe–Goldstein, and only arguably ever did (the other seven hypotheses come up only extremely rarely in the scholarship). I think you're making more of a distinction between the two than I would, and than I intended when writing the article: I don't know if there's a way to guide readers better here? UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:45, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
The usefulness of my comments is clearly suffering from my lack of expertise in the field, but the more you respond to my naive questions the better I think I understand the article.  I gather these summative comments of yours can't really be sourced, which is a pity, because this last comment of yours has (I think) made the relationship of the three much clearer to me. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 20:23, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
I'll have another look through the summary sources and see if I can find something to the effect of "Goldstein's formulation is the one everyone uses today". UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:18, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
Down to the reception section; more to come. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:26, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

"due both to cultural changes and to methodological difficulties with its study": what does "cultural changes" refer to here?
-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:41, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
I've had a look in the Internet Archive for other commentary about the hypothesis.  Most of what I found you already include, but see if you think any of these could be used:

Ashmore & Geller, "Social dimensions of mortuary space", in Rakita et al. (2005), Interacting with the Dead.  Quote "The much-discussed Saxe/Goldstein hypothesis also deals centrally with space, in linking existence of discrete burial grounds to the importance of competition among corporate groups for critical localized resources (for example, Charles and Buikstra 1983; Goldstein 1976, 1981; Saxe 1970). Such analyses, involving individual and community social scales, continue to provide extremely fruitful inferences".  This seems a relatively late vote of support for the utility of the hypothesis.
Tarlow, Bereavement and Commemoration (1999), has a short discussion on p. 10 that includes a comment that the nomenclature of the hypotheses is badly defined in the literature -- not sure if that can be used but I am glad to see someone else found the relationships between hypotheses confusing!
Shennan, "The Spread of Farming", in Kohler et al. The Model-Based Archaeology of Socionatural Systems (2007).  Quote: "Cemeteries would have come into existence for precisely the reasons proposed in the long-standing Saxe- Goldstein model: to represent an ancestral claim to territory in the face of increasing competition as local carrying capacities began to be reached. Indeed, just this argument has been used by van der Velde (1996) and Kneipp (1998; Zimmermann 2002) to account for the establishment of the Niedermerz 3 cemetery on the Aldenhovener Platte in the fifty-second century cal. BC.". This is just a passing reference rather than a summary comment but perhaps this is an example of the hypothesis continuing to be taken seriously in discussions of specific cases, even if more theoretical discussions are dismissive at the same time.
I will poke around a bit more later if you think these are of any use; no problem if you feel this material is already sufficiently covered. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:31, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I've got what I think I can out of these -- they were useful. Added an EFN based on Tarlow and a cite to the work mentioned in Shennan (interestingly and frustratingly, the major study S. cites as using the Saxe--Goldstein hypothesis doesn't actually name it, though as its author was a co-editor on the book in which S. makes the claim, we can assume he didn't object, and his argument is practically identical to Saxe's). I didn't use Ashmore and Geller, as they're upholding it in 2005 but the last "fruitful" work they cite is from 1999 (and mentioned in our article) -- that doesn't quite show us that people were using it in 2005, which would have been definitely worth dropping in. UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:53, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
What you've done looks fine to me.  The only point remaining above that I might be inclined to raise when you take this to FAC is the one about Saxe and Gall's study -- who is the corporate group in their study?  It would make no sense for it to be all farmers. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 13:16, 30 September 2025 (UTC)


#### MSincccc
Lead
Delink "archaeology"?
Useful in the first sentence, I  think. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
Robert Rosenswig, Margaret Briggs, and Marilyn Masson
We have Wikipedia articles on each two of these three persons. Hence, they could be linked here.
The above are my initial thoughts. 
I'll try to provide a more detailed review later. MSincccc (talk) 18:14, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

Saxe's formulation
Saxs has already been introduced as "the anthropologist". Do we need to do so again in this section?
Only in the lead, so we do, per MOS:LEAD. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
"It was based in the role theory"→
"It was based on the role theory"

I think "based in" is better: it wasn't a development of role theory, but it had its foundations there. Christianity is based in Jewish religious thought, but it wouldn't be accurate to say it's based on it. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
More common in American English.
respectively of Central Papua, Ghana, and Luzon
Optional How about linking "Ghana in this sentence?
We don't link existing countries per MOS:OVERLINK. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
A few more. MSincccc (talk) 10:27, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Application
In 1981, Brown described the methods of Saxe and Binford as a means of applying the social theories of Morton Fried and Elman Service, who studied the development and evolution of socio-political organization, to material culture.[31] Robert Chapman, in the same year, argued for the utility of the Saxe–Goldstein hypothesis to explain the distribution of megalithic tombs in prehistoric Europe.[32]
Can this be moved up to before mentioning the 1984 study by Glazier?
This is now done as part of a broader reorganisation. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
Bottom line
UndercoverClassicist That's all from me on the article for the time being, though I might return later with further suggestions. The article was an engaging read. I hope you found my suggestions useful. MSincccc (talk) 06:58, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
P.S. I've made one of the suggested revisions to the article. I hope you don't mind. Let me know what you think of the rest. More after I have re-read the article. MSincccc (talk) 07:21, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi MSincccc: I'm just working my way though Mike's comments above, which need a bit of thinking, but I'll get to these -- any further ideas gratefully received. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:48, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
And replies now above, with thanks. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)