Reader in Archaeological Theory: Post-Processual and Cognitive Approaches(Routledge Readers in Archaeology)

Since the 1960s, archaeologists have become increasingly concerned with how material evidence can be interpreted, and what it can genuinely reveal about the past. They are constantly faced with perplexing questions about their work: what is the meaning of an artefact? did prehistoric people think like we do? is the past just something constructed in the present? This work presents 16 articles of theoretical interest; provides an intellectual history of different approaches to archaeology which contextualizes the complex traditions of cognitive archaeology and post-processualism on which it focuses; organizes theories of archaeology, the meanings of things, the pre-historic mind and cognition, gender, ideology and social theory; and emphasizes research from the "New World", making archaeological theory especially relevant to students in North America.

Table of Contents:
Preface, 1 NEW APPROACHES TO OLD PROBLEMS: Archaeology in Search of an Ever Elusive Past PART I: THEORECTICAL VIEWPOINTS 2 COGNITIVE ARCHAEOLOGY 3 SYMBOLIC, STRUCTURAL, AND CRITICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 4 PROCESSUAL, POSTPROCESSUAL AND INTERPRETIVE ARCHAEOLOGIES PART II: MEANINGS OF THINGS 5 SOUND, COLOR AND MEANING IN THE METALLURGY OF ANCIENT WEST MEXICO 6 ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMAGININGS: Contextualization of Images PART III: PREHISTORIC COGNITION 7 FROM DOMAIN SPECIFIC TO GENERALIZED INTELLIGENCE: A Cognitive Interpretation of the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic Transition 8 WRESTLING WITH ANALOGY: A Methodological Dilemma in Upper Palaeolithic Art Research PART IV: ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY 9 ANNALISTES, HERMENEUTICS AND POSITIVISTS: Squaring Circles of Dissolving Problems 10 SOCIAL REPRODUCTION OF THE LONGUE DUREE IN THE PREHISTORY OF THE MIDCONTINENTAL UNITED STATES PART V: GENDERING THE PAST 11 THE DEVELOPMENT OF HORTICULTURE IN THE EASTERN WOODLANDS OF NORTH AMERICA: Women's Role 12 BOYS WILL BE BOYS: Masculinist Approaches to a Gendered Archaeology PART VI: IDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL THEORY 13 BY THE HUNTER, FOR THE GATHERER: Art, Social, Relations and Subsistence Change in the Prehistoric Great Basin 14 ALTHOUGH THEY HAVE PETTY CAPTAINS, THEY OBEY TH EM BADLY: The Dialectics of Prehispanic Western Pueblo Social Organization PART VII: ARCHAEOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 15 ARCHAEOLOGY AS SOCIO-POLITICAL ACTION IN THE PRESENT 16 RETURN OF THE SACRED: Spirituality and the Scientific Imperative, Index

About the Author :
David S. Whitley is the US representative of ICOMOS and lectures at UCLA. He is an internationally acclaimned expert on rock art, on which he has published widely.

Review :
"Whitley has selected a fine series of articles to demonstrate both the range and the limitations of postprocessual archaeology, and he provides an excellent introduction to each section of the volume. Although this book will be of greatest interest to specialists and students of archaeology, much of the book's content is accessible to nonarchaeologists. In fact, it might be a good volume to scan for those who still somehow believe that archaeology is just digging for treasure from the past. Certainly, readers will come away with an understanding that archaeology needs to be both scientific and humanistic." -"The Key Reporter "David Whitley has assembled a very fine guide to the ideas that are changing archaeology. This book shows that we have surmounted the limitations of the new archaeology by presenting a colorful variety of new and older scholars who contribute to understanding mind and meaning from past cultures.." -Mark Leone, University of Maryland, USA