Theory And Practice In Archaeology
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN ARCHAEOLOGYThis book aims to show through a series of examples that an interpretive archaeologydealing with past meanings can be applied in practice to archaeological data, and that itcan also contribute effectively to social practice in the world of today.Seven of the nineteen contributions included have been specifically written for thisvolume to act as an overview of the way archaeology has developed over the last tenyears. Yet Ian Hodder goes beyond this: he aims to break down the separation of theoryand practice and to reconcile the division between the intellectual and the ‘dirt’archaeologist. Faced with public controversy over the ownership and interpretation of thepast, archaeology needs a clear image of itself, be able to gain funding, win publicconfidence and manage the heritage professionally and sensitively. Hodder asserts thatarchaeologists cannot afford to ignore general theory in favour of practice any more thanthey can afford an ivory-tower approach. Theoretical debate is important to anydiscipline, particularly in archaeology, if it is not to become complacent, self-interestedand uncriticalTheory and Practice in Archaeology captures and extends the lively debate of the1980s over symbolic and structural approaches to archaeology. It will be essentialreading for students of archaeology and for those involved in, and responsible for,heritage management.Ian Hodder is a Reader in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow ofDarwin College and a Director of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit.
MATERIAL CULTURESInterdisciplinary studies in the material construction of social worldsSeries Editors:Daniel Miller, Dept of Anthropology, University College London;Michael Rowlands, Dept of Anthropology, University College London;Christopher Tilley, Institute of Archaeology, University College London;Annette Weiner, Dept of Anthropology, New York UniversityMATERIAL CULTURE AND TEXTThe Art of AmbiguityChristopher TilleyARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY IN EUROPEThe Last Three DecadesEdited by Ian HodderEXPERIENCING THE PASTOn the Character of ArchaeologyMichael ShanksTHEORY AND PRACTICE IN ARCHAEOLOGYIan HodderTECHNOLOGICAL CHOICESTransformation in Material Cultures since the NeolithicEdited by Pierre LemonnierARCHITECTURE AND ORDERApproaches to Social SpaceEdited by Michael Parker Pearson and Colin RichardsTHE SWASTIKAConstructing the SymbolMalcolm QuinnGIFTS AND COMMODITIESExchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700James G.Carrier
ACKNOWLEDGING CONSUMPTIONA Review of New StudiesEdited by Daniel Miller
THEORY AND PRACTICEIN ARCHAEOLOGYIan HodderLondon and New York
First published in 1992by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EEThis edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis orRoutledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go tow.w.w. eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001First published in paperback 1995 1992, 1995 Ian HodderAll rights reserved. No part of this book maybe reprinted orreproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafterinvented, including photocopying and recording, or in anyinformation storage or retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the publishers.British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataHodder, IanTheory and practice in archaeology.—(Material cultures)I. Title II Series930.1Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication DataHodder, Ian.Theory and practice in archaeology/Ian Hodder.p. cm. (Material cultures)Includes bibliographical references and index.1. Archaeology. I. Title. II. SeriesCC173.H63 1992930.1–dc20 91–38333ISBN 0-203-64530-8 Master e-book ISBNISBN 0-203-67382-4 (Adobe e-Reader Format)ISBN 0-415-12777-7 (Print Edition)
CONTENTS1List of illustrationsSeries prefacePrefaceAcknowledgementsTHEORY, PRACTICE AND PRAXISPART ISymbolic and structural archaeology2 SYMBOLISM, MEANING AND CONTEXT3 SYMBOLS IN ACTION4 BURIALS, HOUSES, WOMEN AND MEN IN THE EUROPEANNEOLITHICviiviiixxi1102240PART IISome implications of the new ideas5 POST-PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY6 THEORETICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: A REACTIONARY VIEW7 ARCHAEOLOGY IN 19848 POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICALCONGRESS 1986118PART IIIDebate and re-evaluation9 THE PROCESSUAL REACTION10 TOWARDS RADICAL DOUBT: A DIALOGUE11 THE POST-PROCESSUAL REACTION12 TOWARDS A COHERENT ARCHAEOLOGY127135139147PART IVPractising archaeology13 INTERPRETIVE ARCHAEOLOGY AND ITS ROLE14 MATERIAL PRACTICE, SYMBOLISM AND IDEOLOGY15 THE HADDENHAM CAUSEWAYED ENCLOSURE—AHERMENEUTIC CIRCLE16 THE DOMESTICATION OF EUROPE17 GENDER REPRESENTATION AND SOCIAL REALITY18 WRITING ARCHAEOLOGY: SITE REPORTS IN CONTEXT19 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE POST-MODERNIndex7381107159174184208219226236241
