Graduate Program in Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology

Online course, 30 hours, 3 credits

 

Archaeological theory is the essential basis for any study of archaeology, whether in the Mediterranean or outside 'the pond'. The powers of theory-teaching to put students off theory for life are legendary, so this introductory module seeks to present a light digest of current approaches to archaeological theory - closer to Matthew Johnson than to David Clarke. The teaching is divided into three parts: 5 sessions on the history of archaeological thought (1800s to 1980s) (the 'deep' past); 5 sessions on the 1980s to 2000 (the recent past); and 5 sessions on the development of theory in the 21st century (the present past). The way to make theory palatable is to intermix concepts with examples, so there will be a lot of examples drawn from a wide range of times and places (even some from the Mediterranean). 

 

 

	Topic	Hours
	Part 1: The 'deep' past (1830s to 1980)
1	Session 1: The Three Ages and the era of Scandinavian innovations (1830s - 1880s) Content: from Antiquarianism to the Age Systems - the impact of Thomsen's Three Age system - early inter-disciplinary archaeology in Denmark - the reaction to Thomsen across Europe - Oscar Montelius, typology and the Scandinavian Bronze Age - from burial archaeology to settlement archaeology.	2
2	Session 2: The 'Deep Sleep' and who disturbed it (1880s - 1960s) Content: Colin Renfrew -  the Rip Van Winkle of archaeological theory? - Gustav Kossinna and Kulturkreise - Gordon Childe and cultural archaeology - Graeme Clark, economy and ecology - Gordon Willey and settlement archaeology.	2
3	Session 3: The 'New Archaeology' - what's new about it? Content:  the problems with cultural archaeology - 1968 - the year of the revolution (Lewis Binford's 'New perspectives in archaeology' and David Clarke's 'Analytical archaeology') - aims, methodology and epistemology - what was new? - what was old hat?	2
4	Session 4: Processual developments (1): understanding the social Content:  what is 'social archaeology'? - hierarchies in the 'Age of Stonehenge' - systems theory in the Aegean Bronze Age - a Prestige Goods model for the European Iron Age - exchange models in prehistory.	2
5	Session 5: Processual developments (2): analysing the spatial Content:  David Clarke and the spatial paradigm - the macro-, the semi-micro and the micro (with examples) - Janusz Kruk and the Neolithic in Little Poland - the Glastonbury Iron Age Lake Village - early perspectives on household archaeology.	2
	Part 2: The recent past (1980 - 2000)
6	Session 6: Structuralist and symbolic archaeology Content: the problems of New / Processualist archaeology - the 1981 Cambridge Conference (SSA) - aims and methods - from structuralism to post-structuralism - the role of ethno-archaeology - the centrality of context.	2
7	Session 7: How the past became political Content:  Reprise - Gustav Kossinna's Kulturkreise - Thracian archaeology in Bulgaria - Marxist archaeology in Hungary -  USA / Western Europe opens its eyes - Shanks, Tilley and the role of ideology - Michael Dietler and nationalist archaeology in France.	2
8	Session 8: the emergence of gender archaeology Content:  Marija Gimbutas and Old World Europe (her influence and her critics) - 'What this awl means?' (Janet Spector's story) - Engendering archaeology (1991) - making the invisible visible - the task differentiation model and its limitations - Rosie the Riveter, the Princess of Vix and powerful women.	2
9	Session 9: the significance of personal agency Content:  systems theory and people - recognising people means recognising 'the Other' - the agency of individuals - recognising 'individuals' in the past - the analysis of row cemeteries.	2
10	Session 10: Processualists fight back - alternatives to Interpretative archaeology. Content:  the empirical shift in scientific archaeology - advanced systems theory - Colin Renfrew and Cognitive-Processual archaeology - the battle over 'evidence'.	2
	Part 3: The present past (21st century)
11	Session 11:  the ontological turn - multiple agencies in play Content:  what is the 'ontological turn'? - how is human agency different from the agency of trees, pottery, stone circles, cattle and wheat?  - Ian Hodder and the concept of 'entanglement' - domestication and an entangled Çatalhöyük – network analysis and connectivity.	2
12	Session 12: enchaining objects, places and people Content:  the notion of 'enchainment' - what are 'object biographies'? - the earliest hominins, their places and fragmented things - Palaeolithic exchange networks, the 'absent present' and enchained hand-axes - fragmentation at the landscape scale - the Breton megaliths and the movement of decorated rocks - the 'fragmentation premise' - marine shells at Varna, Durankulak and Dimini - the Hamangia fragmented figurines.	2
	Session 13: sex, gender and LGTB in archaeology Content:  what is the difference between 'sex' and 'gender'? (perspectives of Judith Butler, Lynn Meskell and Diane Bolger) - Queer theory and its implementation in archaeology - beyond task differentiation towards the Maintenance Model - comparing Japanese Jomon and Balkan Neolithic figurines - categorical analysis in the mortuary zone.	2
	Session 14: integrating archaeological science and humanistic archaeology Content:  bridging the divide with new research questions - Andy Jones and the Neolithic of Orkney - Alasdair Whittle & Alex Bayliss on the TOTL Project ('The Times Of Their Lives') - the promise of aDNA on an Eurasian scale (the debate) - the Stonehenge festival (an island-wide festival with isotopes).	2
	Session 15: Summary: exploring a new theoretical landscape Content:  what has changed since 2000 ? - what can we trust enough to build on? - how can we become involved in cutting-edge research?	2

