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Author: Michael B. Schiffer
Publisher:
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A handbook to an array of theoretical approaches that contribute something provocative or significant to the enterprise of constructing social theory in archaeology, setting the agenda for future research.
Author: Lynn Meskell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2008-04-15
Total Pages: 448
ISBN-13: 0470692863
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Companion to Social Archaeology is the first scholarly work to explore the encounter of social theory and archaeology over the past two decades. Grouped into four sections - Knowledges, Identities, Places, and Politics - each of which is prefaced with a review essay that contextualizes the history and developments in social archaeology and related fields. Draws together newer trends that are challenging established ways of understanding the past. Includes contributions by leading scholars who instigated major theoretical trends.
Author: Geoff Emberling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-11-24
Total Pages: 638
ISBN-13: 1316453553
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →At a time when archaeology has turned away from questions of the long-term and large scale, this collection of essays reflects on some of the big questions in archaeology and ancient history - how and why societies have grown in scale and complexity, how they have maintained and discarded aspects of their own cultural heritage, and how they have collapsed. In addressing these long-standing questions of broad interest and importance, the authors develop counter-narratives - new ways of understanding what used to be termed 'cultural evolution'. Encompassing the Middle East and Egypt, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, the American Southwest and Mesoamerica, the fourteen essays offer perspectives on long-term cultural trajectories; on cities, states and empires; on collapse; and on the relationship between archaeology and history. The book concludes with a commentary by one of the major voices in archaeological theory, Norman Yoffee.
Author: Dries Daems
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-02-22
Total Pages: 228
ISBN-13: 1000344738
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology turns to complex systems thinking in search of a suitable framework to explore social complexity in Archaeology. Social complexity in archaeology is commonly related to properties of complex societies such as states, as opposed to so-called simple societies such as tribes or chiefdoms. These conceptualisations of complexity are ultimately rooted in Eurocentric perspectives with problematic implications for the field of archaeology. This book provides an in-depth conceptualisation of social complexity as the core concept in archaeological and interdisciplinary studies of the past, integrating approaches from complex systems thinking, archaeological theory, social practice theory, and sustainability and resilience science. The book covers a long-term perspective of social change and stability, tracing the full cycle of complexity trajectories, from emergence and development to collapse, regeneration and transformation of communities and societies. It offers a broad vision on social complexity as a core concept for the present and future development of archaeology. This book is intended to be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the field of archaeology and related disciplines such as history, anthropology, sociology, as well as the natural sciences studying human-environment interactions in the past.
Author: Theoretical Archaeology Group (England). Conference
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1984-05-03
Total Pages: 176
ISBN-13: 9780521255264
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book starts from the premise that methodology has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory.
Author: Ianir Milevski
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
Published: 2017
Total Pages: 158
ISBN-13: 9781781796351
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This volume presents a series of studies by scholars working in Middle Eastern archaeology who actively apply social theory to interpret their fieldwork. It aims to highlight the value of using social theory in the interpretation of field work in a region where, traditionally, such approaches have not played a major role. There are a number of factors that account for why social theory is often under-exploited by archaeologists in this part of the world. In many countries, where large numbers of the foreign archaeologists are involved, a division between those doing fieldwork and those undertaking archaeological interpretation can easily arise. Or, the lack of interest in social theory may stem from a legacy of positivism that overrides other approaches. There is also the fact that archaeology and anthropology often belong to separate academic departments and are considered two separate disciplines disconnected from each other. In some cases the centrality of historical paradigms has precluded the use of social theory. There are also divisions between universities and other research institutions, such as departments of antiquities, which is not conductive to interdisciplinary cooperation. This factor is especially debilitating in contexts of rapid destruction of sites and the exponential growth of salvage excavations and emergency surveys. The papers integrate a wide range of perspectives including 'New' or 'Processual' archaeology, Marxist, 'Post-Processual', evolutionist, cognitive, symbolic, and Cyber- archaeologies and touch on many topics including 3D representation, GIS, mapping and social theory, semiotics and linguistics, gender and bioarchaeology, social and technical identities, and modern historical modellingy and social practices in Middle Eastern archaeology.
Author: Bradley E. Ensor
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 2013-12-05
Total Pages: 391
ISBN-13: 0816599262
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Archaeology has been subjected to a wide range of misunderstandings of kinship theory and many of its central concepts. Demonstrating that kinship is the foundation for past societies’ social organization, particularly in non-state societies, Bradley E. Ensor offers a lucid presentation of kinship principles and theories accessible to a broad audience. He provides not only descriptions of what the principles entail but also an understanding of their relevance to past and present topics of interest to archaeologists. His overall goal is always clear: to illustrate how kinship analysis can advance archaeological interpretation and how archaeology can advance kinship theory. The Archaeology of Kinship supports Ensor’s objectives: to demonstrate the relevance of kinship to major archaeological questions, to describe archaeological methods for kinship analysis independent of ethnological interpretation, to illustrate the use of those techniques with a case study, and to provide specific examples of how diachronic analyses address broader theory. As Ensor shows, archaeological diachronic analyses of kinship are independently possible, necessary, and capable of providing new insights into past cultures and broader anthropological theory. Although it is an old subject in anthropology, The Archaeology of Kinship can offer new and exciting frontiers for inquiry. Kinship research in general—and prehistoric kinship in particular—is rapidly reemerging as a topical subject in anthropology. This book is a timely archaeological contribution to that growing literature otherwise dominated by ethnology.
Author: James M. Skibo
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 2016-09
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 0816535558
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In this collection, four generations of Longacre protégés show how they are building upon and developing--but also modifying--the theoretical paradigm that remains at the core of Americanist archaeology. The contributions focus on six themes prominent in Longacre's career: the intellectual history of the field in the late twentieth century, archaeological methodology, analogical inference, ethnoarchaeology, cultural evolution, and reconstructing ancient society.
