John Robb and Preston Miracle
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264140
- eISBN:
- 9780191734489
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264140.003.0006
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology
The beginning of farming should be one of the most exciting issues in European prehistory. Instead, it runs repetitively in well-worn ruts. This chapter aims to open up a theoretical can of worms, ...
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The beginning of farming should be one of the most exciting issues in European prehistory. Instead, it runs repetitively in well-worn ruts. This chapter aims to open up a theoretical can of worms, working in similar directions to some recent essays in a non-dichotomized, nonessentializing archaeology of Europe in this period. These take two distinct but related directions. One is to re-evaluate standard interpretive tropes in classic cases such as the LBK, and to argue for much more complex processes at the forager–farmer encounter. A more radical approach is represented by theorists who question the idea that one can define essentialist identities based upon economies. The chapter first discusses the basic terms of argument critically, then poses several new models, and concludes by discussing the resolvability of the question. Beyond the Socratic aim of annoying all parties to the debate equally, it hopes to open a theoretical space in which Europe between 7000 and 4000 cal bc can be freed of encumbering conceptual baggage and viewed as a real ethnographic landscape.Less
The beginning of farming should be one of the most exciting issues in European prehistory. Instead, it runs repetitively in well-worn ruts. This chapter aims to open up a theoretical can of worms, working in similar directions to some recent essays in a non-dichotomized, nonessentializing archaeology of Europe in this period. These take two distinct but related directions. One is to re-evaluate standard interpretive tropes in classic cases such as the LBK, and to argue for much more complex processes at the forager–farmer encounter. A more radical approach is represented by theorists who question the idea that one can define essentialist identities based upon economies. The chapter first discusses the basic terms of argument critically, then poses several new models, and concludes by discussing the resolvability of the question. Beyond the Socratic aim of annoying all parties to the debate equally, it hopes to open a theoretical space in which Europe between 7000 and 4000 cal bc can be freed of encumbering conceptual baggage and viewed as a real ethnographic landscape.
Anthony Snodgrass
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748623334
- eISBN:
- 9780748653577
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623334.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
Classical archaeology has changed beyond recognition in the past generation, in its aims, its choice of subject-matter and the methods it uses. This book contains twenty-five chapters, some of them ...
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Classical archaeology has changed beyond recognition in the past generation, in its aims, its choice of subject-matter and the methods it uses. This book contains twenty-five chapters, some of them previously published only in rather inaccessible places, which have contributed to this change. The chapters cover four decades of work on pre-classical and classical Greece and some adjacent fields of scholarship, beginning in the 1960s when classical archaeology was not widely seen as a free-standing subject. They chart the progress of a movement for the intellectual independence of Greek archaeology and art, from history and textual studies and for recognition among other branches of archaeology. The key theme of the chapters is the importance of the Iron Age as the formative period in the making of classical Greece and the text varies this with comment on literature, history, anthropology, Aegean and European prehistory and Roman provincial archaeology. This collection represents innovative work in classical archaeology; challenges accepted boundaries and inhibitions; and is wide in scope, covering history, prehistory, art, literary interpretation, and field archaeology.Less
Classical archaeology has changed beyond recognition in the past generation, in its aims, its choice of subject-matter and the methods it uses. This book contains twenty-five chapters, some of them previously published only in rather inaccessible places, which have contributed to this change. The chapters cover four decades of work on pre-classical and classical Greece and some adjacent fields of scholarship, beginning in the 1960s when classical archaeology was not widely seen as a free-standing subject. They chart the progress of a movement for the intellectual independence of Greek archaeology and art, from history and textual studies and for recognition among other branches of archaeology. The key theme of the chapters is the importance of the Iron Age as the formative period in the making of classical Greece and the text varies this with comment on literature, history, anthropology, Aegean and European prehistory and Roman provincial archaeology. This collection represents innovative work in classical archaeology; challenges accepted boundaries and inhibitions; and is wide in scope, covering history, prehistory, art, literary interpretation, and field archaeology.
