When archeologists always find certain types of artefacts together, and they can associate them with a specific region and time period, they speak about an archeological culture. They also say that the society has this material culture. This is an empirical observation, a good guess, though. It is based on how archeologicsts think, ethnic groups were distributed at the time. Often, there are long discusions about such findings.

Advocates of culture-historical archaeology say that sets of material culture can be used to trace ancient groups of people that were either self-identifying societies or ethnic groups. Archaeological culture is a way to order archaeological data. It is focused on artifacts as an expression of culture rather than people.^[1] The classic definition of this idea comes from Gordon Childe:^[2]

We find certain types of remains – pots, implements, ornaments, burial rites and house forms – constantly recurring together. Such a complex of associated traits we shall call a "cultural group" or just a "culture". We assume that such a complex is the material expression of what today we would call "a people".

— Childe 1929, pp. v–vi