the study of contemporary cultures with a view to understanding the behavioral relationships which underlie the production of material culture.

The study of living or ethnohistorically known peoples for the purposes of generating archaeologically useful data.

The scientific study and interpretation of culture based on interaction with and observation of living people.

Study of contemporary communities along with the archaeological sites that surround them.

Ethnoarchaeology is the ethnographic study of peoples for archaeological reasons, usually focusing on the material remains of a society, rather than its culture. Ethnoarchaeology aids archaeologists in reconstructing ancient lifeways by studying the material and non-material traditions of modern societies. Archaeologists can then infer that ancient societies used the same techniques as their modern counterparts given a similar set of environmental circumstances.