KNAPP, A. Archaeology Without Gravity. Postmodernism and The Past.

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 3, No.
2, 1996
Archaeology Without Gravity: Postmodernism

and the Past
A. Bernard Knapp I
Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the past and the present have
become commonplace: anthropologists now situate cultures in their historical
contexts, while historians pursue particularistic ends within politicoeconomic
or ideational structures. Archaeologists have cast their nets even more widely,
not only toward anthropology and history, but to fields ranging from molecular
biology to hermeneutics. Postmodernist approaches maintain that
archaeologists shouM be looking at the past from muln'ple perspectives and
listening to its muItivocality. Archaeologists, in fact, not only develop different
ways of understanding the past, but actually develop alternative pasts. This
paper argues that multiple paths to alternative pasts enhance archaeological
understanding and, at the same time, stimulate the development of
archaeological theory.
KEY WORDS: postmodernism; modernism; postprocessualism; social/interpretive archaeology.
INTRODUCTION
In a recent essay on the "Crisis in Hunter-Gatherer Studies," Richard

Lee (1992, p. 36) lashes out at the poststructuralist critique in anthropology.
To exemplify the position of cool detachment and distancing considered to
be the hallmark of the postmodem "condition" (Jameson, 1984; Harvey,
1990), Lee targets the advertising media and suggests that the consumers
of the world today may be excused for donning a shell of cynicism to ward
off such postmodem assaults. Lamberg-Karlovsky (1989, p. 13), referring
to postmodern anthroPOlogy, is even less charitable:
The proliferation of such twaddle is perhaps only comprehensible in the narcissistic
appreciation of self--a strong component of all that passes for "post-modern." One
1Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, Scotland G12 8QQ.
127
lff72-5396/96/wzfD.0127509.50/oo 1996PIcnurnPublishingCorporation
128 Knapp
can only hope that such inane, post-modernist, reflexive, critical, post-structuralist
abcesses do not affect archaeology.
Turning to archaeology, Bintliff (1993, p.92) finds little to "salvage from