  

 Essential reading:

Johnson, Matthew 2010. Archaeological theory - an introduction. 2nd edition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell (ISBN 9781405100151 (pbk.) E-text ISBN : 978-1-4443-2608-6)

Harris, Oliver and Cipolla, Craig 2017. Archaeological theory in the new millennium. London: Routledge. (ISBN Paperback: 9781138888715). E-book: 9781315713250 

 

Part 1:

 

Binford, L. 1962 Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 28, 217-25.

 

Binford, L. 1972 An Archaeological Perspective, New York.

 

Childe, V. G. (1929) The Danube in prehistory. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

 

Clark, J. G. D. (1952) Prehistoric Europe. The economic basis. Methuen, London.

 

Clark, G. 1953. Star Carr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Clarke, D. 1968 Analytical Archaeology, London.

 

Clarke, D 1977 Spatial information in archaeology, in D. L. Clarke (ed) Spatial Archaeology, 1-32, London.

 

Deetz, J., 1977, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life. New York.

 

Díaz-Andreu, M. (2007) A world history of nineteenth-century archaeology : nationalism, colonialism, and the past. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Renfrew, C. 1972. The emergence of civilization. London: Methuen.

 

Renfrew, C. 1984. Social archaeology. Southampton: University of Southampton.

 

Renfrew, C. (1987) Archaeology and language: the puzzle of Indo-European origins. Jonathan Cape, London.

 

Rowley-Conwy, P. 2007. From genesis to prehistory the archaeological three age system and its contested reception in Denmark. Oxford; New York : Oxford University Press.

 

Trigger, B. 1989 A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge.

 

 

Part 2:

 

Adovasio, J. M., Soffer, O. & Page, J. (2007) The invisible sex. Harper-Collins, New York.

 

Ashmore, W. and Knapp, A.B. (eds) 1999 Archaeologies of Landscape.  Oxford.

 

Barrett, J.C., 1987, 'Contextual Archaeology', Antiquity 61,  468-73.

 

Barrett, J.C., 1989, 'Food, Gender and Metal: Questions of Social Reproduction', in Sorensen, M.L.S. and Thomas, R. (eds) The Bronze Age-Iron Age Transition in Europe, BAR Int. Ser. 483, 304-20.

 

Barrett, J. C. (1994) Fragments from antiquity. An archaeology of social life in Britain, 2900-1200 BC. Blackwell, Oxford.

