Draft 2
UCL-INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY
ARCLG194
THEMES, THOUGHT AND THEORY IN WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY:
CURRENT TOPICS
2015-16
15 credits
Turnitin Class ID: 2971078
Turnitin Password IoA1516
Term 2, Tuesdays 11-1 Room 209 Institute of Archaeology
Co-ordinator: Prof Stephen Shennan (s.shennan@ucl.ac.uk)
Office: Room 4407, IoA. Tel. 0207 679 4739 (Internal: 24739)
Additional teachers: Mike Parker Pearson, Todd Whitelaw, Karen Wright, Elizabeth Graham, Andrew
Bevan
Coordinator’s Office Hours (for regular consultation): Mondays from 2 pm to 4 pm
Or, email for an appointment
GENERAL
This handbook contains introductory information about this course. Additional handouts may be
provided. If you have queries, please consult the Co-ordinator. For general information about policies
& procedures, see Appendix A at end of this document. If changes need to be made to course
arrangements, these will be communicated by email. It is thus essential that you consult your UCL email regularly. PLEASE BRING THIS HANDOUT TO ALL CLASS SESSIONS.
AIMS, OBJECTIVES and LEARNING OUTCOMES
This course builds on the content of ARCLG193. Seminars examine selected research topics normally
explored within one or more theoretical frameworks. On successful completion of this course a
student should: (a) have an understanding of theoretical issues in a range of central research domains
of archaeology; (b) be aware of the reasons for debates about how to approach a particular kind of
research and be able to form their own theoretical position; (c) be able to use the knowledge to
develop an innovative PhD proposal or carry out sound work in their particular field of archaeology.
TEACHING METHODS
This 15 credit course will be taught weekly in 10 two hour sessions. The format is that of a seminar.
This handout contains weekly readings, which students are expected to complete before class.
PREREQUISITES
Students planning to take this course will normally be expected previously to have taken ARCLG193
Themes, Thought and Theory in World Archaeology: Foundations, which provides relevant
background material which will be built upon in this course.
WORKLOAD
There will be 20 hours of seminars. Students will be expected to spend around 80 hours doing the
background reading and 50 hours in producing assessed work – in all, 150 hours for the course.
ASSESSMENT (see end of this document for further details)
1
This course is assessed by one essay of 3,800-4,200 words. Information on topics and deadlines is
given at the end of this handbook. The Course Co-ordinator will discuss an outline of the essay with
the student in advance.
Word counts
The following should not be included in the word-count: title page, contents pages, lists of figure and
tables, abstract, preface, acknowledgements, bibliography, lists of references, captions and contents of
tables and figures, appendices.
Penalties will be imposed if you exceed the upper figure in the range. There is no penalty
for using fewer words than the lower figure in the range: the lower figure is simply for
your guidance to indicate the sort of length that is expected.
SCHEDULE
Sessions: 11-1 pm on Tuesdays, Room 209. A minimum attendance of 70% is required, except in the
case of illness or other adverse circumstances which are supported by medical certificates or other
documentation as appropriate. If any changes need to be made to the course arrangements, these will
normally be communicated by e-mail. It is therefore essential that you consult your UCL e-mail
account regularly
G194 Schedule – 11-1 Tuesdays, Room 209
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Tuesday 12 January 2016
Introduction: current problems in theory and method
Stephen Shennan
Tuesday 19 January
Artefacts: Material Culture, Technology, Art
Stephen Shennan
Tuesday 26 January
Domestic Groups, Political Economy, Complex Societies
Katherine (Karen) Wright
Tuesday 2 February
Death and Mortuary Behaviour
Michael Parker Pearson
Tuesday 9 February
Landscape and Regional Systems
Todd Whitelaw
15-19 February
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
Reading Week
Tuesday 23 February
Darwinian Archaeology and Anthropology
Stephen Shennan
Tuesday 1 March
Religion and Ritual
Elizabeth Graham
Tuesday 8 March
Approaches to Trade, Exchange and Value
Andrew Bevan
Tuesday 15 March
Archaeological Science
Stephen Shennan
2
(10)
Tuesday 22 March
Archaeology, Politics and the Public
Michael Parker Pearson
Essay due dates:
Draft Outline (not assessed):
Due on Friday, 4 March 2016 via email or hardcopy.
Students should make an effort to see the coordinator in office hours, or at another time, between 7
March and 25 March, to discuss the outline. Alternatively, outlines can be discussed by email.
Essay (assessed):
Turnitin deadline: Friday 13 May 2016 (midnight)
Hardcopy deadline: Monday 16 May (12.0 Mid-day, at Reception)
3
1
Introduction: current problems in theory and method
In the wake of intense debates in past decades, many archaeologists believe that development of
theory has stalled. Does it matter? Or is the development of new methods more important? A recent
trend is exploration of synthesis: can historical particularism/culture history find common ground with
evolutionary theory/processualism? In turn, can evolutionary theory/processualism find reconciliation
with structuralism/post-modernism/post-processualism? Or is synthesis impossible? Is it even
desirable? We explore the ‘state of play.’
The ‘theoretical gap’: where do we go from here?
Kristiansen, K. 2005. Genes versus agents: a discussion of the widening theoretical gap in
archaeology. Archaeological Dialogues, 11(2): 77-99. Plus the responses. ejournals
Marcus, J. 2008. The archaeological evidence for social evolution. Ann. Review Anthrop, 37: 251-266.
Mizoguchi, K. 2015. A future of archaeology. Antiquity 89, February 2015, pp 12 – 22. Online.
Stark, M. T., Bowser, B. J., & Horne, L. 2008. Why breaking down boundaries matters for
archaeological research on learning and cultural transmission. In M. T. Stark, B. J. Bowser, &
L. Horne (Eds.), Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking Down Social
Boundaries: 1-16. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. AH STA 1 WEEK LOAN 1 COPY
Thomas, J. 2015. The future of archaeological theory. Antiquity 89, December 2015, pp 1287 – 1296.
Online
Case studies
Joyce, R. 2000. Heirlooms and houses: materiality and social memory. In R. Joyce & S. D. Gillespie
(Eds.), Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies: Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. ANTHROPOLOGY E75 JOY
Mills, B. 2008. Colonialism and cuisine: cultural transmission, agency and history at Zuni pueblo. In
M. T. Stark, B. J. Bowser, & L. Horne (Eds.), Cultural Transmission and Material Culture:
Breaking Down Social Boundaries: 245-262. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. AH STA 1
WEEK LOAN 1 COPY
For further reading: current problems in theory and method
Classics of Processualism
Binford, L. R. 1964. A consideration of archaeological research design. American Antiquity, 29(4): 425-441.
Binford, L. R. 1972. An Archaeological Perspective. New York: Seminar Press.
Binford, L. R. 2002. In Pursuit of the Past. Berkeley: University of California Press.
David, N. & Kramer, C. 2001. Ethnoarchaeology in action. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Flannery, K. V. 1976. The Early Mesoamerican Village. New York: Academic Press.
Schiffer, M. B. 1976. Behavioral archaeology. New York: Academic Press.
Schiffer, M. B. 1987. Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press.
Service, E. R. 1962. Primitive social organization: an evolutionary perspective. New York: Random House.
Steward, J. H. 1955. Theory of Culture Change. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Watson, P. J., Redman, C. L., & LeBlanc, S. 1971. Explanation in archaeology: an explicitly scientific approach.
New York: Columbia University Press.
White, L. 1959. The Evolution of Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Classics of Culture History
Childe, V.G. 1957. The Dawn of European Civilisation
Collingwood, R. G. 1994. The idea of history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Classics of Post-Processualism
Bourdieu, P., 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Giddens, A., 1986. The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. Polity Press, Cambridge.
4
Gosden, C. 2001. Postcolonial archaeology:issues of culture, identity and knowledge. In I. Hodder (Ed.),
Archaeological Theory Today: 241-261. Oxford: Polity Press.
Habermas, J., 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action. Heinemann, London.
Hodder, I. 1982. Symbolic and Structural Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Hodder, I. 1982. Symbols in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hodder, I. 1983. The Present Past. New York: Pica Press.
Hodder, I. 1985. Post-processual archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 8: 1-26.
Kuhn, T. S. 1959. The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, P. 1991. From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics. London: Athlone.
Tilley, C. Y. 1990. Reading material culture: structuralism, hermeneutics, and post-structuralism. Oxford, UK:
B. Blackwell.
Ways forward?
Cochrane, E. & Gardner, A. 2011. Evolutionary and Interpretive Archaeologies: A Dialogue. Walnut Creek,
California: Left Coast Press.
Gardner, A. 2011. Agency Uncovered: Archaeological Perspectives on Social Agency. London: University
College London Press.
Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A., & Laland, K. N. 2006. Towards a unified science of cultural evolution. Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, 29(4): 329-383.
Richerson, P. & Boyd, R. 2005. Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Roberts, B. W. & van der Linden, M. 2011. Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability
and Transmission. London: Springer.
Schiffer, M. B. 2000. Social Theory in Archaeology. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Shennan, S. 2002. Genes, Memes and Human History: Darwinian Archaeology and Cultural Evolution. London:
Thames and Hudson.
Stark, M. T., Bowser, B. J., & Horne, L. 2008. Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking Down
Social Boundaries. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
5
2
Artefacts: Material Culture, Technology, Style
Explaining variation in artefact assemblages is basic to archaeology. Concerns with relative
chronology and culture areas were central to the culture-historical approaches of the 1930s-1950s.
With processual archaeology, an emphasis on artefact functions and technology was part of a broader
concern with functionalism; even styles were often viewed in quite functional terms. Dissatisfaction
with these models, particularly as they applied to styles and symbolic meanings of artefacts, was basic
to post-processual views. There also emerged new views of technology as a social process.
Discussion questions
Why is artefact variability such an important concept?
What is craft specialization? How do we identify it?
How can we determine whether artefacts were prestige items?
How have ideas about technology changed in archaeology? What is a ‘chaine operatoire’?
How have archaeologists defined and interpreted style?
What do archaeologists mean by “material engagement” and “material entanglement?”
Why do some anthropologists and archaeologists say that things have ‘agency’?
Essential (read 4)
Craft production and specialization
Costin, C. 1991 Craft specialization: issues in defining, documenting, and explaining the
organization of production. In, M. Schiffer (ed.) Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 3.
Tucson, University of Arizona Press, pp. 1-56. INST ARCH AH ADV
Hayden, B. 1998 Practical & prestige technologies. Journal Arch. Method and Theory 5:1-55.
Online
Technology
Lemonnier, P. 1986. The study of material culture today. Journal Anthropological Archaeology
5:147-86. Online
Roux, V. 2013. Spreading of Innovative Technical Traits and Cumulative Technical Evolution:
Continuity or Discontinuity? J Archaeol Method Theory (2013) 20:312–330.
Style
Hegmon, M. 1992. Archaeological research on style. Annual Review of Anthropology 21:517-36. TC
1357, SCIENCE: ANTHROPOLOGY Periodicals, eJournals.
Material engagement and entanglement
DeMarrais, E., Gosden, C. and Renfrew, C. (eds) 2004. Rethinking Materiality: the engagement of
mind with the material world. Cambridge: McDonald Institute. [ISSUE DESK IOA DEM 1;
INST ARCH AH DEM] – chapter by Renfrew
Hodder, I. 2011. Human-thing entanglement: towards an integrated archaeological perspective.
Journal Royal Anthropological Institute, 17.1, 154-77. Online (See also the book
‘Entanglement’)
Ingold, T. 2007. Materials against materiality. Archaeological Dialogues, 14.1, 1-16 (plus comments).
Online
Knappett, C. 2012. Materiality. In I. Hodder (ed.) Archaeological Theory Today, 188-207. Cambridge:
Polity Press (2nd edition) [INST ARCH AH HOD; ISSUE DESK IOA HOD 18]
Agency
Gell, A. 1998. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chapters 1 and 2. ANTHROPOLOGY E10 GEL (12 COPIES); SCIENCE SHORT LOAN
GEL (6 COPIES)
Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the social an introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford New York:
6
Oxford University Press. Ebook.
Miller, D. 2010. Stuff. London, Polity Books. Chapter 2, ‘Theories of Things’ ANTHROPOLOGY
C9 MIL (8 COPIES); SCIENCE SHORT LOAN MIL (3 COPIES)
Case studies (read1)
Dietler, M. & Herbich, I. 1998. Habitus, techniques, style: an integrated approach to the social
understanding of material culture boundaries. In M. T. Stark (Ed.), The Archaeology of Social
Boundaries: 232-263. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. ISSUE DESK STA4; AH STA
Farbstein, R. 2011. Technologies of art: a critical reassessment of Pavlovian art and society, using
chaîne opératoire method and theory. Current Anthropology 52(3): 401-432.
Sillar, B. 2009. The social agency of things? Animism and materiality in the Andes. Cambridge
Archaeological Journal, 19(3), 367-77. [INST ARCH Pers; <www>]
Wright, K. I. & Garrard, A. N. 2003. Social identities and the expansion of stone beadmaking in
Neolithic western Asia. Antiquity, 77(296): 267-284.
For further reading: artefacts, material culture, technology, art
Adams, W. & Adams, E. 1991. Archaeological typology and practical reality. Cambridge: CUP.
Appadurai, A. 1986. The Social Life of Things. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Binford, L. 1973 Interassemblage variability - the Mousterian and the functional argument. In, C. Renfrew (ed.)
The Explanation of Culture Change. London, Duckworth, pp. 227-54. TC 1335
Braun, D. 1983 Pots as tools. In, J. Moore and A. Keene (eds) Archaeological Hammers and Theories. New
York, Academic Press, pp. 107-34.
Charlton, M.F., P. Crew, T. Rehren and S.J. Shennan. Explaining the evolution of ironmaking recipes – An
example from northwest Wales. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 352–367.
Clark, J. 1995 Craft specialization as an archaeological category. Research in Economic Anthropology 16:26794.
Conkey, M. and Hastorf, C. (eds.) 1990 The Uses of Style in Archaeology. Cambridge Univ. Press.
David, N., Sterner, J. and Gavua, K. 1988 Why pots are decorated, Current Anthropology 29: 365-88.
Dobres, M. 2000 Technology and Social Agency. Oxford, Blackwell.
Dunnell, R. C. 1986. Methodological Issues in Americanist Artifact Classification. In Advances in
Archaeological Method and Theory, ed. M. Schiffer, pp. 149-207. vol. 9. Academic Press, New York.
Lemonnier, P. (ed.) 1993 Technological Choices. London, Routledge.
Miller, D. (ed.) 1998. Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter. London, UCL Press.
Nelson, M. 1991 The study of technological organization. In, M. Schiffer (ed.) Archaeological Method and
Theory, Vol. 3. Tucson, University of Arizona Press, pp. 57-100.
O'Brien, M. J. and R. L. Lyman (editors) 2003. Style, Function, Transmission. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City.
Pfaffenberger, B. 1992 Social anthropology of technology. Annual Review of Anthropology 21:491-516.
Plog, S. (1983) Analysis of style in artifacts. Annual Review of Anthropology 12:125-142.
Rice, P. 1987. Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rice, P. 1991. Specialization, standardization and diversity: a retrospect. In R. Bishop & F. Lange (Eds.), The
Ceramic Legacy of Anna O. Shepard: Boulder: University of Colorado Press.
Rice, P. 1996. Recent ceramic analysis 1. function, style and origins. Journal of Archaeological Research, 4(2):
133-163.
Rice, P. 1996. Recent ceramic analysis 2. composition, production, theory. Journal Archaeological Research,
4(3): 165-202.
Schiffer, M. (ed.) 2001. Anthropological Perspectives on Technology. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico
Press.
Schiffer, M., and Skibo, J. 1997. The explanation of artifact variability. American Antiquity 62:27-50.
Sigault, F. 1994. Technology. In, T. Ingold (ed.) The Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology. London:
Routledge:420-59.
Sillar, B. and Tite, M. 2000. The challenge of ‘technological choices’ for material science approaches in
archaeology. Archaeometry 42.1:2-20. TC 2532, IoA Periodicals,
Tilley, C. 1989 Interpreting material culture. In, I. Hodder (ed.) The Meanings of Things. London, Harper
Collins, pp. 185-94.
Wiessner, P. 1983. Style & social information in Kalahari San projectile points. American Antiquity 48:253-76.
Wobst, H. M. 1977. Stylistic Behavior and Information Exchange. In For the Director, edited by C. Cleland, pp.
7
317-342. Anthropological Papers. vol. 61. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
“Materiality”
Gosden, C. 2005. What do objects want? Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 12.3, 193-211. [INST
ARCH PERS; <www>]
Knappett, C. 2005. Thinking Through Material Culture: an interdisciplinary perspective. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. [INST ARCH AH KNA]
Knappett, C. and Malafouris, L. (eds) 2008. Material Agency: towards a non-anthropocentric approach. New
York: Springer. [INST ARCH AH KNA]
Olsen, B. 2003. Material culture after text: re-membering things. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 36.2, 87104. [INST ARCH Pers; <www>]
Olsen, B. 2010. In defense of things: archaeology and the ontology of objects. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
[INST ARCH AH OLS]
Watts, C.M. (ed.) 2013. Relational Archaeologies: Humans, animals, things. London: Routledge. [INST ARCH
AH WAT].
Webmoor, T. and Witmore, C.L. 2008. Things are us! A commentary on human/things relations under the banner
of a 'social' archaeology. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 41.1, 53-70. [INST ARCH Pers; <www>]
8
3
Domestic Groups, Political Economy, Complex Societies
3a
Domestic Groups
‘Domestic’ residential arrangements are diverse; often we have no certainty as to the nature of
social units that occupied the buildings we assume to be ‘houses.’ What are residential groups and
how do they change (Goody)? What are ‘households’ (Sahlins)? Can we link households to
buildings? What is the Domestic Mode of Production? Why does Sahlins insist that households
underproduce? Why is this important for understanding how non-hierarchical societies become
hierarchical societies? What are ‘house societies’ (Joyce, cf. Levi-Strauss, Gonzalez-Ruibal)? To
what degree are houses symbolic? How do daily social practices in buildings affect social groups
(Bourdieu)? How might we approach questions about social relationships between houses and
communities? How do social relationships affect buildings (Folorunso)? What sampling issues have
to be considered (Kramer)?
Essential: Domestic Groups (read 3)
Bourdieu, P.1970 The Berber house or the world reversed. In, M. Douglas (ed.) 1973 Rules and
Meanings; Bourdieu, P. Algeria 1960:133-53.
Goody, J., 1971. The fission of domestic groups among the LoDogaba. In: Goody, J. (Ed.), The
Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 5391.
Gonzalez-Ruibal, A. 2006. House societies vs. kinship-based societies: an archaeological case from
Iron Age Europe. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 25(1): 144-173.
Joyce, R. 2000. Heirlooms and houses: materiality and social memory. In R. Joyce & S. D. Gillespie
(Eds.), Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies: Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. ANTHROPOLOGY E75 JOY
Sahlins, M. 1972. Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine. Chapter 2 – Read to get his overall point
about domestic underproduction. (Don’t worry about data details). BD SAH;
ANTHROPOLOGY D200 SAH; SCIENCE SHORT LOAN SAH; GEOGRAPHY H20 SAH
3b
Political Economy and Complex Societies
Political economy, social inequality, ranking, stratification, ‘complex societies,’ class societies, cities,
states, empires: what do these terms mean? What is the history of these concepts? Do archaeologists
use them too loosely? Do they steer our analyses of archaeological data in directions that are
ultimately ethnocentric and/or social-evolutionist? How does social inequality begin, according to
Sahlins? How can this be applied archaeologically (Clark and Blake; Wright)? Where written
documents are available, how do anthropological approaches differ from historical approaches
(Yoffee)?
Essential: Complex Societies (read 3)
Clark, J. & Blake, M. 1993. The power of prestige: competitive generosity & the emergence of rank
societies in lowland Mesoamerica. In E. Brumfiel & J. Fox (eds), Factional Competition &
Political Development in the New World: 17-30. Cambridge: CUP. DF 100 BRU
Sahlins, M. 1972. Stone Age Economics. Last section of Chapter 3, ‘The economic intensity of the
political order’. INST ARCH BD SAH (5 copies); ANTHROPOLOGY D200 SAH (4
copies); SCIENCE SHORT LOAN SAH; GEOGRAPHY H20 SAH
Sinopoli, C. M. 1994. The archaeology of empires. Annual Review of Anthropology, 23(1): 159-179.
Smith, A. 2011. Archaeologies of sovereignty. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40: 415-432.
Wright, K.I. 2014. Domestication and inequality? Households, corporate groups and food processing
tools at Neolithic Catalhoyuk, Turkey. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 33: 1-33.
(Online open access)
Yoffee, N. 1995. Political economy in early Mesopotamian states. Annual Review of Anthropology,
24(1): 281-312.
