ANT411H5 S

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ANT411H5 S
Archaeological Paradigms
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Paradigm

• theoretical framework

• 'school of thought'

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Paradigm
a philosophical theoretical framework of a
scientific school or discipline
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Paradigm
within which theories, laws generalizations,
and the experiments performed in support of
them, are formulated
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1. Materialist vs Ideational
etic (outsider's view)
vs
emic (insider's view)
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2. Particularist vs Generalist
historical interpretation
vs
search for 'law-like' generalizations
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Archaeological Paradigms
Material
Social
Ideational
General
Particular
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Current Paradigms

• Culture History

• Processual

• Post-Processual

• Social Agency

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Culture History

• description of archaeological record

• ordering of past events in time space

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Culture History

• i.e, what?, when? where?

• 'normative' generalist

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Normative model of culture
culture is a set of rules or norms that govern
behaviour
transmitted via enculturation
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Processual Archaeology
material conditions of human life determine
culture

• culture process how a cultural system works
  how it changes

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Processual Archaeology

• materialist generalist

• i.e, how? (multilinear evolution)

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Post-Processual Archaeology
ideational conditions of human life determine
culture

• understanding the 'meaning' of the past

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Post-Processual Archaeology

• ideational particularist

• i.e, why? (symbolic structure)

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Social Archaeology
social conditions of human life determine culture

• social relations

• social scale

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Social Agency

• individuals 'negotiate' culture

• i.e, why who? (e.g., gender)

social - particularist
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Archaeological Paradigms
Material
Social
Ideational

• Culture history

General

• Processual

Particular

• Social Agency

• Post-processual

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Dimensions of Inference
Contextual Dimensions
1. formal
2. spatial
3. temporal
Cultural Dimensions
4. material
5. social
6. ideational