Archaeology Historiography and Theory

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English | 2026 | ISBN: 303211845X | 340 Pages | PDF EPUB (True) | 3 MB
This book examines our understanding of the ways in which we produce and consume archaeological knowledge and proposes that this should play a greater role in our attempts to describe and comprehend the nature and purpose of archaeology, and the nature of archaeological knowledge. During the past fifty years prehistoric archaeologists have sought to promote or oppose several redefinitions of archaeological goals and approaches that have emphasized, variously, the liberating or constraining power of critical self-reflection. While practitioners have continued to expand the storehouse of archaeological data, they have also been engaged in active investigation of archaeological goals and approaches, and in intensifying debate over what it is proper or relevant for practitioners to do. Prehistoric archaeology is now much more than a method of data collection and analysis which is transformed into culture history (or exemplifications of material culture theory) by the acts of comparison and interpretation.