Essential Tensions in Archaeological Method and Theory PDF Download

Author: Todd L. VanPool
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Archaeological theory, some say, seems to have fragmented into a thousand fundamentalisms. By working on a broader set of empirical issues than ever before, archaeologists are indeed applying and refining a variety of perspectives. Yet the editors of this volume make a case that it is appropriate for archaeologists to use a logical variety of theoretical structures to answer different kinds of questions, combining approaches as necessary. In that spirit of plurality, contributors to this volume identify an important theoretical or methodological problem and present an argument regarding its solution. They also provide a critical evaluation of the current state of archaeological method and theory, illustrating that such recurrent issues as the role of agency and the importance of social considerations in the formation of archaeological research dominate current theoretical development. By presenting both the range of important questions and a variety of answers, this volume contributes to the 'essential tension' that will further the growth of archaeological theory.

Author: James M. Skibo
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387765271
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
The study of the human-made world, whether it is called artifacts, material culture, or technology, has burgeoned across the academy. Archaeologists have for cen- ries led the way, and today offer investigators myriad programs and conceptual frameworks for engaging the things, ordinary and extraordinary, of everyday life. This book is an attempt by practitioners of one program – Behavioral Archaeology – to furnish between two covers some of our basic principles, heuristic tools, and illustrative case studies. Our greater purpose, however, is to engage the ideas of two competing programs – agency/practice and evolution – in hopes of initiating a dialog. We are convinced that there is enough overlap in goals, interests, and conceptions among these programs to warrant guarded optimism that a more encompassing, more coherent framework for studying the material world can result from a concerted effort to forge a higher-level synthesis. However, in engaging agency/ practice and evolution in Chap. 2, we are not reticent to point out conflicts between Behavioral Archaeology and these programs. This book will appeal to archaeologists and anthropologists as well as historians, sociologists, and philosophers of technology. Those who study science–technology– society interactions may also encounter useful ideas. Finally, this book is suitable for upper-division and graduate courses on anthropological theory, archaeological theory, and the study of technology.

Author: Ethan Cochrane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315428792
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
This collection of original articles compares various key archaeological topics—agency, violence, social groups, diffusion—from evolutionary and interpretive perspectives. These two strands represent the major current theoretical poles in the discipline. By comparing and contrasting the insights they provide into major archaeological themes, this volume demonstrates the importance of theoretical frameworks in archaeological interpretations. Chapter authors discuss relevant Darwinian or interpretive theory with short archaeological and anthropological case studies to illustrate the substantive conclusions produced. The book will advance debate and contribute to a better understanding of the goals and research strategies that comprise these distinct research traditions.

Author: Sandra Wallace
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136913084
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Is current archaeological theory stuck at an impasse? Sandra Wallace argues that archaeological theory has become mired as a result of logical and ontological contradictions. By showing that these contradictions are a result of common underlying philosophical assumptions and fallacies this book is able to show how a fresh approach to this discipline is necessary to resolve them, even if this requires re-examining some of the tenants of orthodox archaeology. This fresh approach is achieved by using Critical Realism as an "under labourer" to philosophically evaluate archaeological theory. Starting by assessing the historical impact of philosophy on the discipline and then looking at the current relationship between archaeology and the ontology of the material this book facilitates the construction of discipline specific theory by archaeologists. The result is an approach to archaeology that allows both students and practitioners to free themselves from endemic contradictions and re-discover their approach to archaeological theory.

Author: Bretton T. Giles
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 1683402464
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
In this volume, contributors show how stylistic and iconographic analyses of Mississippian imagery provide new perspectives on the beliefs, narratives, public ceremonies, ritual regimes, and expressions of power in the communities that created the artwork. Exploring various methodological and theoretical approaches to pre-Columbian visual culture, these essays reconstruct dynamic accounts of Native American history across the U.S. Southeast.  These case studies offer innovative examples of how to use style to identify and compare artifacts, how symbols can be interpreted in the absence of writing, and how to situate and historicize Mississippian imagery. They examine designs carved into shell, copper, stone, and wood or incised into ceramic vessels, from spider iconography to owl effigies and depictions of the cosmos. They discuss how these symbols intersect with memory, myths, social hierarchies, religious traditions, and other spheres of Native American life in the past and present. The tools modeled in this volume will open new horizons for learning about the culture and worldviews of past peoples. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series  Contributors: David Dye | Shawn P. Lambert | Bretton T. Giles | Vernon J. Knight, Jr. | Anna Semon | J. Grant Stauffer | Jesse Nowak | George E Lankford

Author: Mark Q Sutton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131735009X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Illuminating the world of archaeology. Archaeology conveys the excitement of archaeological discovery and explains how archaeologists think as they scientifically find, analyze, and interpret evidence. The main objective of this text is to provide an introduction to the broad and fascinating world of archaeology from the scientific perspective. Discussions on the theoretical aspects of archaeology, as well as the practical applications of what is learned about the past, have been updated and expanded upon in this fourth edition. Learning Goals Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: Discuss the theoretical aspects of archaeology. Apply what has been learned about the past. Identify the various perspectives archaeologists have.

