Call for Sessions North American Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) 2016 Theme: “Bolder Theory: time, matter, ontology and the archaeological difference” We have all been inspired by theory. At one stage or another in our archaeological careers, we’ve encountered thinking that prompted us to ask new questions, work with new models and heuristics, pursue new lines…
symmetry
Symmetry, STS, Archaeology (Part 2)
. . .continued from Part 1 of 2. Temporality The ethnographic examination of archaeological practice has become an established sub-domain (Edgeworth 2006, 2010; Yarrow 2003), although this reflexive platform has not developed in explicit contact with STS ethnographies of science (Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay 1983; Latour and Woolgar 1986; Lynch 1985). The characterization of scientific activity…
Symmetry, STS, Archaeology (Part 1 of 2)
Territorial wrangling is a good indicator that there is something emergent which is coveted amongst disciplines. The principle of symmetry, while a topic no longer generating any sustained discussion in its home setting of Science and Technology Studies (STS), is a case in point. Given recent disciplinary exchange involving symmetry, it seems appropriate to post…
The principle of symmetry according to Tim Ingold: An occasion for more clarification
When deployed in the context of metaphysics, symmetry is an awkward, even unsightly, term. Those of us who have enrolled this principle have been the first to admit this. We have also been the first to state that we are more than happy to take leave of symmetry. But such vocabulary works because it is…
Manifesto for archaeology of flow
an extract from a new book on the archaeology of rivers and other flows of materials. It argues that rivers are as susceptible to archaeological and historical analysis as more solid parts of landscapes are.
Archaeologists should grapple with the anthropocene too…
In its complex reflexivities, its multiple feedback loops, and its inextricable entanglement of nature and culture, the anthropocene is a geological epoch like no other. The difficult task of understanding it should not be left entirely to biochemists, geologists, climatologists and other natural scientists. Archaeologists should grapple with the anthropocene too…..