the wreck of Post-modern archaeology." Peebles (1993, pp. 251, 253), in
turn, delivers a scathing critique of certain tenets of postmodernism within
archaeology:
The excess of reason came to archaeology in the form of logical empiricism; its
opposite, the deficiency of reason, came most recently with the tenets of
post-modernism . . . . [This is] a world of sham and illusion, and this world is being
imported to archaeology, under the banner of a cognitive archaeology, sometimes
as a post-structuralist archaeology, and sometimes as a post-processual archaeology.
Thomas and Tilley (1992, p. 106) maintain that postmodernism is the "most
nebulous of terms" which refers to a "loss of faith in progress and western
rationality, a loss of confidence in the fixity of meaning . . . . [and] a reduc-
tion of identities to the status of alternative commodities." Postmodernism,
then, is not an intellectual movement as much as "a set of actually existing
circumstances" (Thomas and Tilley, 1992, p. 106). Another archaeological
impression holds that postmodernism has consecrated rapid change and
instability in our material conditions: changing forms of production and
attitudes to consumption now provide us with new goods to meet needs
we never knew we had (Gosden 1994, p.60).
Given these essentially caustic opinions, it might be concluded that
most anthropologists and archaeologists today are highly skeptical of post-
structuralism and postmodernism. A broad survey of the current archae-
ological and anthropological literature demonstrates otherwise, although
one must wonder how many fieldworkers actually practice postmodern an-
thropology or archaeology. Whereas consideration of anthropological and
sociological perspectives is never far distant in this study, the main concern
is with archaeology. How has postmodernism, or the plurality of other
"isms" that characterize social theory today, affected the field of archae-
ology? Is the past "real"? How, and to what extent, is postmodernism re-
lated to postprocessualism? And how has the latter impacted upon an
archaeological view of the past?
Of course, it is not only archaeology, anthropology, or history that
has been affected by the spread of postmodernism: other fields include
architecture (where it all started), literary criticism, English, psychology,
feminist and masculinist studies, and "science." One can comprehend eas-
ily some postmodern trends or debates in architecture, the visual arts, and
literature (e.g., Fokkema and Bertens, 1986; Burgin, 1986; Soja, 1989).
But when one turns to mainstream social theory (e.g., Nicholson, 1990;
Rosenau, 1992; Seidman and Wagner, 1992; Seidman, 1994), postmod-
ernism is regarded more as a threat to the integrity of the field, at the
Postmodernism and the Past 129
very least a problem that must be investigated. In order to deal with this
very unwieldy topic, and to examine its denial of and/or impact upon sev-
eral fields that seek to find some meaning in the past, I propose to cate-
gorize these fields--archaeology, anthropology, history--collectively as
social approaches to the study of the past, as human science. This should
dispel any charges of prejudice toward either the social sciences or the
humanities. From an archaeological perspective, this division seems arti-
ficial if not counter-productive: the past is human and involves individual
histories; the past is social and involves ideological, technological, and en-
vironmental patterns and processes.
Postmodernists regard most approaches to the study of the past as
creations of modern, first-world, Western societies: they are, in postmodern
terms, oppressive to third-w0rld societies, irrelevant to the present, lacking
in reality, and--in a word--exhausted. The more "critical" postmodemists
(discussed below) question whether there is a real, knowable past, and deny
any notion of evolutionary progress. They not only question objectivity, but
also dispute the idea that reason is a valid means of explaining the past.
Postmodernists, predictably, share a counterintuitive view of time, space,
and history: cyclical, polychronic (not linear) time, and inconstant, immeas-
urable space are more germane to their viewpoint and, so, deserve more
attention than the past as a means of comprehending the present. To a
critical postmodernist, the study of the past is too subject-centered, logo-
centric, prejudiced, closed, and privileged to be of much concern. Knowl-
edge and meaning (at least "etic" meaning) are irrelevant--postmodernists
are concerned chiefly with style, with surface rather than depth. The icons
of yesterday have been discarded in favor of the seductive charms of any-
thing new (Gold, 1992, p. 239).
In this paper, I examine critically the postmodernist position vis-a-vis
the study of the past. My aim is twofold: (1) to provide an overview of
postmodernism as a contemporary cultural phenomenon and (2) to con-
sider its impact on human science generally and, more specifically, upon
social approaches in archaeology. Another main concern is to examine the
relationship of postmodernism to postprocessualism in archaeology and the
extent to which present-day archaeology may be termed postprocessual in
its outlook (cf. Bintliff, 1991, 1993). Finally, I argue that a multiplicity of
paths to the past if not multiple pasts, wherever or whenever they may
have been, must enhance archaeological understanding and stimulate our
attempts to develop archaeological theory. There is no ultimate explanation
but, rather, an array of interpretive approaches that can provide a better
understanding of past environments, social processes, cognition, and human
agency.
130 Knapp
POSTMODERNISM: MOVEMENT OR "CONDITION"?
Postmodernism is not a cogent or unified philosophical, artistic, or po-

litical movement. Indeed, Walsh (1990, p. 278, 1992, p. 53) argues that it
is not a movement at all but, rather, a "condition" stemming from the in-
congruities of a post-World War planet, where information technology, the
mass media, and the growth of geopolitics and multinational economies
serve as triggers for social change. Jameson (1984) and Harvey (1990) paint
equally bleak Neo-Marxist accounts and argue that the social experiences
of the modernist, or "Fordist," era--characterized by tradition, centralized
authority, government or industrial interventionist planning, and the com-
forting certainties of everyday community and politicoeconomic life--be-
came undermined and displaced by the incomprehensible, "post-Fordist,"
postmodern forces associated with decentralization, economic fragmenta-
tion, and cultural disillusionment (cf. the Marxist study Callinicos, 1989).
Labeling postmodernism as a "condition" scarcely conceals hostility
(but cf. Lyotard, 1984) toward a phenomenon that has had a positive effect
on several intellectual fields and established itself as more than a passing
fancy--something which therefore must be taken seriously. Postmodernism,
in fact, goes beyond style and poses questions about one's orientation to,
and one's place in, the contemporary world (Gitlin, 1989, p. 348).
Several strands of postmodernism are in vogue (Featherstone, 1988,
p. 207), but for heuristic purposes it is useful to outline two general ori-
entations: the critical and the moderate [Rosenau (1992, p. 15) terms them
skeptical and affirmative]. Although it is misleading to lump together the
writings of Baudrillard, Derrida, and Kroker, critical postmodernism may
best be associated with their work (e.g., Derrida, 1981; Baudrillard, 1983;
Kroker and Cook, 1986). Moderate postmodernism, on the other hand, may
be linked to the writings of a much wider range of scholars: Foucault, Soja,
Barthes, Giddens, Rabinow, Clifford, and Marcus. It must be emphasized
that this division is somewhat arbitrary: for example, the interconnections
between theorists such as Derrida and Foucault are far too substantial and
informative to sever (Boyne 1990). Furthermore, it would be misleading
and counterproductive if such an arbitrary division were to become reified
in the archaeological literature, since the work of one group or the other
might be dismissed all too easily as arch-radical or ultraconservative.
The critical postmodernists, said to be inspired by European philoso-
phers such as Nietzsche and Heidegger (Rosenau, 1982, p.15; Thomas,
1993, p. 9; Gosden, 1994, p.108), represent the "dark side of postmod-
ernism:" despair, demise, genocide, environmental devastation, and death;
the impossibility of "true" knowledge; the denial of representation; the end
of the individual author. Baudrillard and Eco believe that the "simulacrum"
(a copy of a copy, lacking an original) is even better than the original. In