 

Barrett, J. C., Bradley, R. and Green, M. 1993 Landscape, Monuments and Society: The Prehistory of Cranbourne Chase. Cambridge.

 

Bender, B. (ed.) 1993  Landscape: Politics and Perspectives. Oxford.

 

Bender, B., Hamilton, S. & Tilley, C. 1997 Leskernick: Stone Worlds; Alternative Narratives; Nested Landscapes. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63: 147-78.

 

Bintliff, J. (ed.) 1984. European social evolution. University of Bradford Press, Bradford.

 

Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Bradley, R., 1990, The Passage of Arms. An Archaeological Analysis of Prehistoric Hoards and Votive Deposits, Cambridge.

 

Bradley, R. 1993 Altering the Earth. Edinburgh, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

 

Bradley, R. 1998. The Significance of Monuments, London.

 

Bradley, R. 2000 An Archaeology of Natural Places, London.

 

Bradley, R. 2005 Ritual and Domestic Life in Prehistoric Europe, London.

 

Brück, J. and Goodman, M. 1999 Making Places in the Prehistoric World: themes in settlement archaeology, London. Various articles (particularly the introduction).

 

Carsen, J. and S. Hugh-Jones (eds) 1995 About the House: Levi-Strauss and beyond, Cambridge.

 

Chadwick, A. 2003 'Post-processualism, professionalization and archaeological methodologies', Archaeological Dialogues 10, 97-117.

 

Champion, T. 1991 'Theoretical Archaeology in Britain', in I. Hodder, ed., Archaeological Theory in Europe: The Last Three Decades, London.

 

Clarke, D.V., Cowie, T. and Foxon, A., 1985, Symbols of Power at the Time of Stonehenge, Edinburgh.

 

Cleal, R., Walker, K. and Montague, R. 1995 Stonehenge in its Landscape. London, English Heritage.

 

Dobres, M.-A. (2000) Technology and social agency. Blackwell, Oxford.

 

Dobres , M-A and Robb, J. (2000) (eds) Agency in archaeology. London, Routledge.

 

Edmonds, M., 1997, ‘Taskscape, technology and tradition’, Analecta Praehistorica

Leidensia             29, 99-110.

 

Edmonds, M. (1999) Ancestral geographies of the Neolithic. Landscapes, monuments and memory. Routledge, London.

 

Fleming, A. 1999 Phenomenology and the Megaliths of Wales: A Dreaming Too Far? Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 18(2): 119-25.

 

Fletcher, R. (1977) Settlement studies (micro and semi-micro). In D. L. Clarke (ed.) Spatial archaeology. Academic Press, London, pp. 47 – 162.

 

Fletcher, R. (1984) Identifying spatial disorder: a case study of a Mongol fort. In H. Hietala (ed.), Intra-site spatial analysis in archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 196 – 223.

 

Gell, A. (1998) Art and agency: an anthropological theory. Clarendon, Oxford.

 

Gero, J. M. & M. W. Conkey (eds.) 1991. Engendering archaeology: women and prehistory. Blackwell, Oxford.

 

Gimbutas, M. (1982) Goddesses and Gods of old Europe. Thames and Hudson, London.

 

Goodison, L. & Morris, C. (eds.) (1998) Ancient goddesses: the myths and the evidence. British Museum Press, London.

 

Helms, M. W. (1988) Ulysses’ sail: an ethnographic odyssey of power, knowledge and geographical distance. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

 

Hill, J.D., 1995, Ritual and Rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex, British Archaeological Report 242, Oxford.

 

Hodder, I. 1987 The Archaeology of contextual Meanings, Cambridge. [esp pages 1-10]

 

Hodder, I. (ed.) 1990. Archaeological theory in Europe: the last three decades. Routledge, London.

 

Hodder, I. 1991 Reading the Past. Cambridge (2^nd edition)

 

Hodder, I. 1999 The Archaeological Process: An Introduction. London

 

Hutton, R. (1997) The Neolithic Great Goddess: a study in modern tradition. Antiquity 71 (271): 91-99.

