What is middle level research? How does the principle of uniformitarianism relate to middle level theory? What is the objective of doing this kind of research?
Middle level research is a research method that tries to find ways to infer behavior from modern archaeological record. Middle level research has three parts, Taphonomy, Experimental archaeology, and Ethnoarchaeology. Taphonomy focuses on natural processes that play a role in creating an archaeological record and Experimental archaeology studies controlled experiments that to recreate the conditions of the past to find connections between humans and archeological consequences. Ethnoarchaeology studies current societies to see how they are reflected into records of archeology.
Uniformitarianism is a principle that argues that the processes that occur on Earth now are the same processes that affected the Earth throughout time. Middle level theory is based on uniformitarianism and tries to find why an inference is true.