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+--- Thread: Sensible Archaeology? (/showthread.php?tid=3498)
Sensible Archaeology? - Jack - 15th October 2010
Archaeologists are funny. They stand around throwing mud at each other whilst carefully protecting their 'groups' precious ideologies, clutched close to their chests. Until a scientist comes along, tests their theory with evidence and destroys it.
Science is the only archaeological theory that is worth anything.:face-stir:
'....god is in the detail'
-Sam Tyler
Sensible Archaeology? - Sparky - 15th October 2010
vulpes Wrote:Erm... Gordon Childe was a Marxist and Post-processualism is by definition not one approach but many and thus hard to discredit in entirety, 'it' merely being a reaction to the overly mechanistic, Binfordian, empirical, environmentally deterministic, and uniformitarian approaches that preceded 'it'. As such PP is surely the 'bastard sibling' or child of P.
Ahem, Hodder was a Marxist, Parker-Pearson. Marxist. Tilley. Marxist. Miller. Marxist. I think you'll find Vulpes, that Marxism is the mould around which was bent the subjectism of Post-processualism. And by its very nature of subjectism, lends itself lf to an asortment of theoretical positions but is no stranger to Marxism.
But as you say PP is plurarity of many approaches, it makes it easy to disprove some than others, particularly those where evidence is scant and fairy tales are great.
Sensible Archaeology? - vulpes - 15th October 2010
really? I think you make my point for me rather well, Marxist approaches to archaeology are nothing new and not restricted to PP. Next you'll be trying pass off Karl Marx as a Marxist. xx(
Sensible Archaeology? - Sparky - 15th October 2010
No Vulpes. I made my point. You were paddling in the Post-Processual pond I believe. Next.
:face-stir:
Sensible Archaeology? - Dinosaur - 15th October 2010
Oxbeast Wrote:...Why would you bury babies under certain parts of the floor of the roundhouse? Might that suggest that that part of the roundhouse had some kind of significance?....
Taking a practical view, suspect you'd bury them under the bits furthest from the bed, or are you suggesting that they are evidence for Neolithic/neolithic nose-plugs or particularly fragrant pot pourri? :face-thinks:
Sensible Archaeology? - Unitof1 - 15th October 2010
Quote:and i just thought that he could not see moon dust in thin section
Hodder was a Marxist
Sensible Archaeology? - vulpes - 16th October 2010
He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity's sunrise. :face-kiss:
Sensible Archaeology? - kevin wooldridge - 16th October 2010
Sparky Wrote:Ahem....But as you say PP is plurarity of many approaches, it makes it easy to disprove some than others, particularly those where evidence is scant and fairy tales are great.
I like contributions that begin 'Ahem', ..... (much in the same way that Vulpes quoting Blake might like to finish his contribution 'Amen')..... I think I might adopt both for all my subsequent meanderings....
Ahem....surely one of the points of accepting a post-processual view is that you learn to live with 'pluralism' and don't feel either the need or inclination to prove or disprove. Which kind of neatly brings us back to my original criticism of 'Sensible Archaeology' - why hinder oneself with a straightjacket of conventionalism which (as the originator of the thread has shown) eventually runs out of steam as well as saddling your premise with a whole load of implied and probably unwanted baggage. Surely archaeology is a broad church that should be able to embrace both diversity and quirkiness ......Amen
Sensible Archaeology? - BAJR - 16th October 2010
.....Amen indeed
BAJR is cerainly a broad church, with everything from raving to ranting
Sensible Archaeology? - Sparky - 16th October 2010
Kevin,
Brilliant reply. I couldn't agree more.
Somewhere, lost in the mists of screens, keyboards, different lives, coloured eyes, accents and window vistas, maybe we all strive for the same objective; pluralism? But perhaps a little less fiction and more presentation of facts wouldn't go amiss.
The world would be less interesting if everyone agreed.
Apologies for strained tones.
Brilliant response.
S