Material Culture and Text: The Art of Ambiguity (Routledge Library Editions: Archaeology)

Reissuing works originally published between 1930 and 1996, this set presents a rich selection of renowned and lesser-known scholarship across the subject. Classic previously out-of-print works are brought back into print here in this set of research, guidance and surveys. It includes works of theory and of practical research, ranging over a wide range of themes from archaeology and place-names to industrial archaeology to the rock art of Africa. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Original Title Page 6 Original Copyright Page 7 Table of Contents 8 List of illustrations 10 List of tables 12 Preface 14 Part I Reading a material text 16 1 Motifs and Rapids 18 2 Nämforsen Through the Eyes of Hallström 24 3 Locating a Grammar 31 Material culture, writing 31 Language and speech in material culture 32 Signification 35 Paradigmatic series and syntagmatic chains 37 Editing the book 38 Breaking down the text 44 Investigating the grammar 45 4 Why Nämforsen? 58 Signification through denotation and connotation 58 Denotation and functional meaning 59 Relationality and meaning 68 5 Design Form 73 The design of the elk 73 Insufficient bodies 84 The design of the boat 88 6 Mobile Space, Arrested Time 93 Carving surfaces and topographical space 94 Carving time 95 7 Related Texts 102 Part II Mediating the text 108 8 A Structural Logic 110 Bricolage, classificatory systems 111 Encoding information 113 Time and structure 115 Principles linking elks and boats 117 9 An Hermeneutics of Meaning 129 Interpretation and meaning 130 Textual distanciation 133 Hermeneutic understanding, structural analysis 136 The role of metaphor: digital logic, analogic logic 138 'Fusing' horizons: ethnohistorical perspectives 141 The cosmic river as a link between three worlds 145 The shaman's tent 149 Nämforsen in the light of Evenk cosmology 150 Nämforsen as a heterotopia 152 Myth, ritual and meaning 154 Aspects of liminality 160 10 An Analytics of Power 164 'Art', power, violence 165 Discourse, material culture 168 Social complexity, technological simplicity 170 Exchange and ethnicity 173 Australia: ancestors, knowledge, power 179 Domination and the body 182 11 Conclusions 187 Appendix Review: Material Culture in a Text 194 References 199 Index 205 This book is one of a series of volumes resulting from the World Archaeological Congress, September 1986 which addressed world archaeology in its widest sense, investigating how people lived in the past and how and why changes took place to result in the forms of society and culture which exist now. The series brought together archaeologists and anthropologists from many parts of the world, academics from contingent disciplines, and also non-academics from a wide range of cultural backgrounds who could lend their own expertise to the discussions. This book is an exploration of the way in which the animal world features in the works of art of a variety of cultures of different times and places. Contributors have adopted a variety of perspectives for looking at the complex ways in which past and present humans have interrelated with beings they classify as animals. Some of the approaches are predominantly economic and ecological, some are symbolic and others philosophical or theological. All these different views are included in the interpretation of the artworks of the past, revealing some of the foci and inspirations of cultural attitudes to animals. Originally published 1989 Originally published in 1991, this is the first book-length exploration of post-structuralist discourse theory in archaeology. It tackles the most basic problem of historical and archaeological analysis - the relationship between text and artefact – in an analysis of prehistoric art fusing theory and the practice of interpretation to create a fresh framework for understanding the relationship between past and present. Focusing on a collection of rock carvings from northern Sweden, the author shows how alternative conceptualizations of the material from structuralist, hermeneutic and structural-Marxist frameworks substantially alter our understanding of their meaning and significance. Engaging readers in an interpretive process, this book is for specialists in archaeology, anthropology, art history and cultural studies. Experimental archaeology is a new approach to the study of early man. By reconstructing and testing models of ancient equipment with the techniques available to early man, we learn how he lived, hunted, fought and built. What did early man eat? How did he store and cook his food? How did he make his tools and weapons and pottery? Such everyday questions, besides the more dramatic mysteries associated with the monuments of Easter Island and Stonehenge and the colonization of Polynesia, can all be explored by experiment Originally published in 1991, this book tackles the basic problem of the relationship between text and artefact in an analysis of prehistoric art. Focusing on a collection of rock carvings from northern Sweden, it fuses theory and the practice of interpretation to create a fresh framework for understanding the relationship between past and present. A comprehensive discussion of what can be established about the culture and daily life of medieval Germany. Besides methodological questions, the author considers what can be learnt about the history of settlement and architecture, of technology, of economic and social matters, of churches and missions, and of population, diet and vegetation. This volume develops a new approach to plant exploitation and early agriculture in a worldwide comparative context. The studies throughout the book come from a worldwide range of geographical contexts, from the Andes to China and from Australia to the Upper Mid-West of North America. Originally published 1989. A critical analysis of a basic problem in historical and archeological analysis - the relationship between text and artifact. Using prehistoric art as a case study, the text combines post-structuralist theory and practice in order to create an active account of past material culture. Christopher Tilley. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 184-189) And Index.