9
For further reading: domestic groups
General works
Allison, P. (ed.) 1999 The Archaeology of Household Activities. London: Routledge.
Carsten, J. & Hugh-Jones, S. 1995. About the house. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goody, J. 1971. The developmental cycle in domestic groups. London: Cambridge University Press.
(Introduction, Conclusions) ANTHROPOLOGY D30 GOO (3 copies); STORE 97-03565
Goody, J. 1972. Domestic groups. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
Hendon, J. 1996. Archaeological approaches to the organization of domestic labor. Ann. Review of Anthropology,
25: 45-61.
Hillier, B. and Hansen, J. 1984 The social logic of space. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Kent, S. 1990 (ed.) Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lawrence, D. and Low, S. 1990 The built environment and spatial form. Annual Review of Anthropology
19:453-505.
Levi-Strauss, C. 1982. The way of the masks. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Moore, H.L 1986 Space, text and gender. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Netting, R. M. 1993. Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable
Agriculture. Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press. ANTHROPOLOGY E655 NET (1 copy)
Netting, R. M., Wilk, R., & Arnold, E. 1984. Households. Berkeley: Univ.of California Press. ANTHR D45 NET
Rapoport, A. 1982 The meaning of the built environment. Sage Publications, London.
Samson, R. (ed.) 1990 The Social Archaeology of Houses. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
Steadman, S. 1996 Recent research in the archaeology of architecture. Journal of Arch. Research 4:51-93.
Problems of method
Folorunso, C. A. 2007. Gender and archaeological site formation: ethnoarchaeological studies in parts of Nigeria.
In S. Hamilton, R. Whitehouse, & K. I. Wright (Eds.), Archaeology and Women: Ancient and Modern
Issues.: 353-372. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press ISSUE DESK HAM3; BD HAM (multiple
copies)
Kramer, C. 1984. Spatial organization in contemporary southwest Asian villages & archaeological sampling. In
T. C. Young (Ed.), The Hilly Flanks: 347-368. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DBA100 Qto
BRA
Parker Pearson, M. and Richards, C. Ordering the world: perceptions of architecture, space and time. In, M.
Parker Pearson and C. Richards (eds) Architecture and Order. Routledge:1-37. AH PAR, Issue Desk
PAR 7.
Rapoport, A. 2002. Spatial organization and the built environment. In, T. Ingold (ed.) The Companion
Encyclopedia of Anthropology. London: Routledge:460-502. INST ARCH BS ING, ISSUE DESK
ING 2.
For further reading: complex societies
Definitions and overviews
Gledhill, J. 1988. Introduction: the comparative analysis of social and political transitions. In J. Gledhill, B.
Bender, & M. T. Larsen (Eds.), State and society: the emergence and development of social hierarchy
and political centralization: 1-29. London: Unwin Hyman. INST ARCH BD STA
IESS (D. Sills, ed.) 1968. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York: MacMillan. Look up
and read definitions: State; Social Stratification (or Class Society); Urbanization (or The City).
ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTOS A2 INT; STORES (SEES DEPOSITORY) M11973-M11989.
Roseberry, W. 1988. Political economy. Annual Review of Anthropology, 17(1): 161-181.
Smith, R. T. 1984. Anthropology and the concept of social class. Annual Review of Anthropology, 13: 467-494.
General Works
Adams, R. M. 1967. The evolution of urban society. Chicago: Aldine.
Alcock, S. E. 2001. Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Brumfiel, E. & Fox, J. W. 1994. Factional competition and political development in the New World. Cambridge:
CUP.
Champion, T. C. 1995. Centre and periphery: comparative studies in archaeology. London: Routledge.
Cobb, C. R. 1993. Archaeological approaches to the political economy of nonstratified societies. Archaeological
Method and Theory, 3: 43-100.
Earle, T. 1997. How chiefs come to power: the political economy in prehistory. Palo Alto: Stanford University
Press.
10
Flannery, K. V. 1972. The cultural evolution of civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 3(1):
399-426.
Gledhill, J., Bender, B., & Larsen, M. T. 1988. State and society. London: Unwin Hyman.
Goody, J. 1976. Production and Reproduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Low, S. M. 1996. The anthropology of cities. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25: 383-410.
Renfrew, C. & Cherry, J. 1986. Peer polity interaction and socio-political change. Cambridge: CUP.
Price, T. & Feinman, G. 2010. Pathways to power. New York: Springer.
Service, E. R. 1975. Origins of the state and civilization: the process of cultural evolution. New York: Norton.
Service, E. R. 1962. Primitive social organization: an evolutionary perspective. New York: Random House.
Shenk, M., et al. 2010. Intergenerational wealth transmission among agriculturalists: foundations of agrarian
inequality. Current Anthropology, 51(1): 65-83. See also Current Anthropology, 52(2): page 265.
Sherratt, A. 1993. What would a Bronze Age world-system look like? Journal European Archaeology 1: 1-57.
Steward, J. H. 1955. Theory of Culture Change. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Tainter, J. A. 1988. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Upham, S. 1990. The evolution of political systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wallerstein, I. M. 1984. The politics of the world-economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
White, L. 1959. The Evolution of Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill.
11
4
Death and Mortuary Behaviour
The interpretation of burials and mortuary data is a central aspect of archaeology. On the one hand,
physical anthropological analysis of skeletal remains can cast light on demographic and biological
aspects of past peoples, such as life expectancy, general health, specific diseases, occupational
injuries, and traumas. On the other hand, the study of the cultural treatment in death of individuals of
known sex and age may throw light on aspects of social organisation and the cultural values attached
to them, such as gender and age distinctions, rank and status. Early processual archaeologists
concentrated on identifying generalising correspondences between treatment of the dead and social
organisation. Post-processual critiques (and earlier ones, see Ucko 1969), drawing on the rich
ethnographic literature, have argued that burial ritual does not simply reflect social organisation, but
reflexively constructs it, through negotiation and re-affirmation or transformation.
Discussion questions
What are the main differences in the ways in which processual and post-processual archaeologists
have treated burial archaeology?
How can we understand the relationship(s) between the dead community encountered archaeologically
and the living community it came from?
The burial record is one of the few places where archaeologists (especially prehistorians) can
sometimes deal with past individuals. How can we use this opportunity?
What problems arise from the fact that archaeology provides only a partial record of past mortuary
rituals and their residues? Are they insuperable?
Essential
Chapman, R. 2003. Death, society and archaeology: the social dimensions of mortuary practices.
Mortality 8: 305-12. Electronic resource
Chapman, R., Kinnes, I.A. and Randsborg, K. (eds) 1981. The Archaeology of Death. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. ISSUE DESK IOA CHA 7, INST ARCH BC 100 Qto CHA
Huntington, R. and Metcalf, P. 1979. Celebrations of Death: the anthropology of mortuary ritual.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ANTHROPOLOGY D 155 HUN
Parker Pearson, M. 1999. The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Stroud: Sutton. ISSUE DESK IOA
PAR 8, INST ARCH AH PAR
Sayer, D. 2010. Ethics and Burial Archaeology. London: Duckworth. INST ARCH AG 20 SAY
Tarlow, S. 1999. Bereavement and Commemoration: an archaeology of mortality. Oxford: Blackwell.
INST ARCH BD TAR
For further reading: death and mortuary behaviour
Arnold, B. and Wicker, N.I. (eds) 2001. Gender and the Archaeology of Death. AltaMira Press.
Bloch, M. 1986. From blessing to violence: history and ideology in the circumcision ritual of the Merina of
Madagascar. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Bloch, M. & J. Parry 1982. Death and the Regeneration of Life.
Brown, J.A. (ed.) 1971. Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices, especially papers by
Binford, Deetz & Dethlefsen, and Saxe.
Carr, C. 1995. Mortuary practices: their social, philosophical-religious, circumstantial and physical determinants.
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 2: 105-199 TC 3274, IoA Periodicals, eJournals.
Goody, J. 1962. Death, Property and the Ancestors.
Cannon, A. 1989. The Historical Dimension in Mortuary Expressions of Status and Sentiment. Current
Anthropology, 30.4: 437-458.
Chamberlain, A.T. 1994. Human Remains.
Chapman, J. 2000. Tension at funerals: social practices and the subversion of community structure in later
Hungarian prehistory. In M.-A. Dobres and J.E. Robb (eds.) Agency in Archaeology, 169-195. London:
Routledge.
12
DeGusta, D. 2000 Fijian Cannibalism and Mortuary Ritual: Bioarchaeological Evidence from Vuda.
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 10:76-92.
Downes, J. & Pollard, T. (eds), The Loved Body’s Corruption: archaeological contributions to the study of
human mortality.
MacDonald, D. 2001. Grief and Burial in the American Southwest: the Role of Evolutionary Theory in the
Interpretation of Mortuary Remains. American Antiquity 66:704-714, IoA Periodicals, eJournals.
Mays, S.A. 1998. The Archaeology of Human Bones.
Metcalf, P. & R. Huntington 1992. The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual.
Morris, I. 1987. Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State.
Morris, I. 1991. The archaeology of ancestors: the Saxe/Goldstein hypothesis revisited. Cambridge
Archaeological Journal 1 (2) 147-67.
Morris, I. 1992. Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity .
O’Shea, J. 1984. Mortuary Variability. An Archaeological Investigation. Academic Press, New York.
Parker Pearson, M. 1982. Mortuary practices, society and ideology: an ethnoarchaeological study. In Hodder, I.
(ed.), Symbolic and Structural Archaeology: 99-113. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Parker Pearson, M. 1993. The powerful dead: archaeological relationships between the living and the dead.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3 (2) 203-29.
Parker Pearson, M. 1995. Return of the living dead: mortuary analysis and the New Archaeology revisited.
Antiquity 69: 1046-8.
Parker Pearson, M. 1999. Death and Burial: pp. 21-44. Sutton, Thrupp. IOA Issue Desk PAR 8, INST ARCH
AH PAR.
Pietrusewsky, M., M. T. Douglas, E. E. Cochrane and S. Reinke 2007. Cultural Modifications in an Adolescent
Earth-Oven Interment from Fiji: Sorting out Mortuary Practice. The Journal of Island and Coastal
Archaeology 2(1):44 - 71.
Rakita, G., Buikstra, J., Beck L, and Williams, S (eds). 2001. Interacting with the Dead: Perspectives on
Mortuary Archaeology for the New Millennium. University Press of Florida.
Rega, E. 1996. Age, gender and biological reality in the Early Bronze Age cemetery at Mokrin. In Moore, J. and
Scott, E.(eds), Invisible People and Processes. Writing gender and childhood into European archaeology:
229-47. Leicester University Press, Leicester.
