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"This is a substantial revision of the first edition. Perhaps most importantly I have now included a chapter on human to human entanglements and have pulled human relations more into the center of entanglements. This results from my critique of the notion of symmetry between humans and things that has widely been touted in recent years in archaeology and related disciplines but has raised ethical issues with which I concur and discuss in this volume. Another important change is that I have, after further thought, retreated from the notion of 'things-in-themselves' and from the object nature of things. I was wrong in the first edition to argue that things can exist outside their relations. The result is a more fully relational stance. I have also paid greater attention to flows and temporality. The greater focus on relationality is underpinned by a recognition that all things and humans are in flux. Change through time undermines notions of the fixed spatial extension of things. There is thus greater attention paid to the forces that generate flows, and an overall shift from being to becoming"--
A theory of human evolution and history based on ever-increasing mutual dependency between humans and things In this engaging exploration, archaeologist Ian Hodder departs from the two prevailing modes of thought about human evolution: the older idea of constant advancement toward a civilized ideal and the newer one of a directionless process of natural selection. Instead, he proposes a theory of human evolution and history based on “entanglement,” the ever-increasing mutual dependency between humans and things. Not only do humans become dependent on things, Hodder asserts, but things become dependent on humans, requiring an endless succession of new innovations. It is this mutual dependency that creates the dominant trend in both cultural and genetic evolution. He selects a small number of cases, ranging in significance from the invention of the wheel down to Christmas tree lights, to show how entanglement has created webs of human-thing dependency that encircle the world and limit our responses to global crises.
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 USA, 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' an...
Table of contents
In this latest collection of his articles, of which seven are written especially for this volume, Ian Hodder captures and continues the lively controversy of the 1980s over symbolic and structural approaches to archaeology. The book acts as an overview of the developments in the discipline over the last decade; yet Hodder's brief is far wider. His aim is to break down the division between the intellectual and the "dirt" archaeologist to demonstrate that in this discipline more than any other, theory must be related to practice to save effectively our rapidly diminishing heritage.
Now in a revised and updated second edition, this volume provides an authoritative account of the current status of archaeological theory, as presented by some of its major exponents and innovators over recent decades. It summarizes the latest developments in the field and looks to its future, exploring some of the cutting-edge ideas at the forefront of the discipline. The volume captures the diversity of contemporary archaeological theory. Some authors argue for an approach close to the natural sciences, others for an engagement with cultural debate about representation of the past. Some minimize the relevance of culture to societal change, while others see it as central; some focus on the ...
Material culture - the objects made by man - provides the primary data from which archaeologists have to infer the economies, technologies, social organization and ritual practices of extinct societies. The analysis and interpretation ofmaterial culture is therefore central to any concern with archaeological theory and methodology, and in order to understand better the relationship between material culture and human behaviour, archaeologists need to draw upon models derived from the study of ethnographic societies. First published in 1982, this book presents the results of a series of field investigations carried out in Kenya, Zambia and the Sudan into the 'archaeological' remains and material culture of contemporary small-scale societies, and demonstrates the way in which objects are used as symbols within social action and within particular world views and ideologies.
This provocative introduction examines the most important new school of archaeological thought and practice to have emerged over the last two decades and provides students with an assessment of the impact and importance of recent theoretical debates.
Completing his major analysis of Elizabethan high politics with this eagerly awaited third volume, Wallace MacCaffrey investigates how Elizabeth I, the unwarlike war leader", and her ministers made the great decisions that shaped English political history in the years between the Armada of 1588 and her death in 1603. As in the previous volumes, the author examines the ramifications of selected themes, such as the Queen's reluctant entry into war with Spain, the integration of Ireland into the English imperial system, and the threat of renewed political faction with the appearance of a new favorite at court, the Earl of Essex. Throughout, MacCaffrey reveals the intentions, motivations, and as...
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