Oestigaard, T. 2004. Approaching material culture: A history of changing epistemologies. (original) (raw)
Related papers
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.
Ethnoarchaeology: critic, consolidator and contributor
World Archaeology, 2016
The papers that make up this debate section acknowledge the fact that ethnoarchaeology has increasingly been marginalized by archaeology, but deserves a central role in the evaluation and development of archaeological theory. The interactions of ethnoarchaeologists with functioning societies and real people make it hard for them to ignore the complex and multi-faceted interrelationships between humans and material culture that frequently make archaeological interpretations challenging. Lyons and Casey rightly point out that ethnoarchaeology should be thought of as a methodologyone engaged in studying the complex relationships between material culture and living peoples. Following Hicks (2003), they (and similarly Cunningham and MacEachern) argue that the role of ethnoarchaeology is to broaden the experiential understanding of other cultures that we use to interpret archaeological situations. For instance, the expansion of concepts like 'landscape' and 'environment' to encompass such ideas as 'viewscapes', 'soundscapes', 'sense-scapes' and 'affordances' reflects a growing awareness in archaeology that humans live in a multi-sensory world. Working with people and focusing on their 'lived experience' in dealing with material culture, ethnoarchaeology is well positioned to contribute to archaeological understandings of the diverse perceptions, filtered by culture and biology, through which people interact with their physical and social environment. As Sillar and Ramón Joffré and other contributors point out, analogies have always been a foundation of archaeological theory. Ultimately, all archaeological interpretation is based on analogy, and archaeologists who have attempted to deny this are fooling themselves. We were not there, we did not see the people act, we cannot ask them to explain the underlying intangible rules that structured what they did and made. We can understand the past only by reference to something we do know, even if it is as removed as an ethnographic report on a culture we have never visited or a common-sense understanding of how people somewhat similar to ourselves might be likely to act. Obviously, we should avoid the assumption that our ways are the only ways or the imposition on the past of a familiar analogy without consideration of alternatives. Perhaps the most important function of ethnoarchaeology is the study and evaluation of archaeological theory. Ethnoarchaeology has the potential to challenge even our most fundamental ideas, as Brady and Kearney demonstrate in their discussion of the living nature of rock art. Archaeologists who believe that they are interpreting the past in the absence of reference to the present are deluding themselves. This is true, as Lyons and Casey point out, for theory as well as
Ethnoarchaeology: A Non Historical Science of Reference Necessary for Interpreting the Past
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 14, No. 2, June 2007, 153-178., 2007
Ethnoarchaeology appears nowadays as a poorly formulated field. However, it could become a real science of reference for interpreting the past if it was focused upon well-founded cross-cultural correlates, linking material culture with static and dynamic phenomena. For this purpose, such correlates have to be studied in terms of explanatory mechanisms. Cross-cultural correlates correspond to those regularities where explanatory mechanisms invoke universals. These universals can be studied by reference to the theories found in the different disciplines they relate to and which are situated outside of the domain of archaeology. In the domain of technology, cross-cultural correlates cover a wide range of static and dynamic phenomena. They allow the archaeologist to interpret archaeological facts-for which there is not necessarily analogue-in terms of local historical scenario as well as cultural evolution. In this respect, it is shown that ethnoarchaeology, when following appropriate methodologies and focussing on the universals that underlie the diversity of archaeological facts, does provide the reference data needed to climb up in the pyramid of inferences that make up our interpretative constructs.
A dialogue is always a good thing; and the dialogue on the origins, the problems, the current state and the potential future of ethnoarchaeology as a relic or as a still viable intellectual endeavour is of particular interest and import. In reading this interesting and engaging set of papers, it becomes immediately clear that such a conversation is not merely to do with an archaeological subdiscipline which, as admitted by Lyons and Casey, many archaeologists today regard a thing of the past. It is mostly about the very definition of archaeology itself. As such, I will attempt here to link this discussion to the wider contemporary debates on the ontology of archaeology and on its political underpinnings and role in the contemporary moment.
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.
It has been said that archaeology, while providing data and generalizations in such fields as history and general anthropology, lacks a systematic body of concepts and premises constituting archaeological theory. According to this view, the archaeologist must borrow his theoretical underpinning from the field of study his work happens to serve, or do without. Whether the latter alternative be an admissible one does not seem to be an arguable point. Acceptable field work can perhaps be done in a theoretical vacuum, but integration and interpretation without theory are inconceivable.
Ethnoarchaeology or simply archaeology?
2016
In this comment I argue that ethnoarchaeology is not the only means for an archaeological engagement with living traditional communities. I suggest that some practices can be better labelled ‘archaeology of the present’, due to their lack of interest in providing analogical frameworks of inspiration for archaeology. Instead, the archaeology of the present aims to better understand living societies by using archaeological methods and theories. Rather than pitting one sub-discipline against the other, however, I suggest that they are both necessary and complementary.