hyperreality (Eco, 1987), only pure simulacra exist, because all origins are
lost, or cannot be recovered, or never existed in the ftrst place (Bruner,
1994, p. 407). Whereas moderate postmodemists also find modernity of
any sort abhorrent, they share a more constructive view of the postmodem
world. The moderates tend to be 'Anglo-Americans," who often promote
certain types of political action (struggle and resistance), or a variety of
New Age social movements. They are not so dogmatic and ideological as
their critical counterparts, yet assume a strong ethical stance, support is-
sue-specific political coalitions, and believe in a hierarchical system of val-
ues (Rosenau, 1992, p.16).
Postmodem roots run deepest in continental Europe, especially France
and Germany; its recent popularity among North American intellectuals
has been compared to the popularity of Beaujolais Nouveau in the same
market (Morin, 1986, p. 82). Described as an intellectual reaction against
modemism's anticulture and antinature biases (Friedman, 1992, p. 847),
postmodemism incorporates a number of different, often conflicting, intel-
lectual orientations: French structuralism, nihilism, existentialism, anar-
chism, hermeneutics, critical theory, and certain strands of Marxism.
Postmodernism, paradoxically but also perhaps predictably, shares elements
in common with and at the same time quarrels with every other intellectual
movement (Rosenau, 1992, pp. 12-13). It is also positively inclined toward
"libido liberation, creativity, lost values, and communion with nature"
(Friedman, 1992, p. 847).
Modernism. To understand the challenges or the potential of postmod-
emism, it is useful first to understand its antithesis and precursor, mod-
ernism. Modernism really begins with the Renaissance and with the
tradition of "enlightenment rationalism." This period witnessed the begin-
nings of what we now call "science," which in its early form served as an
alternative worldview to that held by the arbitrary authorities of the church
and and the state (the latter in the form of monarchies). Both authorities
legitimized their positions through theology. Eventually modem science
came to make its own claims on the monopoly of rationalism and "objective
truth," through the use of rigorous methodological procedures, and the
study of materials rather than metaphysics. Claims were made for "objec-
tive" facts about the world and, eventually, about the universe. Moreover,
during the modem period, what postmodemists call "metanarratives" began
to emerge: these provided a global worldview based on a rigid objectivism
and assumed the validity of their claims to the "truth." Examples are Marx's
Capital, Darwin's theory of evolution (Walsh, 1990, p. 278), or Thomsen's
three-age system in archaeology (Daniel, 1981, pp. 55-64; Rodden, 1981).
Arts and sciences alike were dominated by "great men" (or women in the
132 Knapp
same guise): Ranke and Momigliano in history, Schliemann, Albright,

Braidwood, Willey, Blegen, and Kenyon in archaeology, Tylor, Boaz, Kroe-
ber, and Mead in anthropology, Landsberger, Goetze, and Jacobsen in
Assyriology, and Kantor and Porada in ancient art history--to cite some
of the most obvious examples. The Hermeneutic tradition, from Vico to
Gramsci, and the Annales "school" (Knapp, 1992), from Febvre and Bloch
through Braudel to LeGoff and Duby, may have been less vulnerable to
postmodernist criticism, but they were still represented by the tradition of
"great men."
When the legitimacy of these great traditions--in both the arts and
the sciences--was called into question, and as it became possible to doubt
or even deny the possibility of truth and value, of developmentalism and
human progress, the modernist tradition began to lose ground. Postmod-
ernists were very uneasy with, or openly hostile to, this enlightenment ra-
tionalism and the methodological suppositions of enlightenment science.
Postmodernism: A Definition? Postmodernism is a slippery topic to de-
fine (Gellner, 1992, pp. 22-23). One prominent archaeologist struggled to
understand postmodernism as follows (Hodder, 1989a, p. 65):
It is thoroughly engrossing for an archaeologist, a student of cultural change, to be
living through the apparent "birth" of a new cultural style, Yet it is surprising how
difficult it is to define and understand what is happening. The more I try to tie
down post-modernism, the less coherent it seems....the growth of the style seems
bigger than any individual's attempt to characterize it. Ultimately it engulfs any
attempt to fix it.
Postmodernism is perhaps easier to define in terms of what it is not, rather

