Archaeological Semiotics (Social Archaeology)

355 Pages·2007·5.65 MB·English

by  Robert W. Preucel

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ARCHAEOLOGICAL SEMIOTICS
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This important book examines archaeology’s engagement with semiotics, from
its early structuralist beginnings to its more recent Peircian encounters. Its central C
thesis is that archaeology is a distinctive kind of semiotic enterprise; one devoted H
to giving meaning to the past in the present through the study of materiality.
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It compliments standard studies of linguistics and reformulates contemporary
theories of material culture. E
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The author develops his thesis by first introducing Saussure and reviewing his
legacy across structural, symbolic, and cognitive anthropology. He then introduces L
the Peircian alternative and highlights its influence on pragmatic anthropology. O
Of special interest are the discussions of the interrelations of structuralism and
processual archaeology, poststructuralism and postprocessual archaeologies, and G
cognitive science and cognitive archaeology. He then provides two innovative case I
studies, Brook Farm and the Pueblo Revolt, to demonstrate how a semiotic approach C
can contribute novel insights regarding the material mediation of social orders. A
Throughout his analysis, the author emphasizes the close links between archaeology L
and other social sciences, but also contends that archaeology, by virtue of the
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powerful ideological character of the past, opens up new spaces for discourse
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and dialogue. He proposes that, in this way, archaeology can make an original
contribution to contemporary semiotics. M
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Robert W. Preucel is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Associate Curator
of North American Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught T
previously at Southern Illinois University and Harvard University and has been a
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Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge. He is co-editor of Contemporary C
Archaeology in Theory (with Ian Hodder, Blackwell 1996). S
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
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SEMIOTICS
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Archaeological Semiotics
RobertW.Preucel
Blackwell
Publishing

Archaeological Semiotics
SocialArchaeology
GeneralEditor
IanHodder,StanfordUniversity
AdvisoryEditors
MargaretConkey,UniversityofCaliforniaatBerkeley
MarkLeone,UniversityofMaryland
AlainSchnapp,U.E.R.d’Artetd’Archeologie,Paris
StephenShennan,UniversityofSouthampton
BruceTrigger,McGillUniversity,Montreal
TitlesinPrint
ARCHAEOLOGIESOFLANDSCAPE
EditedbyWendyAshmoreandA.BernardKnapp
TECHNOLOGYANDSOCIALAGENCY
Marcia-AnneDobres
ENGENDERINGARCHAEOLOGY
EditedbyJoanM.GeroandMargaretW.Conkey
SOCIALBEINGANDTIME
ChristopherGosden
THEARCHAEOLOGYOFISLAM
TimothyInsoll
ANARCHAEOLOGYOFCAPITALISM
MatthewJohnson
THELANGUAGESOFARCHAEOLOGY
RosemaryA.Joyce
ARCHAEOLOGIESOFSOCIALLIFE
LynnMeskell
ARCHAEOLOGYASCULTURALHISTORY
IanMorris
ARCHAEOLOGICALSEMIOTICS
RobertW.Preucel
CONTEMPORARYARCHAEOLOGYINTHEORY
RobertW.PreucelandIanHodder
BEREAVEMENTANDCOMMEMORATION
SarahTarlow
METAPHORANDMATERIALCULTURE
ChristopherW.Tilley
Archaeological Semiotics
RobertW.Preucel
Blackwell
Publishing
©2006byRobertW.Preucel
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Firstpublished2006byBlackwellPublishingLtd
1 2006
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Preucel,RobertW.
Archaeologicalsemiotics/RobertW.Preucel.
p.cm.—(Socialarchaeology)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN-13:978-1-55786-657-8(hardcover:alk.paper)
ISBN-10:1-55786-657-0(hardcover:alk.paper)
1.Archaeology—Philosophy.2.Archaeology—Methodology.I.Title.II.Series.
CC72.P742006
930.1—dc22
2005037148
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Contents
ListofFigures x
ListofTables xiii
Preface xiv
Acknowledgments xvii
1 Introduction 1
WhatisSemiotics? 5
ArchaeologyandSemiotics 8
TheorizingMaterialCulture 14
OrganizationoftheBook 16
Part I SignsofMeaning
2 SaussureandHisLegacy 21
FerdinanddeSaussure 22
SemiologyandStructuralLinguistics 25
SaussureandModernLinguistics 31
StructuralAnthropology 37
SymbolicandCognitiveAnthropologies 39
Summary 42
3 ThePeircianAlternative 44
CharlesSandersPeirce 45
Semeiotics 49