Interpreting Archaeology: Finding Meaning in the PastAlexandra Alexandri, Victor Buchli, John Carman, Ian Hodder, Jonathan Last, Gavin Lucas, Michael Shanks This volume provides a forum for debate between varied approaches to the past. The authors, drawn from Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia, represent many different strands of archaeology. They address the philosophical issues involved in interpretation and a desire among archaeologists to come to terms with their own subjective approaches to the material they study, a recognition of how past researchers have also imposed their own value systems on the evidence which they presented. |
Contents
Tables and figures Tables 1 Ape tool technology 73 | 26 |
some themes and questions | 30 |
some philosophical issues | 37 |
Past realities | 45 |
poststructuralism and beyond | 51 |
The origins of meaning | 57 |
The research cone | 59 |
Cognitive and behavioural complexity in nonhuman primates | 68 |
Steel comb excavated at Gotts Court | 113 |
710 The BannekerDouglass Museum exhibit | 118 |
the rhetoric of heritage claims | 125 |
The nature of history | 141 |
the Annales school | 158 |
Hayden Whites metahistorical tropes | 166 |
The tropes applied to the south Scandinavian Neolithic | 167 |
An aryballos perfume jar produced in Korinth in the seventh century BC | 169 |
Alliance structure and kinship in primates | 71 |
Language and thought in evolutionary perspective | 76 |
Hominid encephalisation quotients through time | 77 |
Genetic diversity and linguistic diversity | 79 |
The relationship between archaeology and evolutionary biology | 81 |
Interpretation in the Palaeolithic | 87 |
Interpretation writing and presenting the past | 95 |
Can an AfricanAmerican historical archaeology be an alternative voice? | 110 |
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Common terms and phrases
action agency approach archaeology argued artefacts aspects associated attempt authority becomes behaviour claims classical cognitive concept concerned conference considered constituted construction context continuity countryside course critical discipline discourse discussion distinction effects essential example excavation existence experience expression fact field groups heritage hermeneutic human ideas important individual interest interpretation involved issues kind knowledge language least less living London Marxism material culture meaning narrative nature notion object observation origins particular past perhaps philosophy physical political position possible practice present primates problem production question reading reality reason recent record refers relationship remains result rhetoric sense significant similar simply social society space specific strategies structure style suggests symbolic temporal theoretical theory things thought tradition understanding University visibility writing