TAG 2016 Southampton.SESSION ABSTRACT - Typology and Relational Theory (original) (raw)
Session Abstract for TAG2016 Southampton - Submit paper abstracts (250 words) to the contacts provided. Deadline 15th November. Typologies have always existed within archaeology as a way of organising, grouping and describing sites and finds; they serve to aid archaeologists in making effective descriptions of changes. In this sense typologies can be seen as a core subject of archaeological investigation. There is however a long standing debate over the value and significance of the typology system. Typologies can be considered vital tools for building chronologies, however they can also be seen to reduce or erase variation in the creation of a series of types. This session will aim to readdress this discussion in light of recent research and new theoretical approaches.
Related papers
Some comments on typologies in archaeology and an outline of a methodology
American Antiquity, 1974
Classification is discussed as a procedure for maximizing information about a cultural system from archaeological data. This concept is made rigorous by defining typologies in terms of assumptions about patterning among variables that result from different artifacts being manufactured for use in different activities. Interval-scaled and nominal-scaled variables are considered independently, as the problem to be solved is different in the 2 cases. For continuous variables, the question is what divisions can be made, and for nominal variables, it is what divisions should be made. Two definitions for typologies are given, 1 for continuous variables and 1 for nominal variables. Cluster analysis and analysis of interaction and residuals in contingency tables are outlined as procedures for discovering types with continuous and nominal variables, respectively. Examples of each technique using archaeological data are given.
Paradigm Lost - on the state of typology in archaeological theory
In this paper I try to consider what we mean by typology and why it should matter to us. Looking at some of the early substantial discussion about typology within European prehistoric research I propose we are in danger of loosing theoretical awareness of typology and that the current 'material turn' is not yet moving towards rejuvenating this core concept.
Relational Typologies, Assemblage Theory and Early Bronze Age Burials
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2017
This article argues that artefact types and typologies are kinds of assemblages, presenting an explicitly relational interpretation of typology grounded in a more-than-representational assemblage theory. In the process it evaluates recent approaches to typology, and the interpretations these typologies have supported, and compares these with approaches which emphasize materiality and experience. It then illustrates the benefit of drawing these two angles of analysis closer together within an approach grounded in a more-than-representational assemblage theory. Throughout, the discussion revolves around British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burials and types of artefacts commonly found within them. The core argument is that, if used appropriately, typologies are not constraints to the appreciation of distinctiveness, difference and relationality in the past, but can rather form an important tool in detecting those relations and making sense of different past ways of becoming.
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