"The historicism of postprocessual archaeology and its pleasures," in G.W. Most, ed., Historicization-Historisierung, Aporemata. Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte, Bd 5, Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001, pp. 339-364. (original) (raw)
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Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, 1997
and Daniel Miller have in common? What are the relationships between McGuire's A MarxistArchaeology (1992) and Zen and the Art of Mo to rcycle Ma intenance (persig 1974)1 If you like the conjunction of paradigms from philosophy and psychology, reflections upon science and the humanities, refreshing reconsiderations of the processual and post-processual debates, and mental gymnastics, you will undoubtedly enjoy a majority of the essays found in this unique book. The goal of this volume is to reflect upon recent theoretical issues in archaeology. The commentators are, in the main, practicing archaeologists educated in the British tradition with substantial backgrounds in social anthropology, social theory, and philosophy. Therefore, some North American-trained anthropological anthropologists may find the scope of this interesting and introspective volume uncustomary and controver sial, perhaps even disjointed and diffused. The work goes beyond the "Old" and "New" Archaeology para digms, modernism. and post-modernism, objectivist and processual versus contextualist and post process ualist approaches, as well as other theoretical (and methodological) dichotomies. A majority of the authors are concerned about the major debates on archaeological theory that have taken place during the past two decades-for example, science and interpretation, and processualism and post-process ualism. Likewise, the papers concern the interr elationships of archaeology and contemporary social theory and draw from philosophy, the structure of science, gender studies, and ethics, among other humanities and social and physical sciences. In sum, the book engages an important question: Has contemporary theory in archaeology moved from constructive, "progressive" dialogues to a series of defensive, intractable positions or "pos tures?" Mackenzie also states that the idea that archaeologists " ... can disengage their personal, social, and political context from their work must also be construed as posturing" (p. 26). There are many fresh voices and divergent opinions presenting some invigorating ideas and challenging theoreticians of archaeological discourse.
Archaeological Dialogues, 2018
The paper ponders on the object of archaeology, called here 'the archaeological.' It argues that the existence of such an object is a necessary premise of the field and that ultimately it is on this object that the validity of all claims and arguments must rest. The paper suggests that the archaeological be conceived as a cultural phenomenon that consists in being disengaged from the social, an understanding that positions archaeology as a counterpart to the social sciences and the humanities, rather than a member in the same milieu. The first part of the paper focuses on the position of the archaeological with reference to the concepts of 'Nature' and 'Culture' that eventually leads us to a confrontation of archaeological statics with the dynamics of the world. Efforts to justify and understand archaeological statics, consequently, leads to the recognition of a constitutive distinction between buried and non-buried conditions, upon which the differentiation of the archaeological from the social is established.
Towards Archaeological Theory: a History
The Power of Reason, the Matter of Prehistory. Papers in Honour of Antonio Gilman Guillén, 2020
Díaz-Andreu, Margarita. 2020. "Towards Archaeological Theory: a history." In The Power of Reason, the Matter of Prehistory. Papers in Honour of Antonio Gilman Guillén, edited by Pedro Díaz-del-Río, Katina Lillios, & Inés Sastre, 41-53. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. ABSTRACT - This article provides a historical overview of the interest in archaeological methods and theory. Starting with nineteenth-century positivism, attention will be paid to a preoccupation with methods at the turn of the century and the appearance of a focus on theory in the 1930s. Moving from the UK to the US, the proposals made by the generations preceding the appearance of the New Archaeology paradigm in the 1940s and 1950s will be briefly described. The context that made possible the emergence of the New Archaeology is then explained and sorne ideas about when its might began to diminish will also be given. The ultimate aim of this article is to serve as a context for understanding the situation of theoretical archaeology at the time in which Antonio Gilman learned about the profession and practiced it. The article finishes with sorne thoughts on archaeological paradigms. CONTENT: Introduction | Positivism, friendships, and methods | From method to theory – from Europe to America | The vital, ingenious and imaginative generation of the late 1930s and 1940s | ‘Fast and furious’ changes: the 1950s | New Archaeology | A brief note about New Archaeology’s aftermath | Conclusion |
Archaeology is (sometimes) History, or it is Nothing. The Value of History as Critical Archaeology
M. Cruz Berrocal, L. García, A. Gilman (eds.) The Prehistory of Iberia. Debating Early Social Stratification and the State. Routledge, London: 29-49
This book contains the writings of a selection of Spanish archaeologies and archaeologists dealing with different temporal and geographical aspects of Iberian prehistory, all of them substantial and signifi cant topics in themselves. The contributions to this book were, however, also intended as displays of a way of making and understanding archaeology within a profoundly historical tradition such as the Spanish. This chapter attempts to frame this one characteristic of this book-that is, being about an archaeology rooted in history. Thus, it deals with the fundamental historicity of Spanish archaeology, its context and further development ( historicity being the quality of being historical, without any theoretical implication; historicism , on the other hand, is usually equated with culture-history, a particular theoretical framework).
