Interpretation in Archaeological Theory
Introduction
The concept of interpretation in archaeology can be understood in many different ways. At one level, it is a general term used to describe the construction of archaeological knowledge about the past from evidence surviving in the present; as such, many archaeologists use the term interchangeably with others, including explanation where no defined qualities are ascribed to either. However, the term “interpretation” also carries more specific connotations which distinguish it from explanation, premised on a different perception of what counts as knowledge. This distinction can be traced back to the nineteenth century and a separation in German scholarship made between the natural and human sciences as involving two different methods and types of knowledge. Archaeology has always occupied an uneasy position in this separation, and although on the whole its roots lie within the humanist tradition, archaeological interpretation rarely explicitly contrasted itself against...
References
- Binford, L. 1962. Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 28(2): 217-25.Google Scholar
- Bleicher, J. 1980. Contemporary hermeneutics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Clarke, D. L. 1973. Archaeology: the loss of innocence. Antiquity 47: 6-18.Google Scholar
- Giddens, A. 1984. The constitution of society. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
- Hawkes, C. 1954. Archaeological theory and method: some suggestions from the Old World. American Anthropologist 56(2): 155-68.Google Scholar
- Hodder, I. 1986. Reading the past. Current approaches to interpretation in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- - 1991. Interpretive archaeology and its role. American Antiquity 56: 7--18.Google Scholar
- - 1999. The archaeological process. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
- Hodder, I., M. Shanks, A. Alexandri, V. Buchli, J. Carman, J. Last & G. Lucas. (ed.) 1995. Interpreting archaeology. Finding meaning in the past. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Idhe, D. 1999. Expanding hermeneutics. Visualism in science. Evanston (IL): Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
- - 2009. Do things speak? Material hermeneutics, in Postphenomenology and technoscience: 63-80. Albany (NY): SUNY Press.Google Scholar
- Johnsen, H. & B. Olsen. 1992. Hermeneutics and archaeology: on the philosophy of contextual archaeology. American Antiquity 57(3): 419-36.Google Scholar
- Olsen, B. 2006. Archaeology, hermeneutics of suspicion and phenomenological trivialization. Archaeological Dialogues 13(2): 144-50.Google Scholar
- - 2010. In defence of things. Archaeology and the ontology of objects. Lanham: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
- Petrie, F. 1904. Methods and aims in archaeology. London: Macmillan & Co.Google Scholar
- Shanks, M. & C. Tilley. 1987. Re-constructing archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Taylor, W. 1983. A study of archaeology. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
- Thomas, J. 2004a. The great dark book: archaeology, experience and interpretation, in J. Bintliff (ed.) A companion to archaeology 21-3. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
- - 2004b. Archaeology and modernity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Tilley, C. (ed.) 1993. Interpretative archaeology. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
- Willey, G. & P. Phillips. 1958. Method and theory in American archaeology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
- Winch, P. 1958. The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Further Reading
- Dilthey, W. 1976. Selected writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Gadamer, H.G. 1975. Truth and method. London: Sheed & Ward.Google Scholar
- - 1977. Philosophical hermeneutics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
- Ricoeur, P. 1981. Hermeneutics and the human sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar