Socializing geoarchaeology: Insights from Bourdieu's theory of practice applied to Neolithic and Bronze Age Crete

Abstract

Because the history of human life is about ways of inhabiting the world, geoarchaeology should play a central role in the archaeological program and cannot be reduced to a mere subspecialty of archaeology with its own autonomous theories and concerns. Hence there is a pressing need for theorizing; geoarchaeology cannot ignore nearly five decades of theoretical debates in archaeology. This contribution endeavors to demonstrate the benefits that may be achieved by practically applying social theories to the interpretation of geoarchaeological results. Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice inspired a generation of post-processual archaeologists, yet the avenues of interpretation that this opened up have barely been explored in approaches in the Earth sciences to the human past. It is suggested that the work of Bourdieu offers the possibility to sidestep recurrent issues of scale and incompatibilities of resolution between archaeological and geological dating. The argument is sustained by an alternative reading of geoarchaeological results coming from Neolithic and Bronze Age Crete.

Critical Geoarchaeology: From Depositional Processes to the Sociopolitics of Earthen Life

“…Some scholars have recently framed these new orientations in geoarchaeology as "behavioral" geoarchaeology and others as "social" geoarchaeology (cf. Jusseret 2010, Love 2012, Roddick 2015, Roos & Wells 2017. Regardless of such different designations and genealogies, these approaches share an interest in highlighting how specific techniques of geoarchaeological research, such as careful stratigraphic delineation, soil chemistry, micromorphological analyses, or petrographic analyses of artifacts (e.g., ceramics), can amplify assessments of the cultural and social significance of deposits and materials in specific cultural and historical contexts.…”

On the definition and practice of Geoarchaeology

“…The lack of application of modern archaeological theory in geoarchaeology has as, noted above, been criticised, as the goal remains to understand human activity within the wider context, therefore the deterministic approach is essentially naive. The accusation is that it is too 'processual' in its approach, and not being 'sensitive' to the issues relevant to post-processual archaeology (Jusseret 2010). The accusation is also perhaps relating to techniques and means of assessment, and gives no regard for the fact that interpretation from an archaeological perspective allows the application of any theory that happens to be the flavour of the day, even if the initial basis includes uniformitarianism.…”

LIME PLASTER USE AT LATE BRONZE AGE KALAVASOS-AYIOS DHIMITRIOS (CYPRUS): EVIDENCE FOR APPLICATION-SPECIFIC RECIPES AND THE CREATION OF SOCIAL SPACE

“…Recent high-resolution archaeological studies have explored sediments (Pauketat and Alt 2005;Jusseret 2010;Bauer in press), mudbricks (Matthews 2005; Love 2011Love , 2013a and plasters (Theodoridou et al 2013;Turco et al 2016) among others. The repertoire of techniques employed to study the microscopic record (following Wright 1992, in Turco et al 2016Weiner 2010) include micromorphology (Goldberg 1979;Berna et al 2007;Shahack-Gross and Finkelstein 2007;Philokyprou 2012;Goshen et al 2017), X-ray fluorescence and X-ray diffraction (Berna et al 2007;Nodarou et al 2008;Love 2011;Miriello et al 2013), FT-IR (Weiner 2010;Anderson et al 2014;Goshen et al 2017), Raman spectroscopy (Martinez-Ramirez et al 2003), loss on ignition (Love 2011), and geophysical analysis (Manning et al 2014).…”

“…Pauketat and Alt 2005;Jusseret 2010; Bauer in press), mudbricks(Matthews 2005; Love 2011 Love , 2013a Love , 2013b and plasters(Theodoridou et al 2013;Turco et al 2016).Microscopic analysis and chemical techniques that go beyond visual assessment (followingWright 1992, in Turco et al 2016 have been employed within theoretically informed research projects (e.g. Bauer in press;Pauketat and Alt 2005).…”