Scarre, C. 1994. The meaning of death: funerary beliefs and the prehistorian. In A.C. Renfrew & E. Zubrow
(eds.) The Ancient Mind: Elements of a Cognitive Archaeology: 75-82.
Shennan, S. 1975. The social organisation at Branc. Antiquity 49: 279-88.
Tainter, J. 1978. Mortuary practices and the study of prehistoric social systems. In Schiffer, M. (ed.), Advances in
Archaeological Method and Theory. 1.
Ucko, P. 1969. Ethnography and the archaeological interpretation of funerary remains. World Archaeology 1:
262-90. TC 784, IoA Periodicals, eJournals.
Whitley, J. 2002. Too many ancestors. Antiquity 76:119-26, IoA Periodicals, eJournals.
13
5
Landscape and Regional Settlement Systems
Landscape studies have had a long history in archaeology, from Antiquarian regional inventories, to
the large-scale survey projects of Processual archaeology, to the phenomenological perspectives
explored through Interpretive approaches. In addition to the inter-disciplinary programmes of field
surveys and environmental reconstruction of ancient landscapes which developed from the 1950s,
there has been an increasing interest recently in symbolic landscapes, landscapes of power and the
way in which landscapes are culturally perceived and defined, not least by the monuments and spatial
distribution of activities in them. The readings focus primarily on the cultural dimensions of
landscape and represent a range of approaches as a basis for the seminar discussion.
Discussion questions
Are economic and political models of settlement patterns, as exemplified by Central Place Theory,
limited in relevance to Western, market economies?
Are idealised models, such as Central Place Theory, relevant to analysing real landscapes?
Are symbolic approaches to landscape incompatible with economic analyses?
Is the concept of a ‘cognitive landscape’ a promising avenue for archaeologists? How do the settings
and design of monuments help us to define such landscapes?
Can a phenomenological approach to a landscape provide insight into how it was perceived and
understood by individuals in the past?
Essential
Hodges, R. 1987. Spatial models, anthropology and archaeology, in J.M. Wagstaff (ed.) Landscape
and Culture: Geographical and Archaeological Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell:118-33.
Inst Arch AH WAG, Science: GEOGRAPHY H 58 WAG, Issue Desk AH WAG
Kowalewski, S. 2008. Regional settlement pattern studies. Journal of Archaeological Research
16:225-285. IoA Periodicals, eJournals.
Gillings, M. Forthcoming. Landscape and environment. In A. Gardner, M. Lake and U. Sommer (eds)
The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Theory. Available on-line through UCL Explore.
Ashmore, W. 2004. Social archaeologies of landscape. In L. Meskell and R. Preucel (eds) A
Companion to Social Archaeology. Malden: Blackwell:255-71. Available on-line through
UCL Explore.
Brück, J. 2005. Experiencing the past? The development of a phenomenological archaeology in
British prehistory. Archaeological Dialogues 12(1):45-72. IoA Periodicals, eJournals.
For further reading: landscapes
Adams, R. 1981 Heartland of Cities. Chicago, Chicago University Press.
Alcock, S.E. & R. Osborne (eds.) 1994. Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient
Greece.
Ashmore, W. and Knapp, B. (eds) 1999. Archaeologies of Landscape. Oxford, Blackwell.
Barrett, J. 1999 The mythical landscapes of the British Iron Age. In. W. Ashmore and B. Knapp
(eds) Archaeologies of Landscape. Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 253-65.
Barrett, J. 1999. Chronologies of landscape. In P. Ucko and R. Layton (eds) 1999. The Archaeology
and Anthropology of Landscape. Shaping your landscape. London: Routledge:21-30.
Bender, B. 1992 Theorising landscapes and the prehistoric landscapes of Stonehenge. Man 27:73555.
Bender, B. 1993. Landscape: Politics and Perspectives. Oxford, Berg.
Bender, B., Hamilton, S. and Tilley, C. 2007. Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape
Archaeology. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Binford, L. 1980 Willow smoke and dogs’ tails: hunter-gatherer settlement systems and
archaelogical site formation. American Antiquity 45:4-20.
Binford, L.R. 1982 The archaeology of place. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:5-31.
14
Binford, L.R. 1964. A consideration of archaeological research design. American Antiquity 29:425-41.
Bintliff, J.L. 1999. Settlement and territory. In, G. Barker (ed.) Companion Encyclopedia of
Archaeology. Vol. 1. London: Routledge:505-45.
Brown, T. 1999. Reconstructing the environment and natural landscape. In G. Barker (ed.) Companion
Encyclopedia of Archaeology, Vol. 1. London: Routledge:222-65.
Butzer, K. 1982 Archaeology as Human Ecology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carmichael, D.L., J. Hubert, B. Reeves & A. Schanche (eds.) 1994. Sacred Sites, Sacred Places.
Cherry, J.F. 1987. ‘Power in space: archaeological and geographical studies of the state’, in J.M.
Wagstaff (ed.) Landscape and Culture: Geographical and Archaeological Perspectives.
Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 146-72.
Cosgrove, D. 1984. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape.
Crumley, C. 1979 Three locational models: an epistemological assessment for anthropology and
archaeology. In. M. Schiffer (ed.) Advances in archaeological method and theory. Vol. 2.
Academic, New York:143-74.
David, B. and J. Thomas (eds) 2008. Handbook of Landscape Archaeology. Walnut Creek: Left
Coast Press,
Earle, T.K. and Preucel, R.W. 1987. Processual Archaeology and the radical critique. Current
Anthropology 28:501-38.
Edmonds, M. 2006. Who said romance was dead? Journal of Material Culture 11:167-88.
Feld, S. and Basso, K. (eds) Senses of Place. Santa Fe: School of American Research.
Fisher, P.F., Farrelly, C., Maddocks, A. and Ruggles, C. 1997. Spatial analysis of visible areas from
the Bronze Age cairns of Mull. Journal of Archaeological Science 24:581-92.
Flannery, K. (ed.) 1976. The village and its catchment area. In K. V. Flannery (ed.) The Early
Mesoamerican Village. New York: Academic Press:91-5, 103-17.
Fleming, A. 1999. Phenomenology and the megaliths of Wales: a dreaming too far? Oxford Journal
of Archaeology 18(2):119-125.
Fowles, S. 2010. The Southwest school of landscape archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology
39:453-68.
Frieman, C. and M. Gillings 2007. Seeing is perceiving? World Archaeology 39:4-16.
Haaland, R. and G, Haaland 2011. Landscape. In T. Insoll (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the
Archaeology of Ritual and Religion. Oxford.
Hamilton, S. 2011. The ambiguity of landscape: discussing points of relatedness in concepts and
methods. In E. Cochrane and A. Gardner (eds.) Evolutionary and Interpretive Archaeologies.
A dialogue. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press:263-80.
Hamilton, S. and Whitehouse, R. 2006. Phenomenology in practice: towards a methodology for a
‘subjective’ approach. European Journal of Archaeology 9:31-71.
Higgs, E. and Vita-Finzi, C. 1972. Prehistoric economies: a territorial approach. In, E. Higgs (ed.)
Papers in Economic Prehistory. Cambridge, CUP, pp. 27-36.
Hirsch, E. and O'Hanlon, M. (Eds) 1995 The anthropology of landscape. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Hodder, I. 1972. Locational models and the study of Romano-British settlement. In D. L. Clarke (ed.)
Models in Archaeology. London: Methuen:887-909.
Ingold, T. 1993. The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeology 25(2): 152-74. Science TC
296, IoA TC 1392
Johnson, G.A. 1977. Aspects of regional analysis in archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology
6:479-508.
Johnson, M. 2012. Phenomenological approaches in landscape archaeology. Annual Review of
Anthropology 41: 269-284.
Kantner, J. 2008. The archaeology of regions: from discrete analytical toolkit to ubiquitous spatial
perspective. Journal of Archaeological Research 16:37-81.
Lake, M. (ed.) 2007. Viewing Space. World Archaeology 39.
Lock, G. 2009. Human activity in a spatial context. In C. Gosden, B. Cunliffe and R. Joyce (eds.) The
Oxford Handbook of Archaeology. Oxford.
Llobera, M. 1996. Exploring the topography of mind: GIS, social space, and archaeology. Antiquity
70:612-22.
Llobera, M. 2001. Building landscape perception with GIS: understanding topographic prominence.
15
Journal of Archaeological Science 28:1005-14.
McGlade, J. 1999. Archaeology and the evolution of cultural landscapes: towards an interdisciplinary
agenda. In P.J. Ucko and R. Layton (eds) The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape:
Shaping Your Landscape. London: Routledge:458-82.
Parsons, J.R. 1972. Archaeological settlement patterns. Annual Review of Anthropology 1: 127-50.
Renfrew, A.C. 1978. Space, time and polity. In, J. Friedman and M.J. Rowlands (eds.) The
Evolution of Social Systems. London: Duckworth:89-112.
Roberts, B. 1996. Landscapes of Settlement: Prehistory to the Present. London, Batsford
Rossignol, J. & L.Wandsnider (eds.) 1992. Space, Time and Archaeological Landscapes. Plenum.
Schama, S. 1996. Landscape and Memory. London, Fontana.
Smith, A. 2003. The Political Landscape. London: University of California Press.
Smith, C. 1976 Regional economic systems: linking geographical models and socioeconomic
problems. In, C. Smith (ed.) Regional Analysis, Vol. 1: Economic Systems. New York,
Academic Press, pp. 3-63.
Smith, M.E. 1979. The Aztec marketing system and settlement patterns in the Valley of Mexico: a
central place analysis. American Antiquity 44:110-25.
Thomas, J.S. 1993. The politics of vision and the archaeologies of landscape. In, B. Bender (ed.)
Landscape: Politics and Perspectives. Oxford: Berg:19-48.
Thomas, J. 2001. Archaeologies of place and landscape. In, I. Hodder (ed.) Archaeological Theory
Today. Cambridge, Polity, 165-86. Inst Arch AH HOD, Issue Desk HOD 18.
Tilley, C. 1994. ‘Space, place, landscape and perception: phenomenological perspectives’, in C.
Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape. Oxford, Berg, pp. 7-34. Inst Arch BD TIL, Issue
Desk TIL 2, Science: ANTHROPOLOGY C 10 TIL, Science TC 5474 .
Tilley, C. 2004. Round barrows and dykes as landscape metaphors. Cambridge Archaeological
Journal 14:185-203.
Tilley, C. 1996. The power of rocks: topography & monument construction on Bodmin Moor. World
Arch. 28:161-76.