than what it is (Harvey, 1990, p. 43; Haraway, 1990, pp. 203-204). Friedman
(1992, pp. 846-847, Fig. 1) describes it in terms of a polar relationship with
modernism. Perhaps if postmodernism cannot be defined to the satisfaction
of positivists, we might at least examine its appeal, however restricted that
may be. Unlike what might be expected from an age of "enlightenment
rationalism," the record of "modernity" in the late twentieth century is far
from rational and enlightening. From the mainly unpleasant, highrise land-
scapes of most urban centers [which propelled "postmodern geographies"
(Soja 1989), one of the most effective postmodernist critiques], to the mili-
tary disasters and environmental debacles that typify the last 50 years, to
the increasingly unbreachable gap between the poor and the rich, there is
little consolation in the notion of progress, or faith in human reasoning to
provide a better future. Postmodernism flourishes in a ruptured past, a be-
leaguered history that has severely eroded faith in the holy trinity of pa-
triarchy, science, and the state (Gitlin, 1989, p. 353).
Mass communication media--from radio to the cinema, and from TV
to satellite communications, and e-mail--have broken through many cultural
and social boundaries, even if economic, ethnic, and ideological barriers still
stand. Industrialization, high technology, urbanization, life in the fast lane:
all were idealized in a positivist, modernist world, and all are challenged
and denied, many on moral or ethical grounds, by postmodernism. From
Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground to Devo and the Talking Heads,
to INXS and the gangster-rap, machine-gun volley of Ice-T or Snoop Doggy
Dog, pop culture relishes in undermining authority, denying values, ques-
tioning reality. And this pop culture blends fight into mainstream Anglo-
American or west European culture, even into high culture.
How is it that Western capitalism has so effectively invented, appropri-
ated, and exploited postmodemism? Postmodernism's broad appeal results
in part from its open-endedness and tack of specific definition, a blankness
that condemns capitalism and commodification even as it endorses and per-
petuates it. This postmodern apprehension of the world highlights the in-
herent instability of meaning, and the capacity to invert or recycle symbols
in different contexts, thus transforming their point of reference (Daniels and
Cosgrove, 1988, pp. 7-8). For Jameson (1984, p. 79), the amorphous, free-
floating qualities of symbols and images are tantamount to the unrestrained
circulation of commodities (Thomas, 1993, p. 8).
On the one hand, postmodernism may be regarded as an intellectual
luxury for a generation of Americans, Europeans, and Australians who en-
joyed political liberty and freedom from want and who could afford to focus
on the individual instead of the collective. On the other hand, postmod-
ernism is a product born out of desperation, particularly to a generation
of scholars who, upon graduating with higher degrees in the late 1970s-
1980s, confronted a dwindling job market, loss of credibility, and unem-
ployment. Economic privation, in this case, promoted nostalgia as well as
resentment (Habermas, 1986, p. 150; Stauth and Turner, 1988; Rosenau,
1992, p. 11). With its focus on the marginal, the decentered, and the pow-
erless, perhaps it is the very content of postmodernism that explains its
mixed attraction within academic disciplines. And yet, postmodernists have
used their involvement in this highly vocal and very trendy intellectual
movement to further their own careers. This sort of "conceptual position-
ing" through denunciation of older traditions is common throughout aca-
demia (see, e.g., Price and Lewis, 1993, p. 2).
There is a contradiction here between power and powerlessness. As
an example, take the case of gender, for two decades a central tenet of
feminist theory (e.g., di Leonardo, 1991). Whereas postmodernists substi-
tute for Enlightenment tradition, or "reason," the study of the contingent,
the historically specific, and the culturally constructed, feminists maintain
that gender, and whatever practices may constitute gender, are one of the
most crucial contexts in which to situate the "universal" subject of reason
134 Knapp
[Benhabib, 1994 (1992), p. 77]. However, concerns with the ethnocentrism

