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.
表中的内容
Archaeological Theory.- Materiality and the Social.- Materiality and the Social.- Archaeology and the Meanings of Material Culture.- Why is There Material Culture Rather than Nothing? Heideggerian Thoughts and Archaeology.- What Conditions of Existence Sustain a Tension Found in the Use of Written and Material Documents in Archaeology?.- The Reception of New Archaeology in Argentina: A Preliminary Survey.- Archaeological Theory and Methods in Action.- Network Theory and the Archaeology of Modern History.- The Comparative Method in Archaeology and the Study of Spanish and Portuguese South American Material Culture.- Bodies in Prehistory: Beyond the Sex/Gender Split.- Children’s Activity in the Production of the Archaeological Record of Hunter-Gatherers: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach.- The Archaeology of Identity Construction: Ceramic Evidence from Northern Chile.- Rethinking Stereotypes and the History of Research on Jê Populations in South Brazil: An Interdisciplinary Point of View.- Space and Power in Material Culture.- Traveling Objects and Spatial Images: Exchange Relationships and the Production of Social Space.- The Materiality of Inka Domination: Landscape, Spectacle, Memory, and Ancestors.- Walls of Domestication—Archaeology of the Architecture of Capitalist Elementary Public Schools: The Case of Buenos Aires.- Enlightened Discourses, Representations, and Social Practices in the Spanish Settlement of Floridablanca, Patagonia 18th Century.- Images as Material Discourse.- Stylistic Units in Prehistoric Art Research: Archeofacts or Realities?.- Water and Olive Oil: An Analysis of Rural Scenes in Black and Red Figure Attic Vases and the Construction of the Athenian Empire.- The Construction of Archaeological Discourse.- Between Motorcycles and Rifles:Anglo-American and Latin American Radical Archaeologies.- Footsteps of the American Race: Archaeology, Ethnography, and Romantism in Imperial Brazil (1838–1867).- Brazilian Archaeology: Indigenous Identity in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century.- Discussion: A Response from the ‘Core’.
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