Contemporary Issues in Archaeological Theory
This course explores how archaeologists make sense of the world from artifacts of the past. Human practices and cultural processes resonate, live within the material traces that surround us in our everyday life. How do archaeologists re-imagine these traces as residues of real people in history rather than imaginary beings and ghosts? How do archaeologists place material objects and spaces in the context of human practices, cultural processes and long-term history? In short, we will read, think and write about archaeological ways of thinking about the world. Archaeology, as a modern discipline, investigates the past through the study of its material remains. This material record is documented and interpreted through various intellectual activities from fieldwork to publication. But archaeologists are usually torn between their work in the field (digging, surveying, drawing, travelling, taking notes) and in their academic environment (processing data, interpreting, publishing). Throughout the semester we will spend some thought on this divided life between the field and discourse, and explore some of the novel attempts have been made to bridge them. Archaeology frequently becomes entangled with our daily lives through its politicized engagement with the past and issues of identity. We will examine various theoretical approaches and historiographic models used in archaeology since its inception in the 19th century, while putting a particular emphasis on the recent developments in the theories and methodologies in archaeology in the last few decades. It is intended to provide a solid theoretical and historigraphic basis for the discipline of archaeology. The first few weeks of the course will be dedicated to discussing the central movements in the discipline such as culture-history, New Archaeology, and contextual archaeology, while the second half deals with more contemporary theoretical paradigms such as gender and sexuality, technology and agency, space, place and landscape, and issues of cultural heritage. Particular archaeological materials, sites, projects will be used in discussing the potentials and disadvantages of various approaches. Archaeological case studies will be drawn mostly from the ancient Western Asian and Mediterranean worlds.
After interpretation: Remembering archaeology
Current Swedish Archaeology 20, 2012
In the light of some significant anniversaries, this paper discusses the fate of archaeological theory after the heyday of postprocessualism. While once considered a radical and revolutionary alternative, post-processual or interpretative archaeology remarkably soon became normalized, mainstream and hegem-onic, leading to the theoretical lull that has characterized its aftermath. Recently, however, this consen-sual pause has been disrupted by new materialist perspectives that radically depart from the postproces-sual orthodoxy. Some outcomes of these perspectives are proposed and discussed, the most significant being a return to archaeology-an archaeology that sacri fices the imperatives of historical narratives, so-ciologies, and hermeneutics in favour of a trust in the soiled and ruined things themselves and the memories they afford.
Archaeology after Interpretation: returning humanity to archaeological theory
Do archaeologists recover the material record of past processes or the residues of the material conditions that made the presence of a kind of humanness possible? This paper attempts to emphasize the importance of distinguishing between these two options and argues the case for, and briefly contemplates the practical implications of, an archaeology of the human presence. Archaeology's propensity to range across a variety of theoretical approaches, from the positivism of the new archaeology, through structuralism, post-structuralism and phenomenology, and on to the current concerns with the extended mind, network theory and the new materialism, and all within a period of fifty or so years, has been taken as indicative of an intellectual posturing that detracts from the 'real' business of doing archaeology (Bintliff 2011 and 2015). This criticism seems, to me at least, to miss the point. All these theoretical approaches are no more than ways to think about the same fundamental question: why do we do archaeology? They allow us to evaluate what we are attempting to bring into view by our study of the material residues of the past. The means by which we establish the object of our studies are not the same means as those that we must employ to achieve such an objective. It has been the failure to distinguish between our definition of what we are studying from the question of how we intend to study it that has resulted in the various theoretical approaches appearing as if they were needless methodological distractions rather than the essential mechanisms that will open-up perspectives on the reality that is the objective of our studies. This confusion between objective and method, which is expressed by the assumption that the objective of archaeology is given by the current methodology, continues to have a detrimental effect upon wider perceptions of the discipline. Most outside observers, along with all too many practitioners, define archaeology in the banal terms of digging, discovery of old things, and the physical analysis of those things (cf. Thomas 2004, 67-9). It is from this perspective that the history of archaeology is written as the development of techniques of recovery and material analysis. This consigns archaeology to the role of antiquarianism, the relevance of which for many contemporary concerns seems marginal at best. Such a negative perception surely contrasts with the more challenging view that archaeology could offer of itself, namely as an enquiry into the full chronological and global extent of humanity's place in history.