Interpreting Archaeology: Finding Meaning in the Past (original) (raw)
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.
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.
Theory and Practice in Archaeology- Ian Hodder
This book aims to show through a series of examples that an interpretive archaeology dealing with past meanings can be applied in practice to archaeological data, and that it can also contribute effectively to social practice in the world of today.
Although the focus and underpinnings have adjusted through time, Americanist archaeology is founded on the notion that anthropology plays an important role in archaeology. Even now the nature of anthropological archaeology is transforming to incorporate modern developments and lessons from our predecessors. Anthropological archaeology remains vibrant, maintaining sensitivity to current trends and methodological, theoretical, and conceptual advances by updating and honing its direction, and gradually transforming itself through the ebbs and flows of current trends and renewed angles on long-established venerable issues. The discipline has passed through several phases that emphasized first an essentially historical focus, then staunch positivistic processualism, and then a refined socially relevant archaeology that incorporates process while contextualizing. Home-grown archaeological theory is among these more current approaches, which emphasizes method and theory developed by archaeologists to solve archaeological and anthropological problems. But fundamental to the approach, through all these adjustments, is the premise that archaeology is anthropological, taking its lead from anthropological understandings and theories of process, while at the same time incorporating what is relevant from history, geomorphology, psychology, and sociology. It is a compilation of approaches where generalizations have a role but are understood within the boundary conditions set by contextualized cases.
Anthropology and Archaeology: A changing relationship
The disciplines of archaeology and anthropology have, since their beginnings, influenced and informed each other. Chris Gosden charts and analyses their changing relationship, and provides a valuable and much-needed introduction to the theories and methods of these two inter-related subjects. This volume covers the historical relationship and contemporary interests of archaeology and anthropology. It takes a broad historical approach, setting the early history of the disciplines within the colonial period during which the Europeans encountered and attempted to make sense of many other peoples. It shows how the subjects are linked through their interest in kinship, economics and symbolism, and discusses what each contribute to debates about gender, material culture and globalism in the post-colonial world.
Archaeology and anthropology came into existence alongside each other, and the subsequent development of their relationship has been both complex and revealing. At different times each has claimed affinity with or distinction from the other for rhetorical purposes, so that the two disciplines have been to some degree mutually constitutive. For reasons of space what follows will neglect physical and linguistic anthropology, and concentrate on the British and American contexts: it is acknowledged that this will result in a degree of simplification. Chris Gosden (1999: 10) has quite rightly pointed to the role that colonialism played in forming both anthropology and archaeology, the encounter between Europeans and societies unfamiliar to them fuelling an awareness of, and an imperative to investigate, human difference. However, the conditions that made archaeology possible were rather more extensive. The practice of archaeology rests on the notion that new knowledge can be created, and that material things as well as written texts can provide information about the past, as well as on a conception of time as linear and irreversible. Archaeology was nourished by the demand on the part of the emerging nation-states for a legitimating narrative based on evidence rather than myth, and the vision of deep time that emerged from geological uniformitarianism. Finally, archaeology drew on the ideas of human finitude, technological change, and the relationship between culture and nature that were associated with the Enlightenment (Daniel 1950: 38; McVicar 1984: 59; Thomas 2004: 2).
anthropology', by which we mean forms of collaboration and relationship that do not straightforwardly reproduce existing understandings of disciplinary hierarchy and asymmetry. 3 It is important to acknowledge that this book focuses predominantly on the ways in which this relationship has played out in the context of British institutional and theoretical contexts (although see Lucas, and Robinson, this volume). Nonetheless, it picks up on wider issues concerning the underlying epistemological foundations of archaeology and anthropology, and the possibilities and problems for collaborative relationships between these. The American 'four-fold' system (of cultural, physical and linguistic anthropology, and archaeology) has often been held up as a model for such collaboration. However Segal and Yanigisako's (2005) recent account points to a situation in the US that is more similar to the European academic context than archaeologists and anthropologists have often cared to admit, characterised, as they and other contributors to the volume suggest, by misunderstandings, ruptures and profound theoretical differences.
The Cambridge companion to historical archaeology
African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, 2006
The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology provides an overview of the international field of historical archaeology (c. AD 1500 to the present) through seventeen specially commissioned essays from leading researchers in the field. The volume explores key themes in historical archaeology including documentary archaeology, the writing of historical archaeology, colonialism, capitalism, industrial archaeology, maritime archaeology, cultural resource management and urban archaeology. Three special sections explore the distinctive contributions of material culture studies, landscape archaeology and the archaeology of buildings and the household. Drawing on case studies from North America, Europe, Australasia, Africa and around the world, the volume captures the breadth and diversity of contemporary historical archaeology, considers archaeology's relationship with history, cultural anthropology and other periods of archaeological study, and introduces alternative conceptions of the field. This book is essential reading for anyone studying or researching the material remains of the recent past. www.cambridge.org
Archaeological Journal, 2015
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Contemporary and recent archaeology in practice
Industrial Archaeology Review
The archaeology of the 20th century has been studied since the 1960s, but it is only more recently that explicit theoretical and methodological issues have been explored by the wider archaeological profession. This paper explores some of those issues in the contexts of developer-funded archaeology and community archaeology. Ways in which the archaeology of the more recent past may both help and hinder the discipline are considered, together with the relevance of archaeology to society at large.
A Critical Archaeology Revisited 1
Current …, 2000
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research will continue its Institutional Development Grant (IDG) after its launch in 2008. The IDG is intended to strengthen (or to support the development of) anthropological doctoral programs in countries where the discipline is ...
Anthropological Archaeology in 2013: The Search for Truth(s)
American Anthropologist, 2014
In 2013, we see a clear continuation of certain themes noted in previous reviews, including economy, mobility, human-environment interactions, social complexity, identity, and power. There is a greater emphasis on comparative approaches but also a general move away from reductionist, macrosystemic models in anthropological archaeology, with studies emphasizing diversity, multiple pathways or trajectories, and variability in local responses. The fallout of the so-called “postmodernist turn” continues to prompt lively debate, with methodological rigor being emphasized as well as the critical cross-examination of our Western modes of inquiry,with some scholars considering the possibility of multiple truths in their theoretical interpretations of the past. [anthropological archaeology, science, modernist–postmodernist divide, methodological and theoretical diversity, trends, year in review]