People and things: a behavioral approach to material culture

The core of archaeology is the relationship between people and things. Left without informants and, in many cases, textual data, archaeologists strive to reconstruct past life through the window of artifacts: things made, used, and modified by individuals while participating in the activities of everyday life.According to behavioral archaeologists, our ability to understand the relationship between people and things in the present is the foundation for archaeological reconstruction of the past. This comprehensive text sets forth a theory for understanding the relationship between people and things. Humans, whether in the distant past or in our current world, make choices while inventing, developing, replicating, adopting, and using their technologies. A wide arc of factors, from utilitarian to social and religious can affect these choices. The theoretical model presented here provides the means to understand how people, whether it be Paleolithic stone tool makers or 21st century computer designersand users, negotiate these myriad factors throughout the artifact’s life history. While setting forth a behavioral theory, the book also engages the ideas of other competing theories, focusing especially on agency, practice, and selectionism. Six case studies form the core of the book, and provide clear examples of how the theory can be applied to a range of artifacts and people from prehistoric North American ball courts and smudge pits to the first electric cars and 19th century electromagnetic telegraph technologies. This book provides the reader, for the first time between two covers, a wide array of examples that can guide their own work. Definitive guide to the theory of behavioral archaeology First time these six diverse case studies have been published togetherCompares and contrasts behavioral archaeology with other prevailing theoretical models to fully explain the theory INDICE: Introduction: People and Things.- Behavior, Selection, Agency, Practice, and Beyond.- Exploring the Origins of Pottery on the Colorado Plateau.-Smudge Pits and Hide Smoking Revisited.- The Devil is in the Details: The Cascade Model of Invention Processes.- Ball Courts and Ritual Performance.- Social Theory and History in Behavioral Archaeology.- Studying Technological Differentiation.

• ISBN: 978-0-387-77132-8
• Editorial: Springer
• Encuadernacion: Rústica
• Páginas: 170
• Fecha Publicación: 01/10/2008
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés