Sensible Archaeology?

[BAJR]

One thing I will do is step in here, as I fear hectoring is coming in here...

Do I agree with the principal? we hell yeah! I try to speak in language we understand, I try to theorise onsite and add to the ongoing contextual debate, I am an archaeologist I therefore must think, but how should I think? Mental masturbation ? or constructive thought? As it happens I liked and promoted the Van Dig... oh yes... it was out there, it was both theoretical and useful, indeed much of it has coloured my views on what I dig, and what I find.. yup it made me think (as in a way I already had) how weird we can get about scientific theoretical conceptualisation of contexts to the worring degree of thinking every pebble was precisely placed.. and every brick was placed with meaning other than a bricky slapping it in place... ah... but the thrid one was a light red colour... oooooh! big deal! I once had to look at a glazed tile database, and oh the shades from greeny yellow to yellow green... utter crap... once I talked with my wife who was a potter... it was just where the tile was in the kiln... and good grief there was much head scratching and money spent on classifying and pondering the colour changes... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!

I say this because I don;t think that shouting at Stuart is good ? Yes you can disagree.. or not... but hells teeth this seems to have hit a nerve... on the site I am on, there is a split... from those who see this as outrageous.. to those who think there is a value to question it. It certainly has people thinking.... is that not good? A fellow digger said a good thing about theory being like high fashion before it hits the high street... and we need theory to help stimulate the high street ! Good analogy... and I also counter that you can theorise and use as many big words as you want, but we deal with a flawed dataset and even on our site... you can dig 10 % eval trenches and still miss all the burials! theory fails when hit by reality! or new info...

Debate it.. yes ... but I will stand up and defend the right of people to disagree.

So I both agree with and disagree with... but hell, I will be up for the debate... not the kicking

[vulpes]

I try to speak in language we understand

Who's 'we'? I don't mind one bit if something I read, whether in archaeology or elsewhere has me reaching for the dictionary.

you can dig 10% eval trenches and still miss all the burials! theory fails when hit by reality!

That's not a failure of 'theory' David. It's maybe a failure of a practitioner to understand sampling, nothing more. And anyway, when were you employed by INRAP? :o)
Not sure who's shouting either. Stuart asks for debate, gets it, and then runs off. ALL WITHOUT A VOICE BEING RAISED!!!!! sorry.... :face-angel: :face-kiss:

[BAJR]

You manage to write here without using big words... mainly manage to write here without using big sentances. I too can cope with big words.. just gets a bit of a pain if you have to reach for the dictionary 3 or four times to get to the end of a sentance... and then find its not in the dictionary, as it is a specialist term.

Anyway.. your comments about eval .. hmmm... I do hope you managed to finish Hay and Lacey.. or were the words to easy to read? :face-kiss:}


Of course it is possible to miss... easy in fact. unlucky... but hey... thats what the other 90% hides. I agree with the H&L theory... but like all theory as well, it can fail in reality.

There were some that were willing to disagree with Stuart and say why, there were those that frothed at teh mouth at teh outrageousness... there were some who just came out with snapy one liners. :face-huh:

You can disagree but still be totemo yokatta! (get yer dictionary)

[vulpes]

Don't read any Will Self then!

But seriously - 'Sensible Archaeology'? Like 'sensible shoes' and a 'sensible haircut' presumably? Thought you were a bit more Punk than that BAJR

I've always been slightly wary of movements (projects?!) that define themselves largely by what they disapprove of, without seeking to identify that which they approve of.

[Jack]

One thing I have always wondered is what did 'Neolithic' folk think of phenomonology.....doubt they would have liked it.

'.......I laugh at archaeologists'
-The Doctor

[vulpes]

I dunno Jack, I think they might have had a better grasp of the concept than many today. They just wouldn't have called it Phenomenology. Isn't that kind of the point?????

Besides how does it come down to whether you like it or not? Isn't the concept inescapable?

[Jack]

Go on then, I'll bite, Having never studied anything even close to Phenomenology, but with a strong scientific background, an intermittant knowledge of British Neolithic/Bronze Age archaeology and a comprehensive understanding of the universe..........explain to me what phenomonology can do for archaeology?

[Dirty Boy]

I still fail to see how studying the lumps on people's heads can add to our understanding of the Neolithic.

Or am I getting something wrong here?....

[vulpes]

Dirty Boy, I'm surprised that you would be so dismissive of the P word when you were quite keen on the other P word - Poetry inspired by your perceptions of archaeological sites.... Strikes me as a Phenomenological approach in itself.

Jack - try Googling some definitions and then sitting down in a quiet spot and thinking how you might apply it to anything usefully? Alternatively go read Tilley's 'P...... of Landscape' - Just bear in mind that he lets himself down with his less than rigorous case studies.... Or... even.... Richard Bradley 'Altering the Earth' for phenomenological-esque (is that a word?) approach which doesn't trouble to use the word or burble on about why it's ok to use Heidegger even though etc....

Failing that, go and read some John Berger Or maybe just look at the pictures. :face-approve:

[Dinosaur]

Phew, am glad all I have to do occasionally is point out to diggers that they're talking s**t, it's some rubbish dumped in a ditch, not a 'ritual deposit' and the reason it's in the end of the ditch is cos there was a hedge in the way everywhere else.... why do people have to complicate things rather than admit that people haven't changed much over the years, they've always been lazy b******s, hence when it's raining the trash goes straight in the end of the ring-gully by the door (good evidence for lack of windows...) - suspect there was nothing much Phenomenological going on in the Neolithic (shouldn't that be a small 'n', by the way?), they couldn't even get 3 henges in a straight line....:face-stir: