Week 7: March 6. Edge of the trovel: Postprocessual archaeologies

"The past is not a fetish in the mud..."
Chris Tilley, Michael Shanks.

This week we are finishing off our long marathon of the evolution of archaeological thought with the post-processuals. In the first half, we will take Tilley and Shanks's retrospective article as central to our discussion and will try to highlight with your help, the various criticisms of 1990s extended towards processual or "New" archaeology. In the second section, we will be discussing Ian Hodder's Past as passion and play article and Yannis Hamilakis's critique of Hodder's project at Catalhoyuk. Alex and Reem will be moderators of this discussion section.

In the spirit of the elections of today, I propose that we run this discussion as a polemical debate between Hodder-supporters vs. Hamilakis-fans. Alex and Reem will head the teams, and we will split into two to support Hodder or Hamilakis down to our last drop of blood.

Discussion points

How does post-processual critique imagine the role of the archaeologist, the identity of the archaeologist and his fieldwork objectives, his subject matter of research, in relation to the processual, positivist stand that conceive archaeologist as an objective data retrieving scientist. How does postprocessualism criticize the scientism of New archaeology?

Shanks and Tilley wrote (250): "while real, objects of archaeological knowledge are nevertheless meaningless in themselves. They are raw matter which require completion to turn into discursive objects. It is at this point that they become meaningful, can be discussed, be known. For all our purposes, objects can only exist in relation with the excavating, observing, photographing, writing, questioning archaeologist." Compare this to the idea of the positivistic thought that argues that "objects speak for themselves".

What is reflexivity, and how does/can it manifest itself in archaeological practice?