Fields
Winter 2013 -
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changes in the study of material culture. Influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure’s sign system, anthropological studies placed language, discourse, and symbols at its forefront (Jones and Boivin 2010:335). In this new symbolic framework, material culture was understood as a form of communication, similar to texts or speech acts (Fowler 2010:355). For instance, for structuralist scholars such as Claude LeviStrauss, elements of the material world acted as opposed symbols, organized into a meaningful dual system similar to language (Fowler 2010:355). In the hermeneutic and interpretative approach developed by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973:448), culture was studied as an assemblage of texts, or collectively sustained symbolic structures. According to Geertz (1973:443), acts but also objects were invested with layers of meanings to make everyday experience comprehensible. The influence of the semiotic and hermeneutic models in archaeology is epitomized by Hodder’s post-processualism, which is based on the paradigm that material culture could be read like a text (Hodder 2004:29; Jones and Boivin 2010:335). Hodder (2004:28, 30) adopted Geertz’s interpretative approach to understand past societies as meaningful wholes, and used semiotic to study material culture as a language with a specific “grammar” to be deciphered. The symbolic component of Hodder’s approach was epitomized by his assertion that “material culture has a meaning which goes beyond the physical properties of an object” (2004:28). Because objects were seen as entangled in network of social relationships and actions, material culture was meaningful, symbolic, and put into context with its social environment (Hodder 2004:28; Jones and Boivin 2010:336). Thus, material culture was no more a mirror of human behaviors or a passive tool to adapt to external changes; rather, it was actively used by human agents to shape identities and legitimate or transform society (Hodder 2004:29).
to the creation of static evolutionary models based on technological adaptation (Jones and Boivin 2010:338-339). Nonetheless, aspects of Marxist terminology and perspective have remained influential in the field. During the 1960s, archaeologists began to ask for a more rigorous, scientific, and “objective” method for studying social changes and the functioning of human societies through material culture. The new paradigm proposed by Lewis Binford, called processual archaeology, used material culture to make hypothesis about the organisational and technological developments of past societies (Jones and Boivin 2010:336). According to Binford (1962:217-218), artifacts reflected specific aspects of the total cultural system. Then, observed changes in either social, technological, or ideological sub-systems correlated with wider developments in the whole structure. In the mortuary sphere, for instance, grave goods became evidence of the type and number of social roles carried by individuals. This data, combined with the labor investment put in graves, was used as a measure of the overall complexity of the society (Binford 1971:1718, 20-21, 23). Thus, temporal changes in the composition of grave goods were linked with the chronological and structural progression of societies. In this approach, material culture was passive; it was a mere reflection of social changes (Fowler 2010:358). Similarly, identity as a concept was used to reflect on other issues such as social organisation, cultural tradition, or means of adaptation. There was no concern for the formation and negotiation of individual identities (Fowler 2010:358). For instance, recognizing aspects of the individual in funerary settings, such as age, sex, or affiliation, only aimed at a better understanding of the changing constitution of the society under study (Binford 1971:17-23). Parallel to processualism, structuralism and hermeneutics grew in importance during the 1960s and 1970s, and marked important
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