Synopses & Reviews
A new generation of archaeologists has thrown down a challenge to post-processual theory, arguing that characterizing material symbols as arbitrary overlooks the material character and significance of artifacts. This volume showcases the significant departure from previous symbolic approaches that is underway in the discipline. It brings together key scholars advancing a variety of cutting edge approaches, each emphasizing an understanding of artifacts and materials not in terms of symbols but relationally, as a set of associations that compose peopleand#8217;s understanding of the world. Authors draw on a diversity of intellectual sources and case studies, paving a dynamic road ahead for archaeology as a discipline and theoretical approaches to material culture.
Synopsis
This volume marks a significant departure from previous symbolic approaches in post-processual archaeology, bringing together key scholars advancing a variety of cutting edge approaches to chart a new direction in material culture studies.
About the Author
Benjamin Alberti is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Framingham State University and lectures in the post-graduate anthropology program at the Universidad Nacional de Cand#243;rdoba, Argentina. He has published on sex/gender, masculinitities, and anthropomorphism in both South American archaeology and Bronze Age Crete. He is the editor of a major collection of essays on ontologies in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal (2009) and Current Anthropology (2011). He has co-edited two volumes on South American archaeology, Latin American Archaeology (Routledge 1999) and Genand#233;ro y Etnicidad en la Arqueologand#237;a Suramericana ( INCUAPA 2006), and has published research articles in World Archaeology, Intersecciones en Antropologand#237;a, and in other books and journals. Currently he is researching anthropomorphism and notions of materiality in northwest Argentina.Andrew Meirion Jones is a Reader in archaeology at the University of Southampton and teaches in the MA program in Social Archaeology. He is the author of Archaeological Theory and Scientific Practice (Cambridge 2002) and Memory and Material Culture (Cambridge 2007) and editor or co-editor of Colouring the Past: The Significance of Colour in Archaeological Research (Berg 2002), Sculpture and Archaeology (Ashgate, 2011), Prehistoric Europe: Theory and Practice (Blackwell 2008), An Animate Landscape: rock art and the prehistory of Kilmartin, Argyll, Scotland (Windgather 2011), Prehistoric Materialities (Oxford 2012), and Visualising the Neolithic (Oxbow 2012).Joshua Pollard is a Reader in archaeology at the University of Southampton and teaches in the MA program in Social Archaeology. He is the author with Mark Gillings of Avebury (Duckworth2005) and with Andrew Reynolds of Avebury: Biography of a Landscape (Tempus 1996), and editor or co-editor of Prehistoric Britain (Wiley-Blackwell 2008), Landscape of the Megaliths (Oxbow 2008), and Monuments and Material Culture (Hobnob Press 2004). Much of his research is focused on the British Neolithic, including work on depositional practices, materiality, aspects of monumentality, cultural perceptions of the environment and approaches to the study of Neolithic settlement and routine.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTIONIntroduction : Archaeology after Interpretation - Andrew Meirion Jones and Benjamin Alberti(with contributions from Chris Fowler, Gavin Lucas, and Joshua Pollard)PART I Relational Ontologies and#8211; Benjamin AlbertiChapter 1 - Archaeology and ontologies of scale: the case of miniaturization in first millennium northwest Argentina and#8211; Benjamin AlbertiChapter 2 - Transmorphic Being, Corresponding Affect: An Ontological Safari in South-Central California and#8211; David RobinsonChapter 3 - Carnival times and the semiopraxis of the snake: Mining and politics of knowledge- Alejandro HaberChapter 4 - Unstable contexts: re-materialising the archaeological record of domestic settings in Andean Northwest Argentina Andrand#233;s Gustavo LaguensPART II Working with Material and#8211; Andrew Meirion JonesChapter 5 - Deception and (mis)representation: Skeuomorphs, materials and form and#8211; Chantel ConnellerChapter 6 - Archaeological Complexity: Materials, Multiplicity and the transitions to agriculture in Britain - Andrew Meirion Jones and Emilie SibbessonChapter 7 - Material worlds: a contextual archaeology of dependent architecture - Lesley McFadyenChapter 8 - Object Agency and the Katsina cult- William WalkerPART III Assembling the Socialand#8211; Joshua PollardChapter 9 - What Monuments Do: Construction, Effects and Ontologies - Joshua PollardChapter 10 - Fields of Movement in the Ancient Woodlands of North America- Sarah E. Baires, Amanda J. Butler, B. Jacob Skousen, and Timothy R. PauketatChapter 11 - Is the social unstable? Implicating artefacts in the study of continuity and change: A case study from Anglo-Norman Southampton - Ben JervisChapter 12 - Assemblages, change and the duration of relations: lessons from engaging with Early Bronze Age mortuary practices in Northeast England - Chris FowlerChapter 13 - Archaeology of Placemaking and the Assembly of Monumental Worlds - Marcus BrittainPART IV Beyond Representationand#8211; Andrew Meirion JonesChapter 14 - Representational approaches to Irish passage tombs: legacies, burdens, opportunitiesAndrew CochraneChapter 15 - Material articulations of the middle-ground. The Hybridity of South Scandinavian 'Petroglyphing'- Fredrik FahlanderChapter 16 - Materials of affect: miniatures in the Scandinavian Late Iron Age (550-1050 AD) -Ing-Marie Back DanielssonChapter 17 - Archaeological visualisation and the state of disciplinary theory - Sara PerryAFTERWORDChapter 18- Discussion and#8211; Gavin LucasIndexAbout the Authors