Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies

Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies PDF Author: Robert W. Preucel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description

Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies

Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies PDF Author: Robert W. Preucel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description


Archaeological Theory

Archaeological Theory PDF Author: Norman Yoffee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521449588
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume assesses the real achievements of archaeology in increasing an understanding of the past. Without rejecting the insights either of traditional or more recent approaches, it considers the issues raised in current claims and controversies about what is appropriate theory for archaeology. The first section looks at the process of theory building and at the sources of the ideas employed. The following studies examine questions such as the interplay between expectation and evidence in ideas of human origins, social role and material practice in the formation of the archaeological record, and how the rise of states should be conceptualised; further papers cover issues of ethnoarchaeology, visual symbols, and conflicting claims to ownership of the past. The conclusion is that archaeologists need to be equally wary of naive positivism in the guise of scientific procedure, and of speculation about the unrecorded intentions of prehistoric actors.

Reader in Archaeological Theory

Reader in Archaeological Theory PDF Author: David S. Whitley
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415141604
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Get Book Here

Book Description
This Reader in Archaeological Theory presents sixteen articles of key theoretical significance, in a format which makes this notoriously complex area easier for students to understand. This volume: * provides an intellectual history of different approaches to archaeology which contextualizes the complex traditions of cognitive archaeology and postprocessualism on which it focuses * organizes theories of archaeology, the meanings of things, the prehistoric mind and cognition, gender, ideology and social theory and archaeology's relationship to today's society and politics * includes lucid section introductions to each section which provide context, explain why the papers are so significant and summarize their key points * emphasizes research from the 'New World', making archaeological theory especially relevant and accessible to students in North America

Reading the Past

Reading the Past PDF Author: Ian Hodder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521528849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Table of contents

Archaeological Theory

Archaeological Theory PDF Author: Matthew Johnson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444360418
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Get Book Here

Book Description
Archaeological Theory, 2nd Edition is the most current and comprehensive introduction to the field available. Thoroughly revised and updated, this engaging text offers students an ideal entry point to the major concepts and ongoing debates in archaeological research. New edition of a popular introductory text that explores the increasing diversity of approaches to archaeological theory Features more extended coverage of 'traditional' or culture-historical archaeology Examines theory across the English-speaking world and beyond Offers greatly expanded coverage of evolutionary theory, divided into sociocultural and Darwinist approaches Includes an expanded glossary, bibliography, and useful suggestions for further readings

Global Archaeological Theory

Global Archaeological Theory PDF Author: Pedro Paulo Funari
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0306486520
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Get Book Here

Book Description
Archaeological theory has gone through a great upheaval in the last 50 years – from the processual theory, which wanted to make archaeology more "scientific" to post-processual theory, which understands that interpreting human behavior (even of past cultures) is a subjective study. This subjective approach incorporates a plurality of readings, thereby implying that different interpretations are always possible, allowing us to modify and change our ideas under the light of new information and/or interpretive frameworks. In this way, interpretations form a continuous flow of transformation and change, and thus archaeologists do not uncover a real past but rather construct a historical past or a narrative of the past. Post-processual theory also incorporates a conscious and explicit political interest on the past of the scholar and the subject. This includes fields and topics such as gender issues, ethnicity, class, landscapes, and consumption. This reflects a conscious attempt to also decentralize the discipline, from an imperialist point of view to an empowering one. Method and theory also means being politically aware and engaged to incorporate diverse critical approaches to improve understanding of the past and the present. This book focuses on the fundamental theoretical issues found in the discipline and thus both engages and represents the very rich plurality of the post-processual approach to archaeology. The book is divided into four sections: Issues in Archaeological Theory, Archaeological Theory and Method in Action, Space and Power in Material Culture, and Images as Material Discourse.

Handbook of Archaeological Theories

Handbook of Archaeological Theories PDF Author: R. Alexander Bentley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0759100322
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 598

Get Book Here

Book Description
This handbook, a companion to the authoritative Handbook of Archaeological Methods, gathers original, authoritative articles from leading archaeologists on all aspects of the latest thinking about archaeological theory. It is the definitive resource for understanding how to think about archaeology.

Archaeologies of Complexity

Archaeologies of Complexity PDF Author: Robert Chapman
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415273077
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
Robert Chapman addresses the nature of contemporary archaeology and the study of social change, and debates the transition from perceived simple, egalitarian societies to our complex modern world.

Artifacts and Ideas

Artifacts and Ideas PDF Author: Bruce Trigger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351324063
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Get Book Here

Book Description
Prehistoric archaeologists cannot observe their human subjects nor can they directly access their subjects' ideas. Both must be inferred from the remnants of the material objects they made and used. In recent decades this incontrovertible fact has encouraged partisan approaches to the history and method of archaeology. An empirical discipline emphasizing data, classification, and chronology has given way to a behaviorist approach that interprets finds as products of ecologically adaptive strategies, and to a postmodern alternative that relies on an idealist, cultural-relativist epistemology based on belief and cultural traditions. In Artifacts and Ideas, Bruce G. Trigger challenges all partisan versions of recent developments in archaeology, while remaining committed to understanding the past from a social science perspective. Over 30 years, Trigger has addressed fundamental epistemological issues, and opposed the influence of narrow theoretical and ideological commitments on archaeological interpretation since the 1960s. Trigger encourages a relativistic understanding of archaeological interpretation. Yet as post-processual archaeology, influenced by postmodernism, became increasingly influential, Trigger countered nihilistic subjectivism by laying greater emphasis on how in the long run the constraints of evidence could be expected to produce a more comprehensive and objective understanding of the past. In recent years Trigger has argued that while all human behavior is culturally mediated, the capacity for such mediation has evolved as a flexible and highly efficient means by which humans adapt to a world that exists independently of their will. Trigger agrees that a complete understanding of what has shaped the archaeological record requires knowledge both of past beliefs and of human behavior. He knows also that one must understand humans as organisms with biologically grounded drives, emotions, and means of understanding. Likewise, even in the absence of data supplied in a linguistic format by texts and oral traditions, at least some of the more ecologically adaptive forms of human behavior and some general patterns of belief that display cross-cultural uniformity will be susceptible to archaeological analysis.Advocating a realist epistemology and a materialist ontology, Artifacts and Ideas offers an illuminating guide to the present state of the discipline as well as to how archaeology can best achieve its goals.

The Archaeology of Ritual

The Archaeology of Ritual PDF Author: Evangelos Kyriakidis
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN: 1938770390
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Get Book Here

Book Description
A wide spectrum of scholars, historians, art historians, anthropologists, students of performance, students of religion, archaeologists, cognitive scientists, and linguists were all asked to think and comment on how ritual can be traced in archaeology and which ways ritual research can go in that discipline. The product is a fairly accurate representation of research on ritual and the archaeology of ritual: scholars from various disciplines, backgrounds and agendas, arguing mostly in the most logical fashion, yet with little agreement between them. So this book should not be seen as presenting one unified attitude towards ritual and its study in archaeology. It should rather be seen as a reflection of what the discourse in the archaeology of ritual is today. The outcome has been extremely thought-provoking, often controversial, but always of extremely high quality.