Archaeology: The Conceptual Challenge (Debates in Archaeology) - Softcover

Insoll, Timothy A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0715634577 ISBN 13: 9780715634578

Publisher: Bristol Classical Press, 2007

Synopsis

This series of short volumes, each devoted to a theme which is the subject of contemporary debate in archaeology, ranges from issues in theory and method to aspects of world archaeology.The central question this book seeks to explore is this: Are we trying to reconstruct a past in our own image, chained solely to our own unacknowledged emotional, intellectual, and philosophical traditions, or should we attempt to look beyond this at the fundamental concepts we often take for granted, but which if recognised as constructs of the relatively recent past, might begin to allow us to acknowledge our limitations and potentially more profitably engage with archaeological evidence in various ways.The end result is not another nihilist offering based upon a post-modernist collapsed perspective, but rather a considered approach, which, if anything, is ultimately positivist in tone, owing a debt, if anything, to the philosophical outlooks of critical realism.This is a critical yet positive approach to how contemporary conceptual outlooks, if unacknowledged, can seriously influence our understanding of the past.It is an exploration and evaluation of conceptual categories, of great significance to archaeology, which are nevertheless often neglected - age, experience, emotion, the senses, distance, colour etc.

About this title

About the Authors

Timothy Insoll is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Manchester. His works include Archaeology, Ritual, Religion (Routledge, 2004) and The Archaeology of Islam (Blackwells, 1999. He has published over 70 academic papers, notes, and reviews, and has made two short films, 'The Carnelian Beads of Khambhat' (2002), and 'Archaeology and Sacrifice' (2005).

Richard Hodges OBE is Emeritus President of The American University of Rome, Italy. He is the editor of the Debates in Archaeology series; and his publications include Dark Age Economics (2012), The Anglo-Saxon Achievement (1991), Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne (2000), Goodbye to the Vikings (2006) and (as co-author) Villa to Village (2003), all published by Bloomsbury Academic. He has previously been Director of Archaeology for the Butrint Foundation, Albania, and Director of the Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, USA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0715634577
• ISBN 13: 9780715634578
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144