The Body (with Sean Sweeney)

/

This volume presents eight essays, written by highly eminent researchers, on our perception of the human body in society, popular culture, science, and the arts. Topics range from the remarkable molecular processes that occur during the growth and development of the body and the unravelling of the secrets of the DNA that builds it, to the ethics of reproduction and our perception of death and of the body as art. The final chapter describes the events surrounding the discovery of a body frozen in the high mountains of the Alps 5,000 years ago.

Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: A Reader

/

This reader presents an easily accessible collection of seminal articles in contemporary Anglo-American archaeological theory for use in introductory undergraduate classes as well as graduate level seminars. If focuses upon the period from 1980 to the present emphasizing the far-reaching effects of recent internal and external critiques of processual archaeology. The central purpose of the reader is to assist students in thinking about the interrelationships between theory and practice for different theoretical approaches.

Interpreting Archaeology: Finding Meaning in the Past (with Alexandra Alexandri, Victor Buchli, John Carman, Jonathan Last, Gavin Lucas, and Michael Shanks)

/

This volume provides a forum for debate between varied approaches to the past. The authors, drawn from Europe, North America, Asia, and Australasia, represent many different strands of archaeology. They address the philosophical issues involved in interpretation and a desire among archaeologists to come to terms with their own subjective approaches to the material they study, a recognition of how past researchers have also imposed their own value systems on the evidence which they presented.

Archaeological Theory in Europe: The Last Three Decades

/

The 1980s witnessed exciting developments in theoretical writing in Western archaeology. Where previous decades were dominated by the Anglo-American perspective, or "New Archaeology," recent years have seen the European debate grow in confidence and vitality. Archaeological Theory in Europe captures this new spirit of debate as contributors from a wide cross-section of countries evaluate the development of the distinctly national and European characteristics of archaeology and assess future directions. Contributors consider an extensive range of ideologies and viewpoints, stressing the fundamentally historical emphasis and social construction of European archaeology. The development of archaeological theory is traced, with specific emphasis on factors which differ from country to country. In the light of recent racial unrest in Eastern Europe, the book stresses the need for theory in European archaeology and the danger inherent in using archaeology to justify regional claims. Ultimately, it is argued that the most active response to archaeology is to celebrate theory within a constantly critical mode.

 

The Meanings of Things: Material Culture and Symbolic Expression

/

This unique and fascinating book concentrates on the varying roles and functions that material culture may play in almost all aspects of the social fabric of a given culture. The contributors, from Africa, Australia and Papua New Guinea, India, South America, the U.S., and both Eastern and Western Europe, provide a rich variety of views and experience in a worldwide perspective. Several of the authors focus on essential points of principle and methodology that must be carefully considered before any particular approach to material culture is adopted.

One of the many fundamental questions posed in the book is whether or not all material culture is equivalent to documents which can be 'read' and interpreted by the outside observer. If it is, what is the nature of the 'messages' or meanings conveyed in this way? The book also questions the extent to which acceptance, and subsequent diffusion, of a religious belief or symbol may be qualified by the status of the individuals concerned in transmitting the innovation, as well as by the stratification of the society involved. Several authors deal with 'works of art' and the most effective means of reaching an understanding of their past significance. In some chapters semiotics is seen as the most appropriate technique to apply to the decoding of the assumed rules and grammars of material culture expression.

Archaeology as Long-Term History

/

In marked contrast with the anthropological and cross-cultural approaches that featured so prominently in archaeological research, this contributory volume emphasizes the archaeological significance of historical method and philosophy. Drawing particularly on the work of R. G. Collingwood, the contributors show that the notion of 'history seen from within' is a viable approach that can be applied in ethnoarchaeology and in both historic and prehistoric archaeology. There is a discussion of short, medium, and long-term historical structures in relation to social events generating observed material culture patterning. Examination of the relationship between structure and event within historical contexts leads to insights into the interdependence of continuity and change, and into the nature of widely recognised processes such as acculturation, diffusion, and migration.

The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings

/

This companion volume to Archaeology as Long-term History focuses on the symbolism of artifacts. It seeks at once to refine the theory and method relating to interpretation and show, with examples, how to conduct this sort of archaeological work. Some contributors work with the material culture of modern times or the historic period, areas in which the symbolism of mute artifacts has traditionally been thought most accessible. However, the book also contains a good number of applications in prehistory to demonstrate the feasibility of symbolic interpretation where good contextual data survive from the distant past. In relation to wider debates within the social sciences, the volume is characterised by a concern to place abstract symbolic codes within their historical context and within the contexts of social actions. In this respect, it develops further some of the ideas presented in Ian Hodder's Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, an earlier volume in this series.

Symbolic and Structural Archaeology

/

This volume presents a searching critique of the more traditional archaeological methodologies and interpretation strategies and lays down a firm philosophical and theoretical basis for symbolist and structuralist studies in archaeology. A variety of procedures, ranging from ethnoarchaeological studies and computing techniques to formal studies of artifact design variability, are utilized to provide models for archaeologists within the proposed framework and the theory and models are then applied to a range of archaeological analyses. This particular approach sees all human actions as being meaningfully constituted within a social and cultural framework. Material culture is not simply an adaptive tool, but is structured according to sets of underlying principles which give meaning to, and derive meanings from, the social world. Thus structural regularities are shown to link seemingly disparate aspects of material culture, from funerary monuments to artifact design, from the use of space in settlements, to the form of economic practices.

Pattern of the Past: Studies in the Honour of David Clarke (with Glynn Isaac and Norman Hammond)

/

David Clarke was until his death in 1976 ‘the acknowledged leader in Britain of the “new wave” of archaeological thinking.’ His work concentrated on the establishment of explicit theory and logic in archaeological method and the contributions to this volume demonstrate how vital was his inspiration and reflect its diversity. The contributors follow his lead in searching for ways of discovering and interpreting patterns, including spatial, economic, and social patterns in the archaeological record of past human life. The studies in this book were all commissioned and have not appeared elsewhere. The book will be of importance for archaeologists and of interest to anthropologists and those concerned with the general methodology of the social sciences.

Excavating Çatalhöyük: South, North and KOPAL Area Reports From the 1995-99 Seasons

/

Ian Hodder’s campaigns of excavation at the world-famous Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük are one of the largest, most complex, and most exciting archaeological field projects in the world and recognized as agenda-setting not only in terms of our understanding of early farming communities in the Near East, particularly the central role religion played in their daily lives, but also in terms of the interaction between theory and practice in the trenches and on-site laboratories.

This volume presents the results of excavation in three areas of the site, known as South, North, and KOPAL, excavated between 1995 and 1999. The book describes aspects of the excavation, recording and sampling methodologies that are necessary for an understanding of the results presented plus it incorporates interpretive discussion. It brings in data from the study of animal bones, lithics, ceramics, micromorphology and the full suite of analyses conducted on the material. These accounts are interspersed with individual specialists’ commentaries and conclusions, that mimic the process of collaborative interpretation that takes place during excavation and post-excavation. The ‘objective descriptions’ of the archaeology are thus exposed as interpretations involving a balancing of a variety of different types of data and scholarly input. Another thought-provoking volume in the Çatalhöyük excavation series which will be read with profit by any archaeologist engaged in working at theory in practice in the field.

 

Marshland Communities and Cultural Landscape: From the Bronze Age to the Present Day (with Christopher Evans)

/

Set in the context of this project’s innovative landscape surveys, four extraordinary sites excavated at Haddenham, north of Cambridge, chart the transformation of Neolithic woodland to Romano-British marshland, providing unrivalled insights into death and ritual in a changing prehistoric environment. Volume 2 moves on to later periods, and reveals how Iron Age and Romano-British communities adapted to the wetland environment that had now become established.

A Woodland Archaeology: Neolithic Sites at Haddenham (with Christopher Evans)

/

Set in the context of this project’s innovative landscape surveys, four extraordinary sites excavated at Haddenham, north of Cambridge, chart the transformation of Neolithic woodland to Romano-British marshland, providing unrivalled insights into death and ritual in a changing prehistoric environment. The highlight of Volume 1 is the internationally renowned Foulmire Fen long barrow, with its preserved timber burial chamber and façade. The massive individual timbers allow detailed study of Neolithic wood technology and the direct examination of a structure that usually survives only as a pattern of post holes.

 

Çatalhöyük Perspectives: Themes From the 1995–99 Seasons

/

This is Volume 6 in the Çatalhöyük Research Project series. It draws on material from Volumes 3 to 5 to deal with broad themes. Data from architecture and excavation contexts are linked into broader discussion of topics such as seasonality, art, and social memory. Rather than assuming that the work of the project is finished once the basic excavation and laboratory results have been presented in Volumes 3 to 5, it has been thought important to present more synthetic accounts that result from the high degree of integration and collaboration which the project has strived for at all stages. In this synthetic volume we most clearly describe the stories we have been telling ourselves during the data recovery/interpretation process. This volume thus provides a contextualization of the work carried out in Volumes 3 to 5; it records the framework of thought within which the data were collected and studied, but it is also the result of the interpretation that occurred in the interaction with data.

 

Changing Materialities at Çatalhöyük: Reports From the 1995–99 Seasons

/

This is Volume 5 in the Çatalhöyük Research Project series. It deals with aspects of the material culture excavated in the 1995–99 period. In particular it discusses the changing materiality of life at the site over its 1,100 years of occupation. It includes a discussion of ceramics and other fired clay material, chipped stone, groundstone, worked bone, and basketry. As well as looking at typological and comparative issues in relation to these materials, the chapters explore themes such as the specialization and scale of production, the engagement in systems of exchange, and consumption, use, and deposition. A central question concerns change through time, and the degree and speed of this change. The occupants of the site increasingly get caught up in relations with material objects that start to act back upon them.

Inhabiting Çatalhöyük: Reports From the 1995–99 Seasons

/

This is Volume 4 in the Çatalhöyük Research Project series. It deals with various aspects of the habitation of Çatalhöyük. Part A embarks on a discussion of the relationship between the site and its environment, using a wide range of evidence from faunal and charred archaeobotanical remains. Part B looks at evidence from human remains which inform us about diet and lifestyle, as well as wider issues of population dynamics and social structure, including a consideration of population size. Part C looks at the sediments at Çatalhöyük, exploring ways in which houses and open spaces in the settlement were lived in.

Towards Reflexive Method in Archaeology: the Example at Çatalhöyük

/

In the early 1990s the University of Cambridge reopened excavations at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey, abandoned since the 1960s. This is Volume 2 in the Çatalhöyük Research Project series. Here Ian Hodder explains his vision of archaeological excavation, where careful examination of context and an awareness of human bias allows researchers exciting new insights into prehistoric cognition. The aim of the volume is to discuss some of the reflexive or post-processual methods that have been introduced at the site in the work there since 1993. These methods involve reflexivity, interactivity, multivocality, and contextuality or relationality.

 

On the Surface: Çatalhöyük 1993–95

/

After the excitement of its discovery and excavations in the early 1960s, the world-important site of Çatalhöyük has remained dormant for 30 years. This is Volume 1 of the Çatalhöyük Research Project series. It describes the first phase of renewed archaeological research at the site. It reports on the work that has taken place on the surfaces of the east and west mounds and in the surrounding regions. It also discusses the material from the 1960s excavation in museums, which has been re-examined. The result is that new perspectives can be offered on the internal organization and symbolism of a site which is central to our understanding of the earliest development of complex societies.