Tilley, C. 2008. Phenomenological Approaches to Landscape Archaeology. In B. David and J.
Thomas (eds) Handbook of Landscape Archaeology. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press:271-76.
Tilley, C. & Bennet, W. 2001 An archaeology of super-natural places. Journal Royal
Anthropological Institute 7:335-62.
Townsend, R.F. 1992. ‘Landscape and symbol’, in R.F. Townsend (ed.) The Ancient Americas: Art
from Sacred Landscapes.
Trigger, B.G. 1968. The determinants of settlement patterns, in K.C. Chang, ed., Settlement
Archaeology: 53-78.
Tuan, Y-F. 1977 Space and Place. The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press.
Ucko, P. and Layton, R. (eds) 1999. The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape. London:
Routledge.
Wagstaff, J.M. (ed.) 1987. Landscape and Culture: Geographical and Archaeological Perspectives.
Wandsnider, L. 1998. Regional scale processes and archaeological landscape units. In, A.
Ramenofsky and A. Steffen (eds.) Unit Issues in Archaeology. Salt Lake City: Univ.of Utah
Press:87-102. INST ARCH AJ RAM
16
6
Darwinian Archaeology and Anthropology
In recent years there has been renewed application of Darwinian evolutionary theory to the study of
cultural change. Darwinian approaches generally explain variation in the archaeological, linguistic
and ethnographic records by processes of cultural transmission, selection, adaptation, and other
processes similar to those used in explanations of biological change. We will examine the structure of
biological evolutionary theory, and consider the relevance of the analogy with cultural change.
Discussion questions
What assumptions of Darwinian evolutionary theory are used to explain cultural change?
Why is culture conceived as an inheritance system?
How are artefacts conceptualised in this framework?
Where does the concept of the ‘individual’ fit into Darwinian archaeologies?
What is the purpose of cultural phylogenetic models?
Can we ask typical archaeological questions using Darwinian evolutionary theory?
Why pursue a Darwinian framework in archaeology?
Essential
Currie, T. and Mace, R. (2011) Mode and tempo in the evolution of socio-political organization:
reconciling ‘Darwinian’ and ‘Spencerian’ evolutionary approaches in anthropology. Phil.
Trans. R. Soc. B 366 [1567]: 1108-1117. Science Periodicals, eJournals.
Haas, J. (1996) A brief history of cultural evolution: stages, agents, and tinkering. Working papers of
the Santa Fe Institute 96-05-025. Online at:
http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/96-05-025.pdf
Mesoudi, A. et al. (2006). Towards a unified science of cultural evolution. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 29:329-383. Science Periodicals, eJournals.
Shennan, S. (2008). Evolution in archaeology. Annual Review Of Anthropology 37:75-91. Science:
ANTHROPOLOGY Journals, eJournals.
Steele, J., Jordan, P. and Cochrane, E. (eds) (2010) Cultural and linguistic diversity: evolutionary
approaches. Phil. Trans . Roy. Soc. Series B 365(1559): 3781-3933. Science Periodicals,
eJournals.
For futher reading: Darwinian archaeology and anthropology
Bettinger, R. L. and J. W. Eerkens (1999) Point typologies, cultural transmission, and the spread of bow-andarrow technology in the prehistoric Great Basin. American Antiquity 64(2):231-242.
Boone, J. L. and E. A. Smith (1998) Is it evolution yet? A critique of evolutionary archaeology. Current
Anthropology 39(Supplement):S141-S174.
Broughton, J. M. and J. F. O'Connell (1999) On evolutionary ecology, selectionist archaeology, and behavioral
archaeology. American Antiquity 64(1):153-165.
Charlton, M.F., P. Crew, T. Rehren and S.J. Shennan. Explaining the evolution of ironmaking recipes – An
example from northwest Wales. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010) 352–367.
Eerkens, J., and C. Lipo (2007). Cultural transmission theory and the archaeological record: providing context to
understanding variation and temporal changes in material culture. Journal of Archaeological Research
15:239.
Holden, C. J. (2002) Bantu language trees reflect the spread of farming across sub-Saharan Africa: a maximumparsimony analysis. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 269, 793-799.
Jordan, P. and S. Shennan (2003) Cultural transmission, language, and basketry traditions amongst the California
Indians. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22(1):42-74.
Kandler, A. and Steele, J. (eds) (2012). Cultural Evolution in Spatially Structured Populations. Advances in
Complex Systems 15(1-2).
Leonard, R. D. and G. T. Jones (1987) Elements of an inclusive evolutionary model for archaeology. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 6:199-219.
17
Lipo, C. P., M. J. O'Brien, M. Collard and S. Shennan (editors) (2006). Mapping Our Ancestors: Phylogenetic
Methods in Anthropology and Prehistory. Aldine de Gruyter, New York.
Lipo, C. P., M. Madsen, R. C. Dunnell and T. Hunt (1997) Population structure, cultural transmission, and
frequency seriation. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16(4):301-333.
Lyman, R. L. and M. J. O'Brien (1998) The goals of evolutionary archaeology: history and explanation. Current
Anthropology 39(5):615-652.
Mesoudi, A., A. Whiten and K. N. Laland (2004). Is human cultural evolution Darwinian? Evidence reviewed
from the perspective of The Origin of Species. Evolutionary Anthropology 58(1):1-11.
Murray, T. (2002). Evaluating evolutionary archaeology. World Archaeology 34(1): 47-59.
Neiman, F.D. (1995). Stylistic variation in evolutionary perspective: inferences from decorative diversity and
inter-assemblage distance in Illinois Woodland ceramic assemblages. American Antiquity 60: 7-36.
Neiman, F. (1997). Conspicuous consumption as wasteful advertising: a Darwinian perspective on spatial
patterns in Classic Maya terminal monument dates. In C.M. Barton and G.A. Clark (eds), Rediscovering
Darwin: Evolutionary Theory in Archaeological Explanation, pp. 267-290. Arlington, Virginia: American
Anthropological Association.
O'Brien, M. J., J. Darwent and R. L. Lyman (2001). Cladistics is useful for reconstructing archaeological
phylogenies: Palaeoindian points from the Southeastern United States. Journal of Archaeological Science
28:1115-1136.
O'Brien, M. J., R. L. Lyman and R. D. Leonard (1998). Basic incompatibilities between evolutionary and
behavioral archaeology. American Antiquity 63(3):485-498.
Richerson, P. J. and R. Boyd (1992) Cultural inheritance and evolutionary ecology. In Evolutionary Ecology and
Human Behavior, edited by E. A. Smith and B. Winterhalder, pp. 61-94. Aldine De Gruyter, New York.
Richerson, P.J., R. Boyd and R.L. Bettinger (2001). Was agriculture impossible during the Pleistocene but
mandatory during the Holocene. American Antiquity 66: 387-412.
Richerson, P. J. and R. Boyd (2001). Institutional evolution in the Holocene: the rise of complex societies. In
W.G. Runciman (ed.) The Origin of Human Social Institutions. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 110: 197234.
Rogers, D. S. and P. R. Ehrlich (2008). Natural selection and cultural rates of change. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 105(9): 3416-3420.
Schiffer, M. B. (1996). Some relationships between behavioral and evolutionary archaeologies. American
Antiquity 61:643-662.
Shennan, S. J. and J. R. Wilkinson (2001) Ceramic style change and neutral evolution: a case study from
Neolithic Europe. American Antiquity 66(4):577-593.
Shennan, S.J. (2002). Genes, Memes and Human History: Darwinian Archaeology and Cultural Evolution.
London: Thames and Hudson.
Steele, J., Glatz, C. and Kandler, A. (2010) Ceramic diversity, random copying, and tests for selectivity in
ceramic production. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 1348-1358.
Steele, J. and Shennan, S. (eds) (2009) Demography and cultural macroevolution. Human Biology, 81 [2-3]: 105384.
Tehrani, J. and M. Collard (2002) Investigating cultural evolution through biological phylogenetic analyses of
Turkmen textiles. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21(4):443-463.
Tëmkin, I. and N. Eldridge (2007). Phylogenetics and material culture evolution. American Anthropologist 48(1):
146-153.
18
7
Religion and Ritual
Religion and ritual have always been of interest in anthropology. In archaeology, ‘ritual’ tends to
attract more attention, at least methodologically, because by definition the term refers to an activity
with a high degree of formality—that is, repeated according to particular rules or expectations or
habits.1 The repetitive face of ritual means that ritual activities are likely to leave material remains.
‘Religion’ on the other hand is not even easy for us to define, let alone envision what its material
correlates might be. This seminar examines the concepts of ‘religion’ and ‘ritual’ and asks what role
they play in enabling the understanding of past—and present—societies.
Discussion questions





What is ‘religion’?
What is definitive of religion that is not also part of culture? In other words, can something be
exclusively ‘religious’ without also being something else?
To what extent is it possible to separate religion from other aspects of past social behaviour and
idea systems?
Provide some examples of ritual activity from your time at the Institute. What purpose or purposes
do you think ritual serves? What sorts of material culture are associated with your examples?
Some have argued that there is no such thing as ‘religion’ and that it is a word that has a particular
political history. It has roots in the early Classical world as a way to define ‘others’ whose cultural
and social behaviour distinguished them as a group. Using the term ‘religious’ as a behaviour
could also reflect a commitment to a particular pattern, often a ritual pattern. For example, we
might say that ‘He was religious in his commitment to jogging every day at 7 p.m.’; or, ‘St.
Francis was the founder of a religious order.’
Essential
Shanks, M. & Tilley, C. 1982. Ideology, symbolic power and ritual communication: a reinterpretation
of Neolithic mortuary practices. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and Structural Archaeology: 129-54.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Issue Desk HOD 12, Inst Arch AH HOD.
Fogelin, L. 2007. The archaeology of religious ritual. Annual Review of Anthropology 36:55-71.
Science: ANTHROPOLOGY Journals, eJournals.
Graham, E., S. Simmons, C.D. White. 2013. The Spanish Conquest and the Maya collapse: How
‘religious’ is change? World Archaeology 45(1): 1-25. DOI:10.1080/00438243.2013.770962
For further reading:
What exactly is ‘religion’?
Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Disciplines of Power in Christianity and Islam. Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore.
Bowie, Fiona. 2000. The Anthropology of Religion. Blackwell, Oxford.
Burkhart, Louise M. 1989. The Slippery Earth: Nahua Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico.
University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Carrette, Jeremy R. 2000. Foucault and Religion. Routledge, London.
