The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings write by Ian Hodder. This book was released on 1987-08-06. The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This companion volume to Archaeology as Long-term History focuses on the symbolism of artefacts. It seeks at once to refine the theory and method relating to interpretation and show, with examples, how to conduct this sort of archaeological work. Some contributors work with the material culture of modern times or the historic period, areas in which the symbolism of mute artefacts has traditionally been thought most accessible. However, the book also contains a good number of applications in prehistory to demonstrate the feasibility of symbolic interpretation where good contextual data survive from the distant past. In relation to wider debates within the social sciences, the volume is characterised by a concern to place abstract symbolic codes within their historical context and within the contexts of social actions. In this respect, it develops further some of the ideas presented in Dr Hodder's Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, an earlier volume in this series.
Reading the Past
Reading the Past - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Reading the Past write by Ian Hodder. This book was released on 2003-12-04. Reading the Past available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Table of contents
Global Archaeological Theory
Global Archaeological Theory - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Global Archaeological Theory write by Pedro Paulo Funari. This book was released on 2006-04-07. Global Archaeological Theory available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Archaeological theory has gone through a great upheaval in the last 50 years – from the processual theory, which wanted to make archaeology more "scientific" to post-processual theory, which understands that interpreting human behavior (even of past cultures) is a subjective study. This subjective approach incorporates a plurality of readings, thereby implying that different interpretations are always possible, allowing us to modify and change our ideas under the light of new information and/or interpretive frameworks. In this way, interpretations form a continuous flow of transformation and change, and thus archaeologists do not uncover a real past but rather construct a historical past or a narrative of the past. Post-processual theory also incorporates a conscious and explicit political interest on the past of the scholar and the subject. This includes fields and topics such as gender issues, ethnicity, class, landscapes, and consumption. This reflects a conscious attempt to also decentralize the discipline, from an imperialist point of view to an empowering one. Method and theory also means being politically aware and engaged to incorporate diverse critical approaches to improve understanding of the past and the present. This book focuses on the fundamental theoretical issues found in the discipline and thus both engages and represents the very rich plurality of the post-processual approach to archaeology. The book is divided into four sections: Issues in Archaeological Theory, Archaeological Theory and Method in Action, Space and Power in Material Culture, and Images as Material Discourse.
Shaky Ground
Shaky Ground - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Shaky Ground write by Elizabeth Marlowe. This book was released on 2013-10-10. Shaky Ground available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The recent crisis in the world of antiquities collecting has prompted scholars and the general public to pay more attention than ever before to the archaeological findspots and collecting histories of ancient artworks. This new scrutiny is applied to works currently on the market as well as to those acquired since (and despite) the 1970 UNESCO Convention, which aimed to prevent the trafficking in cultural property. When it comes to famous works that have been in major museums for many generations, however, the matter of their origins is rarely considered. Canonical pieces like the Barberini Togatus or the Fonseca bust of a Flavian lady appear in many scholarly studies and virtually every textbook on Roman art. But we have no more certainty about these works' archaeological contexts than we do about those that surface on the market today. This book argues that the current legal and ethical debates over looting, ownership and cultural property have distracted us from the epistemological problems inherent in all (ostensibly) ancient artworks lacking a known findspot, problems that should be of great concern to those who seek to understand the past through its material remains.
Symbolic and Structural Archaeology
Symbolic and Structural Archaeology - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Symbolic and Structural Archaeology write by Ian Hodder. This book was released on 1982. Symbolic and Structural Archaeology available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This volume presents a searching critique of the more traditional archaeological methodologies and interpretation strategies and lays down a firm philosophical and theoretical basis for symbolist and structuralist studies in archaeology. A variety of procedures, ranging from ethnoarchaeological studies and computing techniques to formal studies of artefact design variability, are utilized to provide models for archaeologists within the proposed framework and the theory and models are then applied to a range of archaeological analyses. This particular approach sees all human actions as being meaningfully constituted within a social and cultural framework. Material culture is not simply an adaptive tool, but is structured according to sets of underlying principles which give meaning to, and derive meanings from, the social world. Thus structural regularities are shown to link seemingly disparate aspects of material culture, from funerary monuments to artefact design, from the use of space in settlements, to the form of economic practices.
