14th October 2010, 07:19 PM
Oxbeast Wrote:if you approach the past with the attitude that people were much the same as we are, and logical and pragmatic and suchlike, how do you then explain actual ritual deposits? Other than saying, well, don't really know...
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?
All the interpretation depends on theory, even if its just 'well, stands to reason, mate'.
This is the kind of area where cognitive theory comes into its own. It's about the only theoretical approach that has ever appeared relatively practical, IMNSHO. That said, I'm sure each theoretical framework has its place. The problem is that people invest too much intellectual and emotional capital in just one approach rather than viewing each theory as a tool in a large theoretical toolbox. Thus, they look for universal application of their pet theory, where they should use the appropriate theory for the job.
Now, who was it muttering about post-processualists? Bintliff's article 'Why Indiana Jones is Smarter Than the Post-Processualists' (Norw. Arch. Rev., Vol. 26, No. 2, 1993) always struck me as one of the better responses to Post-Processualism. Well worth a read and moderately amusing too.
'Reality,' sa molesworth 2, 'is so unspeakably sordid it make me shudder.'