History of Archaeological Theory

Topics: 1. Introduction: what is theory in archaeology? What is the relationship between theory and method? Theory and philosophy of science 2. Antiquarian beginnings: role of antiquarians in interpreting the past in the eighteenth century. 3. Emergence of archaeology as a modern scientific discipline in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century-- Three age system; Darwinian evolution and its impact; idea of prehistory; development of ethnology; uniformitarian geology; new field methods. 4. Early twentieth century approaches: the rejection of culture-evolutionary framework; diffusion and culture history; impact on archaeological methodology 5. V.Gordon Childe: Childe as diffusionist, Dawn of European Civilization; Childe as functionalist, New Light on the Ancient East; Childe’s Marxist interpretation in Man makes Himself and What happened in History. 6. Archaeological theory after World war II: Old world vs. New World Approaches; W.W. Taylor, Braidwood and Graham Clark; Steward and multi-linear cultural evolution; Gordon Willey and Viru valley, the development of settlement archaeology. 7. New Archaeology and the Processual approach, ‘Old wine in new bottle? Binford and early New Archaeology; Other processual approaches, Flannery, Hill, Watson and Redman; Schiffer and behavioral archaeology; Middle range research 8. The Post-processual critique; archaeology and gender; Marxist archaeology. Diversification in post-processual approaches-- contextual archaeology; cognitive archaeology. Neo-evolutionary approaches and Darwinian Explanations. 9. Archaeologies of Place and Landscape 10. Post-colonial archaeology: issues of culture, identity and knowledge. Politics of the past. 11. Current issues--Archaeology and globalism; the impact of new digital methods in archaeology; meaning and materiality, current approaches to objects; the individual, agency and practice; social identity and personhood.

Select Readings:

 Ashmore,W. and B. Knapp. 1999. Eds. Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell. Bender, B. 1993.ed. Landscape: politics and Perspectives. Oxford. Berg. Binford, L.R., 1962. Archaeology as Anthropology, American Antiquity, 28 (2): 217-25. Binford, L.R., 1964. A Consideration of an Archaeological Research Design, American Antiquity 29 (4): 425-41. Binford, L., 1965. Archaeological Systematics and the study of Culture Process, American Antiquity 31 (2): 203-10.