Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. ii, 187 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

1. "This book examines systematically both the theoretical and practical issues that have characterized the discipline over the past two centuries. Some of the historically most consequential mistakes in archaeology are dissected and explained, together with the effects of the related controversies. The theoretical basis of the discipline is deliberated in some detail, leading to the diagnosis that there are in fact numerous archaeologies, all with different notions of commensurability, ideologies, and purposes. Their various perspectives of what archaeology is and does are considered and the range of views of the human past is illuminated in this book. How humans became what they are today is of profound importance to understanding ourselves, both as a species and individually. Our psychology, cognition, diseases, intellect, communication forms, physiology, predispositions, ideologies, culture, genetics, behavior, and, perhaps most importantly, our reality constructs are all the result of our evolutionary history. Therefore the models archaeology--especially Pleistocene archaeology--creates of our past are not just narratives of what happened in human history; they are fundamental to every aspect of our existence."--Publisher's website.

Subject

1. Archaeology > Philosophy
2. 15.32 prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology
3. Arkeologi
4. Stratigrafi
5. Geologi
6. Pleistocen

Contents

1. Versions of archaeology 17 -- Theories of archaeology -- Traditional notions -- The 'New Archaeology' -- Postprocessual archaeology -- Postmodernism in archaeology -- Regionalism in archaeology -- Subject specialisation in archaeology -- Neocolonialism in archaeology -- Political dimensions of archaeology -- Archaeology's curatorial ambitions -- Archaeology and 'the other' -- Neo-colonialist effects of contemporary archaeology -- Milestones of Pleistocene archaeology -- Heretics in Pleistocene archaeology -- The discovery of humanity's great antiquity -- The discovery of fossil man -- The discovery of Pleistocene art -- The discovery of Homo erectus -- The discovery of Australopithecus -- Modern heretics in archaeology -- Mistakes in archaeology 71 -- Piltdown man -- The trouble with Glozel -- The hot waters of the Côa -- The Jinmium blues -- 'African Eve': a gene fetish -- The Hobbit myth -- Conclusions -- Logic in archaeology 101 -- Introduction -- The role of taphonomy -- Metamorphology: an alternative -- Why the dominant paradigm is wrong -- A metamorphology of archaeology 117 -- The collection of archaeological data -- A review of archaeological interpretation -- Biases of dissemination -- The blowtorch of logic -- Return to Eve -- Contingencies in Pleistocene archaeology 143 -- Frameworks -- Social realities -- Towards an epistemology of Pleistocene archaeology -- Taxonomies in archaeology 157 -- Prelude to a summary -- 'Taxonomisation' in archaeology -- Summarising.

Owning institution

1. Harvard Library

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing action (note)

1. committed to retain