Case, Shirley Jackson. 1971. Experience with the Supernatural in Early Christian Times. Benjamin Blom, New
York. (This will get you thinking that ‘magic’ is a political term as well.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. Religion as a Cultural System. In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays by
Clifford Geertz, 87-125. Basic Books, New York.
Geertz, Clifford. 2000. The Pinch of Destiny: Religion as Experience, Meaning, Identity, Power. In Available
light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics, by Clifford Geertz, 167-86. Princeton University
Press, Princeton.
Graham, Elizabeth. 2009. Close Encounters. In Maya Worldviews at Conquest, ed. By Leslie G. Cecil and
Timothy W. Pugh, 17-38. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.
Graham, Elizabeth. 2011. Chapter 3 in Maya Christians and Their Churches in Sixteenth-Century Belize.
University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
19
Graham, E., Simmons, S. and White, C. 2013. The Spanish Conquest and the Maya collapse: How ‘religious’ is
change? World Archaeology 45(1): 1-25.
Insoll, Timothy. 2004. Archaeology, Ritual, Religion. Routledge, London.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Lambek, Michael. 2000. The Anthropology of Religion and the Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy. Current
Anthropology 41(3): 309-20.
Lett, James. 1977. Science, Religion, and Anthropology. In Anthropology of Religion: A Handbook, ed. By
Stephen D. Glazier, 103-20. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn.
Neusner, Jacob, and Ernest S. Frerich, eds. 1985. ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christian, Jews, ‘Others’
in Late Antiquity. Scholars Press, Chico, CA.
Pharo, Lars Kirkhusmo. 2007. The Concept of ‘Religion’ in Mesoamerican Languages. Numen, no. 54: 28-70.
Sandstrom, Alan R. 1991. Corn Is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian
Village. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Seznec, Jean. 1981. The Survival of the Pagan Gods. Transl. from the French by Barbara F. Sessions. Princeton
University Press, Princeton.
Smith, Jonathan Z. 1985. What a Difference a Difference Makes. In ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’:
Christian, Jews, ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Neusner and E.S. Frerichs, 3-48. Scholars Press, Chico, CA.
Taylor, Mark ed. 1998. Critical Terms for Religious Studies. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Other readings on religion and ritual
Alcock, S.E. & R. Osborne (eds.) 1994. Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece.
Oxford: Clarendon Press
Barrett, J.C. 1991. Towards an archaeology of ritual. In Garwood, P., D. Jennings, R. Skeates & J. Toms (eds.)
1991. Sacred and Profane: Proceedings of a Conference on Archaeology, Ritual and Religion, Oxford: 1–9.
Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Monographs no, 32, Oxford.
Barth, F. 1975. Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bloch, M. 1986. From blessing to violence: history and ideology in the circumcision ritual of the Merina of
Madagascar. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Bloch, M. 2008. Why religion is nothing special but is central. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 2055-2061.
Doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.00007
Boyer, P. and B. Bergstrom. 2008. Evolutionary perspectives on religion. Annual Review of Anthropology
37:111-30.
Boyer, P. 2001. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Carmichael, D.L., J. Hubert, B. Reeves & A. Schanche (eds.) 1994. Sacred Sites, Sacred Places. New York:
Routledge.
Crown, P. L. 1994 Ceramics and Ideology: Salado Polychrome Pottery. Univ.of New Mexico Press,
Albuquerque.
Crown, P. L. and W. H. Wills 2003, Modifying Pottery and Kivas at Chaco: Pentimento, Restoration, or
Renewal? American Antiquity 68 (3): 511-532.
Douglas, M. 1984. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Praeger.
Douglas, M. 1996 (new edition). Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. New York: Pantheon Books.
Edwards, D.N. 2005. The archaeology of religion. In M. Díaz-Andreu, S. Lucy, S. Babić and D.N. Edwards
(eds.) The Archaeology of Identity, 110-128. London: Routledge.
Garwood, P., D. Jennings, R. Skeates & J. Toms (eds.) 1991. Sacred and Profane: Proceedings of a Conference
on Archaeology, Ritual and Religion, Oxford. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology.
Graves, M. W. and M. Sweeney1993 Ritual Behavior and Ceremonial Structures in Eastern Polynesia: Changing
Perspectives on Archaeological Variability. In The Evolution and Organisation of Prehistoric Society in
Polynesia, edited by M. W. Graves and R. C. Green, pp. 102-121. vol. Monograph 19. New Zealand
Archaeological Association, Auckland.
Geertz, C. 1983. Local Knowledge, chapter 6 (‘Centres, kings and charisma: reflections on the symbolics of
power’). New York: Basic Books.
Hays-Gilpin, K. and Whitley, D.S. (eds.) 2008. Belief in the Past: theoretical approaches to the archaeology of
religion. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Howey, M. C. L. and J. M. O'Shea 2006. Bear's journey and the study of ritual in archaeology. American
Antiquity 71(2):261-282.
Insoll, T. 2004. Archaeology, Ritual, Religion. London, Routledge.
Kemp, B. 1989. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation, Chapter 2. New York: Routledge.
Kolb, M., J 1994. Ritual Activity and Chiefly Economy at an Upland Religious Site on Maui, Hawai`i. Journal of
Field Archaeology 21:417-436.
Lessa, W. & E. Vogt (eds.) 1979. Readers in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach. New York:
Harper and Row.
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Lynch, A. 1996. Thought Contagion: how belief spreads through society. New York: Basic Books.
McCauley, R.N. & Lawson, E. T. 2002. Bringing Ritual to Mind. Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morris, B. 1987. Anthropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text (chapter 3 ‘The anthropological
tradition’). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Day, S. J, Van Neer, W., and Ervynck, A. (eds) 2004. Behaviour behind bones : the zooarchaeology of ritual,
religion, status and identity. Oxford : Oxbow Books.
Peatfield, A.A.D. 1992. Rural ritual in Bronze Age Crete: the peak sanctuary at Atsipadhes. Cambridge
Archaeological Journal 2: 59-87.
Polignac, F de. 1995. Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press.
Renfrew, C. 1994. The archaeology of religion. In A.C. Renfrew & E. Zubrow (eds), The Ancient Mind, pp. 4754. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Renfrew, C. 2001 Production and Consumption in a Sacred Economy: The Material Correlates of High
Devotional Expression at Chaco Canyon. American Anquity 66 (1):14-25.
Rives, J. 2000. Religion in the Roman world. In J. Huskinson (ed.) Experiencing Rome: culture, identity and
power in the Roman empire, 245-275. London: Routledge/Open University.
Sillar, B. 2009. The social agency of things? Animism and materiality in the Andes. Cambridge
Archaeological Journal 19:367-77.
Smith, A.T. & Brookes, A. (eds) 2001. Holy ground: theoretical issues relating to the landscape and material
culture of ritual space objects: papers from a session held at the Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference,
Cardiff 1999. BAR International Series 956.
Thomas, J. and C. Tilley 1993. The axe and the torso: symbolic structures in the Neolithic of Brittany. In C.
Tilley (ed), Interpretative Archaeology, pp. 225-326. Oxford: Berg.
Walter, R., T. Thomas and P. Sheppard 2004. Cult assemblages and ritual practice in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon
islands. World Archaeology 36(1):142-157.
Whitehouse, R. 1992. Underground Religion: Cult and Culture in Prehistoric Italy. London: Accordia Research
Centre, University of London.
Whitehouse, R. 1996. Ritual Objects. Archaeological joke or neglected evidence? In Wilkins, J.B. (ed.),
Approaches to the Study of Ritual, pp. 9–30. London: Accordia Research Centre, University of London.
Barfield, Thomas (ed.). 1997. The Dictionary of Anthropology. Blackwell, Oxford, for both ‘ritual’ and
‘religion’.
1See
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8
Approaches to Trade, Exchange and Value
This week’s class considers theories of exchange and value with regard to how they have been applied
to understand the transmission of material culture across space and over time. Trade has long been a
core theoretical domain in which modern commentators have either asserted that we can use the tools
of modern economics to understand past behaviour, or conversely and equally stridently, have asserted
the “otherness” of “primitive” exchange mechanisms. Underpinning our understanding of past and
present trade is also a wider issue of how tangible and intangible cultural products are given value in
the first place. Value proves to be an ambiguous but powerful topic, with relevance to a host of other
encountered during this course.
Discussion questions
How useful for archaeology are the anthropological concepts of reciprocity, redistribution and market
exchange?
All interpretations of exchange involve concepts of ‘value’. Where do these concepts come from and
how can we understand them?
What, if any, are the benefits of specialisation in regional exchange?
How does inequality in exchange arise (between individual, institutions or regions)? What are its
implications?
How convincingly can we ascribe social contexts, specific actors and/or specific behaviours to the
movements of ancient artefacts that we observe?
Essential
Sahlins, M. 1972. Stone Age Economics. Ch. 5. INST ARCH BD SAH
Renfrew, C. 1975. Trade as action at a distance. In Sabloff, J. & Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. (ed.)
Ancient Civilisation and Trade: 3-60. Tuscon, University of Arizona Press. TC 862
Appadurai, A. 1986. Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value, in Appadurai, A. (ed.) The
Social Life of Things: 3-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. TC 3723
Shennan, S. 1999. Cost, benefit and value in the organisation of Early European copper production,
Antiquity 73: 352-362
Bevan, A. 2010. Making and marking relationships: Bronze Age brandings and Mediterranean
commodities, in Bevan, A. and Wengrow, D. (eds.) Cultures of Commodity Branding. 35-85.
Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. TC3726
For further reading: trade, exchange and value
Adams, R. McC. 1974. Anthropological perspectives on ancient trade, Current Anthropology 15: 239-58.
Bevan, A. 2007. Stone Vessels and Values in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bevan, A. 2014. Mediterraneancontainerization. Current Anthropology 55 (4): 387-418.
Bradley, R. & M. Edmonds, 1993. Interpreting the Axe Trade. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Broodbank, C. 2000. An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(especially pp175-319)
Brumfiel, E. and Earle, T. (eds) 1993 Specialization, Exchange, and Complex Societies. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Burton, J. 1989. Repeng and the saltmakers: ecological trade and stone axe production in the New Guinea
highlands. Man 24: 255-72.
Champion, T. Introduction. In, T. Champion (ed.) Centre and Periphery. Comparative Studies in Archaeology.
London, Harper Collins, pp. 1-21.
Earle, T.K. & J.E. Ericson (eds.) 1977. Exchange Systems in Prehistory. New York, Academic Press.
Earle, T. 1982 Prehistoric economics and the archaeology of exchange. In, J. Ericson and T. Earle (eds)
Contexts for Prehistoric Exchange. New York, Academic Press: 1-12.