 

Kohl, P. & C. Fawcett (eds.) 1995. Nationalism, politics and the practice of archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 82 – 96.

 

Kuna, M. (1991) The structuring of prehistoric landscape. Antiquity 65: 332 – 347.

 

Layton, R (ed) 1989. Conflict in the Archaeology of Living Traditions. (Articles by Hubert, McGuire and Zimmerman).

 

Miller, D., 1985, Artefacts as Categories: A study of ceramic variability in Central

India, Cambridge.

 

Miller, D., 1985, Material Culture and Mass Consumption, Oxford.

 

Parker    Pearson, M. and Richards, C. (ed) 1994 Architecture and Order: approaches to social space, London: Routledge.

 

Pearce, S. 2001. Interpreting Objects and Collections. London and New York.

 

Renfrew, C. (1994). Towards a cognitive archaeology. In The ancient mind: elements

of cognitive archaeology (pp. 3-12). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Richards, C. and Thomas, J., 1984, 'Ritual activity and structured deposition in Later Neolithic Wessex', in Bradley, R. and Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Recent Research, BAR 133, Oxford, 189-218.

 

Schlanger, N., 1990, ‘Technique as Human Action: Two Perspectives’, Technology in the humanities, Archaeological Review from Cambridge 9:1, 18-26.

 

Shanks, M. and Tilley, C. 1987 Social Theory and Archaeology. Cambridge.

 

Shennan, S. 1989 Archaeology as archaeology or as anthropology? Antiquity 63: 832-5.

 

Sherratt, A. (1997) Economy and society in prehistoric Europe. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.

 

Smith, C. & Wobst, H. 2010. Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonising Theory and Practice, London: Routledge.

 

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Thomas, J. 1991 Science versus anti-science? Archaeological Review from

              Cambridge 10: 27-37.

 

Thomas, J. (ed.) 2000 Interpretive Archaeology:  A Reader. London. [especially articles by: Tringham, Ingold, Lane and Richards].

 

Tilley, C. 1994 A Phenomenology of Landscape, Oxford.

 

Tringham, R. (1994) Engendered places in prehistory. Gender, Place and Culture 1: 169 – 203.

 

 

Part 3:

 

Alberti, B. 2013. Queer prehistory: bodies, performativity and matter. In Bolger, D. (ed.) 2013.

 

Appleby, J. (2010) Why we need an archaeology of old age. Norwegian Archaeological Review 43/2: 145 – 168.

 

Aranda Jiménez, G., Montón-Subías, S. & Sánchez-Romero, M. (eds.) (2011) Guess who’s coming to dinner. Feasting rituals in the prehistoric societies of Europe and the Near East. Oxbow Books, Oxford.

 

Bailey, D. W. (2005) Prehistoric figurines. Representation and corporeality in the Neolithic. Routledge, London and New York.

 

Bailey, D., Cochrane, A. & Zambelli, (eds.) 2010. Unearthed. Norwich, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

 

Bayliss, A. 2009. Rolling out revolution: using radiocarbon dating in archaeology. Radiocarbon 51: 123–47.

 

Bender, B. and Winer, M. (eds) 2001 Contested Landscapes: Movement, Exile and Place.  Oxford.

 

Bogaard, A., Bending, J., & Jones, G. (2007) Archaeobotanical evidence for plant husbandry and use. In A. Whittle (ed.), The early Neolithic on the Great Hungarian Plain: investigations of the Körös culture site of Ecsegfalva 23, County Békés. Vol. II. Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, pp. 421 – 446.

 

Bolger, D. (ed.) 2013. A companion to gender prehistory. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

 

Borić, D. (2005) Body metamorphosis and animality: volatile bodies and boulder artworks from Lepenski Vir. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15: 35 - 69.

 

Butler, J. (1993) Bodies that matter : on the discursive limits of "sex". Routledge, London.

 

Chadwick, A.M. (ed.) 2004 Stories from the Landscape. Archaeologies of Inhabitation. BAR International Series 1238, Oxford.

 

Chapman, J.C., 2000, Fragmentation and Social Practices in the Later Prehistory of Central and Eastern Europe, London.

 

Chapman, J. & Gaydarska, B. (2007) Parts and wholes. Fragmentation in prehistoric context. Oxford, Oxbow Books.

 

Chapman, J. & Gaydarska, B. 2010. Fragmenting hominins and the presencing of Early Palaeolithic social worlds. Proceedings of the British Academy 158: 417 – 452.

 

Chapman, J. & Gaydarska, B. 2011. Can we reconcile individualisation with relational personhood. A case study from the Early Neolithic. Documenta Praehistorica XXXVIII: 21 – 43.

 

Conneller, C. (2011) An archaeology of materials. Substantial transformations in early prehistoric Europe. Routledge, London.

 

Cummings, V., Jones, A. & Watson, A. 2002 Divided Places: Phenomenology and Asymmetry in the Monuments of the Black Mountains, Southeast Wales, Cambridge Archaeology Journal, 12(1): 57-70.

 

David, N. & Thomas, J. (eds.) (2008) Handbook of landscape archaeology. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA.

 

Exon, S., Gaffney, V., Woodward, A. & Yorston, R. 2005 Stonehenge Landscapes. Journeys Through Real and Imagined Worlds, Oxford.

 

Fowler, C., 2004, The Archaeology of Personhood: an anthropological approach, London.

Fowler, C. (2016) Relational personhood revisited. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26/3: 397 - 412.

 

Gamble, C. (2010) Technologies of separation and the evolution of social extension. Proceedings of the British Academy 158: 17 – 42.

 

Gilchrist, R. 1999. Gender and Archaeology. Contesting the Past. London

 

Gilchist, R. (2000) Archaeological biographies: realizing human lifecycles, -courses and –histories. World Archaeology 31/3: 325 – 328.

 

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Hendon, J. A. (2010) Houses in a landscape: memory and everyday life in Mesoamerica. Duke University Press, Durham & London.

 

Hodder, I. (ed.) 2010. Religion in the emergence of civilization. Çatalhöyük as a case study. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

 

Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled. An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things. Wiley & Sons: Chichester.

 

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Interpretation in Archaeology. Cambridge

 

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Jones, A. M. 2012. Prehistoric materialities. Cambridge: CUP.

 

Knappett, C. (ed.) (2011) An archaeology of interaction. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 

Knappett, C. (ed.) 2013. Network analysis in archaeology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 247 – 280.

 

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Miller, D. 2010. Stuff. Cambridge.

 

Mlekuž, D. (2005) The ethnography of the Cyclops: Neolithic pastoralists in the East Adriatic. Documenta Praehistorica XXXII: 15 – 51.

 

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Richards, C. (ed.) (2005) Dwelling among the monuments : an examination of the Neolithic village of Barnhouse, Maeshowe passage grave and surrounding monuments at Stenness, Orkney. McDonald Research Institute, Cambridge.

 

Robb, J. (2013) Material Culture, Landscapes of Action, and Emergent Causation. A New Model for the Origins of the European Neolithic. Current Anthropology 54/6: 657 – 673.

 

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Skeates, R. 2010. An Archaeology of the Senses. Oxford.

 

Sørensen, M-L 2000 Gender Archaeology. Cambridge.

 

Sørensen, M-L 2005 Feminist Archaeology, in C. Renfrew and P. Bahn (eds) Archaeology. The Key Concepts.  London

 

Tilley, C. 2004 The Materiality of Stone: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology, Oxford.

 

Tilley, C., Keane, W., Kuechler, S., Rowlands, M. and Spyer, P. (eds), 2005, Handbook of Material Culture, London, Sage Publications.

 

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Whittle, A. (2003) The archaeology of people. Dimensions of Neolithic life. Routledge, London.