Social Theory in Archaeology

Foundations of Archaeological Inquiry
Edited by Michael Brian Schiffer

11 illustrations
Paper $25.00
ISBN 978-0-87480-642-7

With contributions from every major school of thought, informed by evolutionary theory, feminism, chaos theory, and post-processualism, this volume serves as both handbook to an array of theoretical approaches and a useful look at each school's response to criticism.

Since the debut of the New Archaeology in the 1960s, approaches to the science of interpreting the material past have proliferated.

Seeking to find common ground in an increasingly fractious and polarized discipline, a group of archaeological theorists representing various schools of thought gathered in a roundtable, during the fall of 1997. As organizer, Michael Schiffer sought to build bridges that might begin to span the conceptual chasms that have formed in archaeology during the past few decades. Many participants in the roundtable accepted the challenge of building bridges, but some rejected the premise that bridge building is desirable or feasible. Even so, every chapter in the resulting volume contributes something provocative or significant to the enterprise of constructing social theory in archaeology and setting the agenda for future social-theoretic research.

With contributions from every major school of thought, whether informed by evolutionary theory, feminism, chaos theory, behavioralism, or post-processualism, this volume serves as both handbook to an array of theoretical approaches and as a useful look at each school’s response to criticism.

Contents:
Social Theory in Archaeology: Building Bridges
Michael Schiffer
Revisiting Power, Labor Rights, and Kinship: Archaeology and Social Theory
Jeanne E. Arnold, UCLA
Corporate/Network: New Perspectives on Models of Political Action and the Puebloan Southwest
Gary M. Feinman, University of Wisconsin
Abandonment: Conceptualization, Representation, and Social Change
Margaret C. Nelson, Arizona State University
Elements of a Behavioral Ecological Paradigm for the Study of Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers
Robert L. Kelly, University of Wyoming
Food, Lies, and Paleoanthropology: Social Theory and the Evolution of Sharing in Humans
Steven L. Kuhn and Catherine Sarther, University of Arizona
On What People Make of Places--A Behavioral Cartography
Marie Nieves Zedeño, University of Arizona
Strange Attractors: Feminist Theory, Chaos Theory, and Their Implications for Archaeological Theory
Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood, Peabody Museum, Harvard
Evolutionary Archaeology: Reconstructing and Explaining Historical Lineages
Michael J. O'Brien and R. Lee Lyman, University of Missouri
Reconfiguring the Social, Reconfiguring the Material
Julian Thomas, University of Southampton
Ideas Are Like Burgeoning Grains on a Young Rice Stalk: Some Ideas on Theory in Anthropological Archaeology
Susan Kus, Rhodes College, Memphis

Michael Schiffer is professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He is the author of Behavioral Archaeology (Utah 1995) and Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record (Utah 1996).