24The relationships between theory, practice and social practice (praxis)Barnhouse, Orkney, Structure 2The distribution of Neolithic sites on OrkneyPlan of the Skara Brae settlement on OrkneyPlan of the Quanterness tomb on OrkneySite plan of the Stones of Stenness, OrkneyThe distribution of Neolithic chambered tombs in Atlantic Europe and ofBandkeramik settlements and finds with long housesLong mound burial. The structural sequence at Fussell’s Lodge and KilhamGround plans of long houses from Neolithic EuropeThe orientation of tombs and long houses in EuropeGallery graves (allées couvertes) and rock-cut tombs (hypogées) from theSOM culture in the Paris BasinAn example of a LBK house with site ditches: Building 32 at Elsloo,NetherlandsComparison of tombs (stalled cairns) and houses in the Orkney NeolithicRenfrew’s suggested relationship between theory and dataThe incomplete Black Box of systems theory compared with the subjectivelyperceived box of interpretation theoriesInterpretation as a hermeneutic mediating between past and presenthermeneuticsThe relationships between signifiers, signifieds and referents in language andmaterial cultureThe ditch sections excavated in different years at the Haddenhamcausewayed enclosureThe 1981 and 1987 areas of excavation at the Haddenham causewayedenclosureDitch I, Haddenham causewayed enclosureLengths of the Haddenham enclosure ditch segments in relation to nature ofdeposits, numbers of finds and recutsThe hermeneutic spiral and the Haddenham causewayed enclosureClay figurine from Catal HuyukThe domus and agrios in southeast 93199206212214
SERIES PREFACEThe Material Cultures series crosses the traditional subject boundaries of archaeology,history and anthropology to consider human society in terms of its production,consumption and social structures. This approach breaks down the narrowcompartmentalization which has until now obscured understanding of past and presentsocieties and offers a more broadly-based (and coherent) set of explanations.The series has developed from frustration with the conceptual limits imposed by astructure of separate disciplines. These divisions make little sense when so much of themost valuable work in many areas—in archaeology, consumption studies, architecture,muscology, human geography, anthropology and communication science—grows fromcommon roots and a shared intellectual framework.The thrust of the series is to develop concepts necessary for understanding cultural andsocial form; but the editors’ approach reverses the primacy often given to linguistic overmaterial structures. This is deliberate after all, although structuralism borrowed fromlinguistics it took its most original shape through Lévi-Strauss’s studies of kinship, mythand ritual. More recently a parallel process has taken place in architecture, which hasbeen a crucial focus in the development of theories of post-modernism. This suggests thatthere are many advantages in attempting to construct approaches to the material worldwhich consciously proclaim the distinctive nature of objects as against language.This approach, central to all the books in the series, should be of particular benefit tothose studies (like archaeology) which have artifacts as their main focus. But materialityprovides new perceptions of cultural context over a much wider range of subject matter.It demands a conscious process of linking together the techniques and strategies of otherdisciplines. For example, a recognition of the issues of gender will infuse an historicallybased study with a deeper set of meanings; set the same work within an anthropologicalframework as well, and its value (and insights) are enhanced.This broad sense of context allows us to publish work on the cultural politics of thebody, on power systems of representation, on food and gender, and the experience ofpossession or alienation. All of them are rooted within a materialistic interpretation ofculture.The series will maintain a productive dialogue with developments in Marxist, as wellas structuralist, post-structuralist and phenomenological thought, through focusing on thespecificity of the material world and its particular forms and contents. Yet we recognizethat it is the very materiality of that world which often presents a challenge to theory andpromotes a critical approach to analysis.Many of the disciplines which have a particular concern with material culture, such asmuscology and consumption studies, have tended to feel that their own developments intheory and analysis have been neglected over previous decades. They have become,relatively speaking, backwaters of the social science. This series is launched at a timewhen there are signs that this is about to be radically changed.
There are new advances in cultural theory which are not merely fetishistic and do notposit the object as distinct from social and cultural context. Advances in poststructuralism which have challenged the notion of the subject mean that we are now freeto conceive of a new approach to material culture, which does not privilege or reify eitherobjects or persons.In planning and co-ordinating the series we wish to demonstrate above all the currentintellectual excitement and potential for working within this field. Creating meaning fromthe material fragments of the past and the present now provides an arena for addressingsome of the fundamental theoretical and philosophical issues of our time.Daniel Miller, Michael Rowlandsand Christopher Tilley
PREFACEIn presenting a collection of some of my previously published papers there is perhaps anunderstandable desire to ‘correct’ all those commentators who argued that I whimsicallyshifted from one theory to another. Those who argued that my writings were confusedand contradictory and that I just followed the latest trend, I now have the opportunity toshow that they did not understand how all the pieces fit into a whole, an oeuvre. I canattempt to show how my work had a developmental coherence, if not predicted at thebeginning, certainly guided by some big questions and dominant interests.There is an impulse to ‘put right’ those ‘mis’-readings of my writings. I can try to putthe critics ‘right’ and show them what I had ‘really’ intended to say, explain what I‘really’ meant. It is all to easy to argue that my critics, commentators, reviewers have noteven read my work. Others sometimes seem wilfully to misunderstand what I have to say.It is tempting to take the chance now to argue that they read what they want into mywriting, set me up as a straw man, and criticise me for what I have not written. Usually Ihave no opportunity to respond (see, however, Hodder 1986*). So at last, within theconfines of these collected papers I could take the opportunity to ‘set the record straight’.I especially want to correct the impression that my work has only been about theoryand has little relevance to what archaeologists actually do. People argue that I favour‘thinkers’ over ‘stinkers’. People say that the critique of processual archaeology was wellestablished but that I have nothing to put in its place that ‘lab’ or ‘dirt’ archaeologists canuse. They say that post-processual archaeology has led to an intellectualisation of debateso that few people want to be involved. Now I have the chance to show that the newtheories can be linked to practice.The problems raised by these impulses to ‘put the record straight’ will need fullerdiscussion from Chapter 10 onwards. For the moment, I wish to begin with the wholeissue of theoretical debate and its relationship to archaeological practices.* Hodder, I. (1986) ‘Digging for symbols in science and history: a reply’, Proceedings of thePrehistoric Society 52, 352–6.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI am grateful to Antiquity, Archaeological Review from Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, theSociety for American Archaeology and the University of Calgary ArchaeologicalAssociation for permission to reprint material here which was originally published bythem.The following papers were first published in the volumes listed below: Chapter 3:‘Conclusions and prospects’, in I.Hodder Symbols in Action, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982, 212–29. Chapter 4: ‘Burials, houses, women and men in theEuropean Neolithic’, in D.Miller and C.Tilley (eds) Ideology, Power and Prehistory,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, 51–68. Chapter 6: ‘Theoreticalarchaeology: a reactionary view’, in I.Hodder (ed.) Symbolic and Structural Archaeology,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, 1–16. Chapter 7: ‘Archaeology in 1984’,Antiquity 58, 1984, 25–32. Chapter 8: ‘Politics and ideology in the World ArchaeologicalCongress 1986’, Archaeological Review from Cambridge 5:1, 1986, 113–19. Chapter 13:‘Interpretive archaeology and its role’, American Antiquity 56 (1), 1991, 7–18. Chapter14: ‘Material practice, symbolism and ideology’, Proceedings of TheoreticalArchaeology Conference, Bergen, Bergen: Historical Museum, 1992. Chapter 17:‘Gender representation and social reality’, The Archaeology of Gender, Calgary:University of Calgary, Archaeological Association, 1991, 11–16. Chapter 18: ‘Writingarchaeology: site reports in context’, Antiquity 63, 1989, 268–74. Chapter 19:‘Archaeology and the post-modern’, Anthropology Today, for the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1990.I would like to thank Sarah Tarlow for the preparation of the index.
