19th October 2010, 08:29 PM
even if mostof the work is pointless WBs or lame evals etc it is still incumbent on us to make something of it - a story about the material culture recovered - if you can present your results tying in a theoretical underpinning - which,it has to be said the client doesn't need to have spelt out to them, but which the CA will recognise - all the power to you. to be sure, there are plenty of features such as pit alignments, deliberate deposition, which are effectively theoretically derived interpretations as one imposes a model of a priori knowledge and predicts that the certain features or represented activities on this site here are analogous with those from another site.
it's all too often theory: not that this is a bad thing, at all. having certain models against which we check the archaeology and vice versa is par for the course. and indeed, the exception proving the rule only extends the limits of human archaeological knowledge and endeavour. i thought it very interesting that Richard Bradley's conclusions after having someone trawl through the grey literature for a year seemed to be that the theoretical models hold up. well of course they do: in the commercial sector, we end up using Bradley, Whittle and so forth as the sources for those features of which we are a bit suspicious when excavating. clearly a common-sense approach - archaeologically speaking - is to investigate and try to interpret. if i have to excavate a hermeneutic spiral to dig my way out ofmy ignorance, so be it.
knocking CSA as 'all a bit Daily Mail' was only-slightly-tongue-in-cheek short hand, on my part, for the knee-jerk reaction to difference which i am afraid CSA recalls for me - the attitude,if you like, that it's nothing more than another European plot along with post-modernism, queer theory, black history, feminist/women's history, oral history, popular history and so forth (most of which do indeed owe Marxism some form of a debt) posited against the proper history of the nation; as i say i caricature, but to be honest, the road to hell is paved with good intentions -and whether it's Schama or Ferguson (both of which i enjoy, but also 'read' while reading)i think that setting out an alternative based on observation and interpretation of material culture is our duty as archaeologists.
i have always felt massively hacked off, for example, at the medievalisation of prehistory with the 'big man' his priestly entourage and lesser kinsmen who are his fighting force, and yet which i feel is still largely replicated; what about the rest of neolithic, bronze and iron age societies; the semi-nomadic groups intimated by historical sources but which leave barely a trace; 19thC slum dwellings; the circumlocations of drug-using homeless in Bristol, for example? these are all aspects of archaeology which make me burn with questions more so than castles, churches and other remains of the elite - tho cheap as i am i love a good church or castle.
and watching someone's foundations being dug for an extension and finding adump of pot or - oh irony - doing a WB on someone's lake *hemhem* and finding a souple of medieval smithies floats my boat. but you still gotta interpert it; description's the easy bit - but woss it all about?
it's all too often theory: not that this is a bad thing, at all. having certain models against which we check the archaeology and vice versa is par for the course. and indeed, the exception proving the rule only extends the limits of human archaeological knowledge and endeavour. i thought it very interesting that Richard Bradley's conclusions after having someone trawl through the grey literature for a year seemed to be that the theoretical models hold up. well of course they do: in the commercial sector, we end up using Bradley, Whittle and so forth as the sources for those features of which we are a bit suspicious when excavating. clearly a common-sense approach - archaeologically speaking - is to investigate and try to interpret. if i have to excavate a hermeneutic spiral to dig my way out ofmy ignorance, so be it.
knocking CSA as 'all a bit Daily Mail' was only-slightly-tongue-in-cheek short hand, on my part, for the knee-jerk reaction to difference which i am afraid CSA recalls for me - the attitude,if you like, that it's nothing more than another European plot along with post-modernism, queer theory, black history, feminist/women's history, oral history, popular history and so forth (most of which do indeed owe Marxism some form of a debt) posited against the proper history of the nation; as i say i caricature, but to be honest, the road to hell is paved with good intentions -and whether it's Schama or Ferguson (both of which i enjoy, but also 'read' while reading)i think that setting out an alternative based on observation and interpretation of material culture is our duty as archaeologists.
i have always felt massively hacked off, for example, at the medievalisation of prehistory with the 'big man' his priestly entourage and lesser kinsmen who are his fighting force, and yet which i feel is still largely replicated; what about the rest of neolithic, bronze and iron age societies; the semi-nomadic groups intimated by historical sources but which leave barely a trace; 19thC slum dwellings; the circumlocations of drug-using homeless in Bristol, for example? these are all aspects of archaeology which make me burn with questions more so than castles, churches and other remains of the elite - tho cheap as i am i love a good church or castle.
and watching someone's foundations being dug for an extension and finding adump of pot or - oh irony - doing a WB on someone's lake *hemhem* and finding a souple of medieval smithies floats my boat. but you still gotta interpert it; description's the easy bit - but woss it all about?