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Anth 321W Intellectual Background of Archaeology

Anth 321W Intellectual Background of Archaeology . MWF 9:00-9:55AM 008 Life Sciences Bldg. Added to the Website Trigger (2006) Chapters 1-8 Heizer (1962) Entire Volume Skim these to seek paper topic inspiration Diagnostic Essay Style Guide: 12 point aerial

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Anth 321W Intellectual Background of Archaeology

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  1. Anth 321WIntellectual Background of Archaeology MWF 9:00-9:55AM 008 Life Sciences Bldg

  2. Added to the Website • Trigger (2006) Chapters 1-8 • Heizer (1962) Entire Volume • Skim these to seek paper topic inspiration • Diagnostic Essay Style Guide: • 12 point aerial • Margins less than or equal to 1” • Spacing less than or equal to double • No sentence more than three lines (unless the sentence is a list)

  3. Grab Bag of Paper Topics • An exploration of thoughts about style over time • How have changing notions of culture influenced archaeological narratives? • What are the major developments in dating and how have these impacted archaeology? • What influences did the advent of computers have on archaeological research and theory? • Survey of mapping methods and how changes in spatial control alter ways of thinking about archaeological data. • Does archaeology serve the national agenda, can it serve other agendas. Is it possible to conduct archaeology without a political agenda, and if so then how?

  4. Gamble 2001 • “Archaeological imagination”: reconstruction of the past from evidence left behind. • Archaeology: • is the refinement of a way of thinking • grows out of the industrial revolution

  5. Political Contexts of Archaeology • Nationalist: Ancient remains used to forge the identity of new nation states. • Colonialist: Colonial powers investigated the remains found in dependent territories. Change often viewed as external. After independence colonial archaeology becomes nationalist. Example: Great Zimbabwe. • Imperialist: Development of a universal world archaeology. • Soviet = Marxist • British = Comparative • United States = “New Archaeology” or Processual approach that developed post WWII. • “Globalized?”: A response to Imperialist model. Post-modern or Post-processual.

  6. C.J. Thomsen (1819) three age system • Really kicks off nationalist mode. • Museum of National Antiquities in Copenhagen • Public display • Nationalist Mode • Temporal organization of material based on • Style • Seriation (not formally defined)

  7. Style • FYI = Wonderful subject for a term paper. • Multiple definitions and uses of style • Gamble = visual resemblance between objects • Types defined based on visual similarities • There are many other thoughts and approaches to the analysis of style. • E.g. technological style and emblematic style • Active, multi-vocal, and multivalent style • Style is often at the basis for defining archaeological types

  8. Seriation • Formally defined and developed by Flinders Petrie in the 1880’s. • Basic ideas of seriationarepresent in Thomsen’s three age system. • Technology: Stone, Bronze, Iron • Style: Tested the ordering of objects within the three ages and refined some observations. • Thomsen’ contribution significant archaeological innovation because the method is not borrowed.

  9. Induction vs. Deduction • Thomsen’s development of three age system was Inductive. • Had Thomsen tested an existing theory about the development of technology the exercise would have been Deductive. • Inductive = specific cases used to build generalities • Deductive = generalities evaluated by examination of specifics

  10. More recent stages in archaeological history • Culture history • 1880-1960 “Long sleep of archaeological theory” • Follows from Thomsen • Influenced by evolutionary thinking • Emphasizes: progress, description, dating, ethnicity. • Part of a Nationalist and Colonialist modes of archaeology • Anthropological archaeology today (Orser 1999) • Global: place remains in wider context • Mutualistic: networks of relationships inter-relate and overlap • Multiscalar: relate component processes with system wide ones • Reflexive: self-critical and self-aware

  11. Facts and Essence • Archaeological Facts = always complex and never neutral or value free • Facts are theoretically charged and take on greater meaning when embedded in stories. • Theory laden facts have strong yet often implicit “essences” • Entities defined by the essences or properties they are expected to have in the first place. • Typological essentialism is a major trap in archaeological (and other) thinking.

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