Ericson, J.E. and Earle, T.K. (eds) 1982 Contexts for Prehistoric Exchange. New York, Academic Press.
22
Flannery, K.V. 1968. The Olmec and the valley of Oaxaca: a model for interregional interaction in Formative
times. In, E. Benton (ed.) Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, pp. 79-110.
Gledhill, J. & M. Larsen (eds.). 1982. The Polanyi paradigm and a dynamic analysis of archaic states. In C.
Renfrew, M. Rowlands and B. Seagraves (eds.) Theory and Explanation in Archaeology. New York,
Academic Press, pp. 197-229.
Gosden, C. 1989 Production, power and prehistory. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 8:355-87.
Graeber, D. 2001. Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams, New
York: Palgrave.
Helms, M. 1988. Ulysses’ Sail: An Ethnographic Odyssey of Power, Knowledge and Geographical Distance.
Hirth, K. 1996 Political economy and archaeology: perspectives on exchange and production. Journal of
Archaeological Research 4:203
Kipp, R. and Schortman, E. 1989 The political impact of trade in chiefdoms. American Anthropologist 91:37085.
Mauss, M. 1925. The Gift.
Pearson, M. 1998. Performance as valuation: Early Bronze Age burial as theatrical complexity, in Bailey, D. (ed.)
The Archaeology of Value: 32-41. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum.
Renfrew, A.C. 1986. Varna and the Emergence of Wealth in Later Prehistoric Europe, in Appadurai, A. (ed.) The
Social Life of Things: 141-168. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Renfrew, A.C. 1993. Trade beyond the material., In Scarre, C. & Healy, F. (eds.) Trade and Exchange in
Prehistoric Europe: 5-16.
Rowlands, M., M. Larsen & K. Kristiansen (eds.) 1987. Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Schortman, E. and Urban, P. 1987 Modeling interregional interaction in prehistory. In, M. Schiffer (ed.)
Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 11: 37-95.
Schortman, E. and Urban, P. 1992 Resources, power and interregional interaction. London, Plenum.
Shennan, S.J. 1999. Cost, benefit and value in the organization of early European copper production. Antiquity
73, 352-363.
Sherratt, A.G. and Sherratt, E.S. 1991. From Luxuries to Commodities: The Nature of Bronze Age Trading
Systems, in Gale, N.H. (ed.) Bronze Age Trade in the Mediterranean: 351-381. Gothenburg: Paul
Åströms
Sherratt, A. 1993. What would a bronze age world system look like? Relations between temperate Europe and the
Mediterranean in later prehistory, Journal of European Archaeology 1: 1-57.
Torrence, R. 1986. Production and Exchange of Stone Tools: Prehistoric Obsidian in the Aegean. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Wengrow, D. 2008. Prehistories of Commodity Branding, Current Anthropology 49.1: 7-34.
Wright, H.T. and Johnson, G. 1975 Population, exchange and early state formation in southwestern Iran.
American Anthropologist 77:267-89.
Zaccagnini, C. 1987 Aspects of ceremonial exchange in the Near East during the late second millennium BC.
In, M. Rowlands, M. Larsen, and K. Kristiansen (eds), Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 57-65.
23
9
Archaeological Science
In recent years archaeological science has expanded enormously, in both the number and range of its
applications. Whereas in the past it was mainly associated with dating, on the one hand, and the
analysis of inorganic materials to address such topics as early technologies or the identification of
exchange, on the other, recently it is the biological sciences that have made the running, especially
isotope studies and studies of ancient DNA. In addition, computer-based modelling methods have
been increasingly employed, after a long period of eclipse, while ‘Big Data’ has become important for
the characterisation of large-scale patterns in the archaeological record. This session looks at the
impact of these developments on archaeological theory.
Discussion questions
To what extent is archaeological science replacing archaeological theory in posing and answering
archaeological questions?
Have biologists, especially geneticists, usurped the role of archaeologists in explaining patterns in
prehistory?
One aspect of post-processualism was the social critique of archaeological interpretations. How
can/should this react to the new developments in archaeological science?
Is archaeological science making long-standing dreams come true?
Essential
Bevan, A. 2015. The data deluge. Antiquity 89, December 2015, pp 1473 – 1484. Online
Kristiansen, K. 2014. Towards a new Paradigm? The Third Science Revolution and its Possible
Consequences in Archaeology. Current Swedish Archaeology 22, 11-34
Plus the commentaries and Kristiansen’s reply on the following pages. Online.
Liden, K., and G. Eriksson 2013. Archaeology vs. archaeological science. Do we have a case? Current
Swedish Archaeology 21, 11-20.
Plus the commentaries and their reply on the following pages. Online.
Martinon-Torres, M., and D. Killick 2015. Archaeological theories and archaeological sciences.
Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Theory. Online (DOI:
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199567942.013.004)
Pollard, A. M., and Bray, P. 2007. A bicycle made for two? The integration of scientific techniques
into archaeological interpretation. Annual Review of Anthropology, 36: 245–259. Online.
Further reading
Lake, M. (2014). Explaining the past with ABM: On modelling philosophy. In G. Wurzer, K.
Kowarik, & H. Reschreiter (Eds.), Agent-based Modeling and Archaeology. Berlin: Springer.
Online.
Plus, follow up some of the references that interest you in the readings above or browse recent issues
of Journal of Archaeological Science or Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
If you’re thinking of doing your essay on this subject please contact me to discuss identifying
particular areas of archaeological science to take as your examples.
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10
Archaeology, Politics and the Public
Archaeologists are increasingly recognising the importance of the social and political contexts in
which archaeological interpretations have been produced in the past, and in the present. They are also
increasingly recognising the claims of other groups to the material that they study, and the role of
archaeological interpretations and narratives in claiming the past for particular interests. How can or
should archaeologists evaluate and mediate the competing claims of multiple interested individuals
and groups, with respect to the interpretation of the past?
Discussion questions
Why is the past important today? Why is it so important to ask who owns the past?
Should Western museums return cultural artefacts to their countries of origin?
In what ways does consideration of the public affect the way we practice archaeology?
Does academic training give archaeologists authority in mediating alternative interpretations of the
past?
Can we incorporate multiple perspectives into archaeological interpretation?
How can we evaluate alternative interpretations and claims about the past?
Essential:
Kohl, P.L. 1998. Nationalism and archaeology: on the constructions of nations and the reconstructions
of the remote past. Annual Review of Anthropology 27: 223-46. eJournals.
Leone, M., et al. 1995 Can an Afro-American historical archaeology be an alternative voice? In, I.
Hodder, et al. (eds) Interpreting Archaeology. London, Routledge, pp. 110-24. TC 3513, Inst
Arch AH HOD, Issue Desk HOD 1.
Meskell, L. 2002. The intersections of identity and politics in archaeology. Annual Review of
Anthropology 31:279-301. Science: ANTHROPOLOGY Journals, eJournals.
Parker Pearson, M. and Pryor, F. 2006. Visitors and viewers welcome? In J.R. Hunter and I. Ralston
(eds) Archaeological Resource Management in the UK: an introduction. Second edition.
Stroud: Sutton Publishing. 316-27.
Watkins, J. 2005. Through wary eyes: indigenous perspectives on archaeology. Annual Review of
Anthropology 34:429-449. Science: ANTHROPOLOGY Journals, eJournals.
For further reading: archaeology, politics and the public
Appadurai, A. 1981. The past as a scarce resource. Man 16: 201-19.
Arnold, B. 1990. The past as propaganda: totalitarian archaeology in Nazi Germany. Antiquity 64: 464-78.
Atkinson, J., Banks, I. and O’Sullivan, J. (eds) 1996. Nationalism and Archaeology. Glasgow: Cruithne Press.
Bernbeck, R. and Pollock, S. 2004. The political economy of archaeological practice and the production of
heritage in the Middle East. In L. Meskell and R. Preucel (eds) A Companion to Social Archaeology. Malden:
Blackwell:335-52.
Bernbeck, R. & S. Pollock 1996. Ayodhya, archaeology & identity. Current Anthropology 37 (Supp.): 138-42.
Champion, T. & M. Diaz Andreu (eds.) 1996. Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe. London: UCL Press.
Chippindale, C. et al. 1990. Who Owns Stonehenge? London: Batsford.
Clack, T. and Brittain, M. (eds.) 2007. Archaeology and the Media. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Coombes, A.E. 1994. Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination.
Fagan, G.G. (ed.) 2006. Archaeological Fantasies. London: Routledge.
Fforde, C., Hubert, J. and Turnbull, P. (eds.) 2002. The Dead and Their Possessions: repatriation in principle,
policy and practice. London: Routledge.
Fowler, D., Jolie, E. & Salter, M. 2008. Archaeological ethics in context and practice. In R.A. Bentley, et al.
(eds.) Handbook of Archaeological Theories. Walnut Creek: AltaMira,409-22.
Fowler, P.J. 1992. The Past in Contemporary Society, Then, Now. New Haven: Yale U.P.
Gathercole, P. and D. Lowenthal (eds.) 1990. The Politics of the Past. London, Harper-Collins.
Gosden, C. 2001. Postcolonial archaeology. Issues of culture, identity, and knowledge. In I. Hodder (ed.)
Archaeological Theory Today. Cambridge: Polity Press:241-61.
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Gosden, C. 2004. The past and foreign countries: colonial and post-colonial archaeology and anthropology. In
L. Meskell and R. Preucel (eds) A Companion to Social Archaeology. Malden: Blackwell:161-78.
Habu, J., C. Fawcett and J.M. Matsunaga (eds.) 2008. Evaluating Multiple Narratives: beyond nationalist,
colonialist, imperialist archaeologies. New York: Springer.
Hingley, R. 2000. Roman Officers and English Gentlemen. London: Routledge.
Holtorf, C. 2005. From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: archaeology as popular culture. Walnut Creek: AltaMira.
Holtorf, C. 2007. Archaeology is a Brand: the meaning of archaeology in contemporary popular culture. Walnut
Creek: Left Coast Press.
James, S. 1999. The Atlantic Celts: ancient people or modern invention? London: B.M.P.
Jones, G. & Harris, R. J. 2003. Archaeological human remains: scientific, ethnical and cultural considerations.
Current Anthropology, 39(2): 253-264.
Jones, S. 2005. Making place, resisting displacement: conflicting national & local identities in Scotland. In
Littler, J. & Naidoo, R. (eds.) The Politics of Heritage, 94-114. London: Routledge.
Kehoe, A.B. 2008. Controversies in Archaeology. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Kohl, P. & Fawcett, C. (eds) 1995. Nationalism, Politics & the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge: CUP .
Layton, R. (ed.) 1989. Conflict in the Archaeology of Living Traditions. London: Unwin Hyman.
Layton, R. (ed.) 1989. Who Needs the Past? Indigenous Values and Archaeology. London: Unwin Hyman.
Layton, R., Shennan, S. and Stone, P. (eds.) 2006. A Future for Archaeology. London: UCL Press.
Leone, M. and R. Preucel. 1992. Archaeology in a democratic society: a critical perspective. In L. Wandsnider
(ed.) Quandaries and Quests. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ.115-35.
Lowenthal, D. 1985. The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: C.U.P.
Mandal, D. 2003 Ayodhya, Archaeology After Demolition. New Delhi: Orient Longman.
McGuire, R. 2004. Contested pasts: archaeology and Native Americans. In L. Meskell and R. Preucel (eds) A
Companion to Social Archaeology. Malden: Blackwell:374-95.
McGuire, R. 2008. Archaeology as Political Action. Berkeley: University of California Press.
McManamon, F. 1991. The many publics for archaeology. American Antiquity 56:121-30.
Merriman, N. 2000. Beyond the Glass Case. London: UCL Press (2nd Edition).
Merriman, N. (ed.) 2004. Public Archaeology. London: Routledge.
Meskell, L. 1998. Archaeology Under Fire. London: Routledge.
Mizoguchi, K. 2006. Archaeology, Society and Identity in Modern Japan. Cambridge: C.U.P.
Moshenska, G. 2009. The reburial issue in Britain. Antiquity, 83, 815-820.
Murray, T. 1993. Communication and the importance of disciplinary communities. In N. Yoffee and A. Sherratt
(eds.) Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda? Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press:105-16.
Ratnagar, S. 2004. Archaeology at the heart of a political confrontation. Current Anthropology 45:239-59.
Reid, D.M. 2002. Whose Pharaohs? Berkeley, CA: U.C.P.
Scarre, C. and Scarre, G. (eds.) 2006. The Ethics of Archaeology. Cambridge: C.U.P.
Schablitsky, J.M. (ed.) 2007. Box Office Archaeology. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Seidemann, R. M. 2004. Bones of contention: a comparative examination of law governing human remains from
archaeological contexts in formerly colonial countries. Louisiana Law Review, 64(3): 546-588.
Silberman, N.A. 1989. Between Past and Present: Archaeology, Ideology and Nationalism in the Modern Middle
East. New York: Holt.
Silberman, N. 1995. Promised lands and chosen peoples. In P. Kohl & Fawcett, C. (eds) 1995. Nationalism,
Politics & the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge: C.U.P.:249-62.
Smith, L. 2004. The repatriation of human remains – problem or opportunity? Antiquity 78 (300): 404-413.
Smith, L. 2004. Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge.
Tarlow, S. and L. Nilsson Stutz 2013. Can an archaeologist be a public intellectual? Archaeological Dialogues 20
(1) 1–5.
Thomas, D. H. 2000 Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology and the Battle for Native American Identity. New
York, NY: Basic Books.
Tilley, C. 1989. Archaeology as socio-political action in the present. In V. Pinsky and A. Wylie (eds.) Critical
Traditions in Contemporary Archaeology. Cambridge: CUP: 104-16.
Trigger, B. 1980. Archaeology and the image of the American Indian. American Antiquity 45:662-76.
Trigger, B. 1984. Alternative archaeologies: nationalist, colonialist, imperialist. Man 19: 355-70.
Trigger, B. 1989. Hyperrelativism, responsibility and the Social Sciences. Canadian Review of Sociology and
Anthropology 26:776-97. Reprinted in Trigger, B. 2003. Artifacts & Ideas. London: Transaction Publishers.
Trigger, B. 1995. Romanticism, nationalism and archaeology. In P. Kohl and Fawcett, C. (eds) 1995.
Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology . Cambridge: C.U.P.:263-79.
Ucko, P.J. 1987. Academic Freedom and Apartheid: The Story of the World Archaeological Congress.
Vitelli, K.D. 1996. Archaeological Ethics. New York, Altamira Press.
Wylie, A. 1995. Alternative histories. Epistemic disunity and political integrity. In P. Schmidt and T. Patterson
(eds) Making Alternative Histories. Santa Fe: School of American Research:255-72.
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Wylie, A. 2008. The integrity of narratives: deliberative practice, pluralism and multivocality. In J. Habu, C.
Fawcett and J. Matsunaga (eds.) Evaluating Multiple Narratives: beyond nationalist, colonialist,
imperialist archaeologies. New York: Springer:201-12.
Zimmerman, L.J., Vitelli, K.D. and Hollowell-Zimmer, J. (eds.) 2003. Ethical Issues in Archaeology. Walnut
Creek: AltaMira Press.
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Assessment: One essay, 3,800-4,200 words
Topic choice: choose something that interests you and feel free to contact the Coordinator to discuss.
It would be wise to have some idea by Reading Week. Students are asked to submit an outline in
advance and to discuss this outline with the Coordinator. The outline can be very general or it can be
more detailed. The more detail, the more the Coordinator can advise you. Due dates for outline and
essay: see schedule on page 2.
Essay Question: How has archaeological theory dealt with the major research issue of __ ? (Issue
to be chosen in consultation with Coordinator.) What are the methodological implications of different
theoretical approaches to this problem? Use a case study or two to illustrate a possible research
design for a research project on some aspect of this problem.
Essay Guidelines. The main purpose of this essay is to analyse and evaluate different theoretical
approaches to a major research problem in archaeology. In consultation with the coordinator, choose
a major research question in world archaeology that interests you. Write an essay that presents an
analysis of theoretical and methodological issues associated with it, using examples / case studies that
interest you. The major thrust of the essay will be theory but you should address methods to a degree.
Please note: it is not expected that you give a definitive answer that ‘resolves’ these longstanding
problems! Below are some suggestions, but many others are possible. You will decide your question
with the Coordinator’s advice.
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What caused early farming systems to appear when and where they did?
How old is social inequality? Have there been times when it accelerated? If so, why?
Are there underlying similarities in widely different cultures in how and why complex
societies developed, or was every such development completely unique?
Does religion in state societies differ fundamentally from that of organisationally simpler
communities?
What are ritual landscapes and how do they affect studies of human-environment
relationships?
What accounts for periods when the pace of change in technology accelerates?
Why has craft specialization emerged in different cultures?
Have interpretations of either domestic life or complex societies in human history been too
constrained by analogies with the recent ethnographic record?
How early do we see precedents for capitalism in past societies?
Are there limits on how long an empire can last?
In what ways does archaeological science contribute to archaeological theory?
Why is it so important to ask who owns the past?
Are most archaeological interpretations today still based in culture-historical approaches?
Does it matter?
In what ways, if any is archaeological theory relevant to historic periods where written texts
are abundant and give us very particular cultural details?
Has archaeological theory itself been subject to biases as a result of a concentration on
problems of prehistory?
Like almost any satisfactory piece of academic writing, your essays should present an argument
supported by analysis. Typically your analysis will include a critical evaluation (not simply summary
or description) of concepts relevant to some subset of the theoretical literature. You need to identify
and evaluate the principal or most relevant previous ideas and arguments, and develop your own
reasoned argument, supporting, critiquing, or combining elements of earlier scholarship, or developing
a new perspective or synthesis.
Express your arguments in your own words; your essay is meant to demonstrate your understanding
of an issue. Some submitted essays are essentially just a string of quotations illustrating what others
28
have said, but this does not demonstrate a critical assessment of those claims, or a clear understanding
of the issues. Second, do not rely on web sources. You should be extremely cautious about relying on
information from websites, and should not, normally, use them as sources for academic essays. The
reliable information in them has almost invariably come from some other source, and if they are
academically reputable sites, they should be properly referenced, so you can chase ideas back to their
original source.
Coursework production and submission
General policies and procedures concerning courses and coursework, including submission
procedures, assessment criteria, and general resources, are available in your Degree Handbook and on
the following website: <http://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/display/archadmin>; see also the Appendix. It is
essential that you read and comply with these. Note that some of the policies and procedures will be
different depending on your status (e.g. undergraduate, postgraduate taught, affiliate, graduate
diploma, intercollegiate, interdepartmental). If in doubt, please consult the Course Co-ordinator.
For this course, please do not use fancy fonts or, for the text, a font size less than 11 point, and use 1.5
line spacing to allow the marker space to make comments on the text. A smaller font size (8-10) and
1.0 line height may be used for the bibliography (to reduce printing costs), as long as it is still
readable, and two-sided printing is welcome (to save paper and trees). Please leave at least 1 inch/2.5
cm margins to allow room for comments.
Bearing in mind that you cannot get credit for the same work twice, either in the same or different
courses that are assessed as part of the same degree, you must avoid any significant overlap in your
assessed work with that for other courses. If you have concerns about potential overlaps, please
discuss this with the Co-ordinators of the relevant courses.
To accord with UCL regulations on anonymous marking, all coursework cover-sheets must be
identified with student Candidate Numbers only, not names. This is a 5 digit alphanumeric code and
can be found on Portico; it is different from the Student Number/ID. The filenames for all assessed
work submitted through ‘Turnitin’, should include the student’s Candidate Number, not name as a
unique identifier (e.g. YBPR6 _G193_Assessment_1). Please do this, as otherwise it is difficult to
match hard-copy of your essay with the Turnitin version on-line.
IMPORTANT
INSTITUTE OF ARCHAELOGY COURSEWORK PROCEDURES
General policies and procedures concerning courses and coursework, including
submission procedures, assessment criteria, and general resources, are available in
your Degree Handbook and on the following website:
http://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/display/archadmin. It is essential that you read and comply with
these. Note that some of the policies and procedures will be different depending on
your status (e.g. undergraduate, postgraduate taught, affiliate, graduate diploma,
intercollegiate, interdepartmental). If in doubt, please consult your course coordinator.
GRANTING OF EXTENSIONS: .
New UCL-wide regulations with regard to the granting of extensions for coursework
have been introduced with effect from the 2015-16 session. Full details are
available here: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/academic-manual/c4/extenuatingcircumstances/. Note that Course Coordinators are no longer permitted to grant
extensions. All requests for extensions must be submitted on a new UCL form,
together with supporting documentation, via Judy Medrington’s office and will then
be referred on for consideration. Please be aware that the grounds that are now
acceptable are limited. Those with long-term difficulties should contact UCL Student
Disability Services to make special arrangements.
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