Author: Robert J. Stokes
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607328852
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Communities and Households in the Greater American Southwest presents new research on human organization in the American Southwest, examining families, households, and communities in the Ancestral Puebloan, Mogollon, and Hohokam major cultural areas, as well as the Fremont, Jornada Mogollon, and Lipan Apache areas, from the time of earliest habitation to the twenty-first century. Using historical data, dialectic approaches, problem-oriented and data-driven analysis, and ethnographic and gender studies methodologies, the contributors offer diverse interpretations of what constitutes a site, village, and community; how families and households organized their domestic space; and how this organization has influenced researchers’ interpretations of spatially derived archaeological data. Today’s archaeologists and anthropologists understand that communities operate as a multi-level, -organizational, -contextual, and -referential human creation, which informs their understanding of how people actively negotiate their way through and around community constraints. The chapters in this book creatively examine these interactions, revealing the dynamic nature of ancient and modern groups in the American Southwest. The book has two broad complementary themes: one focusing on household decision-making, identity, and structural relations with the greater community; the other concerned with community organization and integration, household roles within the community, and changes in community organization—violence and destabilization, coalescence and cooperation—over time. Communities and Households in the Greater American Southwest weaves a rich tapestry of ancient and modern life through innovative approaches that will be of interest not only to Southwestern archaeologists but to all researchers and students interested in social organization at the household and community levels. Contributors: James R. Allison, Andrew Duff, Lindsay Johansson, Michael Lindeman, Myles Miller, James Potter, Alison E. Rautman, J. Jefferson Reid, Katie Richards, Oscar Rodriguez, Barbara Roth, Kristin Safi, Deni Seymour, Robert J. Stokes, Richard K. Talbot, Scott Ure, Henry Wallace, Stephanie M. Whittlesey

Author: Carl P. Lipo
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780202367286
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Much of what we are comes from our ancestors. Through cultural and biological inheritance mechanisms, our genetic composition, instructions for constructing artifacts, the structure and content of languages, and rules for behavior are passed from parents to children and from individual to individual. Mapping Our Ancestors demonstrates how various genealogical or "phylogenetic" methods can be used both to answer questions about human history and to build evolutionary explanations for the shape of history. Anthropologists are increasingly turning to quantitative phylogenetic methods. These methods depend on the transmission of information regardless of mode and as such are applicable to many anthropological questions. In this way, phylogenetic approaches have the potential for building bridges among the various subdisciplines of anthropology; an exciting prospect indeed. The structure of Mapping Our Ancestors reflects the editors' goal of developing a common understanding of the methods and conditions under which ancestral relations can be derived in a range of data classes of interest to anthropologists. Specifically, this volume explores the degree to which patterns of ancestry can be determined from artifactual, genetic, linguistic, and behavioral data and how processes such as selection, transmission, and geography impact the results of phylogenetic analyses. Mapping Our Ancestors provides a solid demonstration of the potential of phylogenetic methods for studying the evolutionary history of human populations using a variety of data sources and thus helps explain how cultural material, language, and biology came to be as they are. Carl P. Lipo is assistant professor of anthropology at California State University in Long Beach. Michael O'Brien is professor of anthropology and director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. Mark Collard is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Stephen J. Shennan is a professor and director of the Institute of Archaeology at the University College London. Niles Eldredge is a curator in the department of invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and adjunct professor at the City University of New York.

Author: Stephen Shennan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351507079
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
Much of what we are comes from our ancestors. Through cultural and biological inheritance mechanisms, our genetic composition, instructions for constructing artifacts, the structure and content of languages, and rules for behavior are passed from parents to children and from individual to individual. Mapping Our Ancestors demonstrates how various genealogical or "phylogenetic" methods can be used both to answer questions about human history and to build evolutionary explanations for the shape of history. Anthropologists are increasingly turning to quantitative phylogenetic methods. These methods depend on the transmission of information regardless of mode and as such are applicable to many anthropological questions. In this way, phylogenetic approaches have the potential for building bridges among the various subdisciplines of anthropology; an exciting prospect indeed. The structure of Mapping Our Ancestors reflects the editors' goal of developing a common understanding of the methods and conditions under which ancestral relations can be derived in a range of data classes of interest to anthropologists. Specifically, this volume explores the degree to which patterns of ancestry can be determined from artifactual, genetic, linguistic, and behavioral data and how processes such as selection, transmission, and geography impact the results of phylogenetic analyses. Mapping Our Ancestors provides a solid demonstration of the potential of phylogenetic methods for studying the evolutionary history of human populations using a variety of data sources and thus helps explain how cultural material, language, and biology came to be as they are.

Author: William L. Rathje
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415634806
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Archaeology in the Making is a collection of bold statements about archaeology, its history, how it works, and why it is more important than ever. This book comprises conversations about archaeology among some of its notable contemporary figures. They delve deeply into the questions that have come to fascinate archaeologists over the last forty years or so, those that concern major events in human history such as the origins of agriculture and the state, and questions about the way archaeologists go about their work. Many of the conversations highlight quite intensely held personal insight into what motivates us to pursue archaeology; some may even be termed outrageous in the light they shed on the way archaeological institutions operate - excavation teams, professional associations, university departments. Archaeology in the Making is a unique document detailing the history of archaeology in second half of the 20th century to the present day through the words of some of its key proponents. It will be invaluable for anybody who wants to understand the theory and practice of this ever developing discipline.