1THEORY, PRACTICE AND PRAXISThis book deals with recent developments in archaeological theory which have come tobe classified within the small world of archaeology as ‘post-processual’, but which in thewider world would be termed neo-Marxist, hermeneutic, critical and post-structuralist.The heavily theoretical nature of the post-processual debate is clear from even thebriefest encounter with the literature (e.g. Shanks and Tilley 1987a; 1987b; Bapty andYates 1990; Hodder 1991). Yet I have titled the book Theory and Practice inArchaeology. The emphasis on practice partly derives from a desire to show a widerrelevance for post-processual ideas. If these new ideas are to have more than a superficialimpact, they need to be related to the practice of archaeology. But I have also set myself awider brief. Regardless of the overall impact of post-processual ideas, there is a need tobreak down the separation of theory and practice in archaeology.In many countries with a large archaeological community, there is some form ofdivision between, on the one hand, the intellectual, the interpreter, the academic, thetheoretician and, on the other hand, dirt or white-coated archaeologists dealing withpractical issues. Many people would feel that they fall somewhere between and temperthese two extremes. But it is often the case that those most involved as practitioners aresuspicious of and uninterested in abstract theory. It is probably true to say that mostarchaeologists are not specifically concerned with theoretical discussion, except perhapswhen it creates the spectacle of a public oppositional debate. Archaeologists tend to bepragmatic and data-oriented, fascinated by specific technical and historical problems. InNorth America, for example, you only have to compare the Society for AmericanArchaeology meetings (with their emphasis on middle-range theory, site formationprocesses, hunter-gatherer strategies and regional studies) with the meetings of theAmerican Anthropological Association (where the emphasis is on power, gender, text,rhetoric etc.) to see the neurosis most archaeologists still feel towards saying anythingwhich might have topical and general theoretical interest.The lack of interest in general theory partly stems from the positivism which mostarchaeologists assume, however weakly. It has long been assumed that the source oftheories and their internal coherence is of less concern than one’s ability to test themagainst the archaeological data. The New Archaeology of the 1960s and early 1970s didlead initially to a refreshing concern with theory development as intuitive approacheswere replaced by a ‘loss of innocence’ (Clarke 1973) and by a self-conscious concernwith separating theory from data and providing rigorous methods for evaluatinghypotheses. Through time, however, this approach has increasingly put all its eggs in thebasket of neutral methods. Within positivist approaches in archaeology there is, on thewhole, more emphasis on testability than there is on whether the theories being used areinteresting, or valuable. So theoretical discussion in its own right is relatively
Theory and practice in archaeology2unimportant, because we are supposed to be able to let method sort out the good and thebad theories.Perhaps because of this positivism, perhaps because of the enormous difficulty ofmaking sense of fragmentary data from long-gone societies, perhaps because of thedifficulty of saying anything with any degree of certainty about the distant past, mostarchaeologists prefer to become absorbed in data and method. There are also institutionaldivisions between universities and heritage management which perhaps encourage theseparation of theory and practice. This latter factor is especially severe in contexts ofrapid site destruction. The past is being destroyed and we are wasting time if we gaze intoour theoretical navels. We have to ‘get our act together’ rather than be involved ininternal theoretical wrangles. What is needed is a discipline with a clear and certainimage of itself, able to do the job of acting quickly and professionally to save theheritage, a discipline able to gain funding and win public confidence in conflicts overrights to the past.A common view was expressed by Schiffer in a public debate at the Society forAmerican Archaeology meeting at Atlanta, Georgia in 1989. ‘High-level goals, I think,mostly generate conflict and ennui, whereas middle- and low-level goals generateproductive research.’ It is easy to sympathise with this ‘let’s get on with it’ view (for aless absolute version see Flannery 1982). Theoretical discussion involves defining terms,stating positions, setting up categorical boundaries. It involves creating a coherent wholewhich is defined by its opposition to other wholes (for example, culture as text and asmeaningfully constituted as opposed to culture as tool and as man’s extrasomatic meansof adaptation). General theories are heavily influenced by a priori judgements and takenfor-granteds. They are about ourselves. Even when describing the great thinkers andphilosophers, it is possible to argue that they are expressing a certain way of looking atthe world which is prefigured (White 1973).But it is precisely this prefigured nature of theory which should entice us to look attheory more carefully rather than putting our blinkers on and getting our noses intomiddle- and low-level goals. The purer theory always asserts the interests of part
years. Yet Ian Hodder goes beyond this: he aims to break down the separation of theory and practice and to reconcile the division between the intellectual and the ‘dirt’ archaeologist. Faced with public controversy over the ownership and interpretation of the past, archaeology needs a c
Archaeology goes to high school 69 a) it is possible to teach ethics and values, such as tolerance and empathy, through archaeology; b) archaeology helps to develop various skills, such as abstract and critical thinking and interpretation; c) archaeology is a cross-curricula subject (see fig. 2) and thus links together different disciplines .
1 CURRICULUM VITAE (1) Brief Personal & Professional Details NAME: Basil A. Reid POST: Professor of Archaeology QUALIFICATIONS PhD University of Florida, Gainesville (USA), Anthropology (majoring in Caribbean Archaeology) (2003) MA University of London, Institute of Archaeology (UK), Field and Analytical Techniques in Archaeology (1987)
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