Some Opinions about Recovering Mind

Abstract

Archaeologists have tried to reconstruct patterns of thought, meaning, and ideas, using theories of structuralism, cognition, and ideology. Case studies involving each of the theories are described, and the strengths and weakness of their application to archaeological data are presented. Structuralism is found to yield substantial examples with well-worked treatments of archaeological data. These examples tend to ignore economic context, however. Materialism, especially neo-Marxism, contains thorough definitions of ideology that may be useful to archaeology because they preserve economic context. However, such definitions are new to the field and presently offer few well-worked examples of how to handle archaeological data.

Mortality, Money, and Commemoration: Social and Economic Factors in Southern California Grave-Marker Change During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

“…For example, renowned gravemarker scholar Harold Mytum (2004) recently identified the multivalence of symbolism in mortuary material culture in eighteenth-century Ireland, noting how specific icons often had multiple meanings that helped shape dynamic class, ethnic, and religious identities. Other anthropologists dispute the direct correspondence between cultural patterns and changes in mortuary art, highlighting instead the link between Western funerary transformations and the emergence of a burgeoning system of mercantile capitalism in America and the resulting tensions between "the powerful and powerless in a society" (McGuire 1988, p. 436;Leone 1982Leone , 1988Leone and Potter 1988). And most recently, some scholars have integrated these approaches by emphasizing both culture and class into their discussions, suggesting economic, ethnic, and emulative models for change (Bell 2005;Carson 1994;Martin 1996).…”

Archaeology advances?

“…While, in general, the adherence to positivism seems to have become less dogmatic, an appreciation of the mutual relationships between archaeology and the social milieu in which it is practised is developing less rapidly (Leone 1982). Meltzer's paper is of particular importance because it demonstrates the value of an understanding of the history and social significance of archaeology for evaluating the interpretation of archaeological data.…”

The current state of American archaeology

“…, 1985 carrying the flag for symbolism in archaeology, Friedel (e.g. 1981), Deetz (1983), Leone (1982) and others attempting to apply structuralist principles to the archaeological record, and a cluster of archaeologists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst building a "school" of Marxist critical theory in archaeology (e.g. Gero et al 1983;Moore and Keene 1983).…”