Lecture 15

Monday, September 30, 2013 11:01 AM

Post-Processual Archaeology 1. Ian Hodder's Critique 2. Interpretive Archaeology 3. Agenda Archaeology After Processual Archaeology grew in popularity in the 1960s, there was growing criticism of its shortcomings by the 1980s Ian Hodder made the most substantive critique Said that Processulism was very good with basic areas of human behavior, such as settlement patterns, subsistence and technology Physical constraints on such behaviors: can't build a city in the middle of a desert without water, can't subsist solely on a rare food resource, etc Processualism was bad with more complex areas, such as symbolism and politics Less constraint on such behaviors: which side of the road to drive on Difficult to come up with rules for such things, but you must try, according to Hodder Developed this perspective while working on Iron Age settlement patterns in Great Britain Looking for archaeological evidence that corresponds with the historical record of which tribes/chiefdoms were where (Roman tax records) Looking for objects that were presumably sensitive to cultural variation, such as jewelry, weapons, tools Was more difficult than expected, finding variation of some objects within the same region, and consistency of other objects across many regions Actualistic research by Hodder and others suggested that there was great difficulty in dealing with symbols and politics Meanings of symbols can be ambiguous, even to those who use them Interpretations of political behavior can be highly subjective (dependent upon the observer) These aspects of human behavior are intrinsically variable The rules with which you interpret these symbols cannot come directly from the past Investigated variations in such material culture in Lake Baringo, Kenya The choice of objects (such as style and type of pottery vessel) varies according to how close the subject lives to boundary areas between groups Becomes difficult for archaeologists to disentangle If people move a lot, such boundaries degrade The ability to observe this varies according to time scale With investigations of deep time, where the measurements are in thousands of years, it is structurally impossible to observe With more recent periods, it is observable Variability can delineate between groups, as well is within groups An example: the "Venus" figurines Mother goddess? Fertility figurine? Pornography? Child's toy? Who's to say and how's it known?

Intro to Archaeology ANT104 Page 1