and racial bias implicit in gender theory, what Bordo (1990) terms "gender
skepticism," has propelled some feminists into a theoretical alliance with
poststructuralism (A/coff, 1988). That alliance has promoted an authori-
tarianism which seeks to dictate "politically correct" ways in which to theo-
rize identity, history, and culture (Bordo, 1990, pp. 136-142). The
"self-exploding" quality of post-structuralist theory, which forces people to
undermine the political ground on which they stand, can lead to "flush[ing]
the Archimedean point away with the sewage of discourse" (Gitlin, 1989,
p. 357). Moreover, the postmodern insistence on a plurality of interpreta-
tions, as well as the indeterminacy of cultural meaning, has led to criticism
of the "gender template" for its mainly binary structuring of reality (Bordo,
1990, pp. 142-145). In its place have arisen narrative ideals that celebrate
a supposedly feminine ability to accept change, fluidity, and otherness as
features of reality. Such deconstructionist narratives often fall short of as-
suming responsibility or of taking a stance that may be critiqued or dis-
cussed recursively [for feminist narratives in archaeology, see, e.g.,
Tringham (1991, p. 124) and Spector (1991, pp. 397-401)]. If postmod-
ernism is to support the politics of social change, this question of agency
must be answered (Gutterman, 1994, pp. 223-224).
Postmodem feminism [e.g., Flax 1987, 1990; Lovibond, 1989; Nichol-
son, 1990; Benhabib, 1994 (1992)], in other words, has in some cases en-
couraged the shift of basic feminist concerns like gender to questions of
adequate theory (Christian, 1988). Several feminist writers (e.g., Harding,
Di Stefano, and Bordo; cited by Nicholson, 1990) have urged caution in
the wholesale embrace of a postmodem feminism (also Fraser and Nichol-
son, 1990, p. 35). Because of the complex relationship between male and
female, gender cannot be regarded as a pure, binary construct: rather it
must be examined in the context of lives shaped by a multiplicity of influ-
ences. Grimshaw (1986, pp. 84-85) argues that gender "inflects" one's ex-
perience of race, class, and historical coherency; in fact, gender also
deconstructs those experiences. The inflections that modify experience are
endless, and the trajectories of individual interest do not always lead where
one imagines: Could the multifaceted "deployment" of feminist gender-
skepticism now be operating in the service of reproducing "hegemonic mas-
culinist" structures of power and knowledge (Bordo, 1990, pp. 150-151;
Carrigan et al. 1985)? The idea that knowledge and "truth" are contingent,
or multiple, may actually disempower feminists, by alienating them from
their own reality and by shoring up dominant, androcentric viewpoints just
when their legitimacy is being challenged effectively (Hodder, 1991c, p. 9;
Mascia-Lees et al., 1989). The postmodern critique of liberal humanism, in
other words, itself risks an "emasculating "liberal" even-handedness"
(Bender, 1993, p. 258) and has been undercut by its tendencies to insist
on the "correct" destabilization of general categories like class, race, and
gender. In so doing, postmodernism has promoted a fragmentation of the
feminist critique.
For those of us who want to understand the world systematically in order to change
it, postmodernist theories at their best give little guidance .... At their worst,
postmodernist theories merely recapitulate the effects of Enlightenment
theories--theofies that deny marginalized people the fight to participate in defining
the terms of interaction with people in the mainstream. (Hartsock, 1987, pp.
190-191)
NIHILISM AND RELATIVISM/PLURALISM
Whatever rationale one provides for postmodernism, the nihilism and

relativism propounded by its critical adherents at best present severe prob-
lems for the human sciences, at worst undermine their very raison d'etre.
The nihilistic strain of postmodernism emphasizes the uncertainty of the
human condition and maintains that much knowledge is essentially a con-
tradiction. Instead of truth, there are only regimes of truth and power (Fou-
cault, 1980), and knowledge itself is shaped solely by the cultural
constructions of the observer (Lee, 1992, p. 35). If there is no difference
between sense and nonsense, between truth and error, then all beliefs are
equal, and this paves the way for nihilism as well as relativism (Vattimo,
1988; Schiffer, 1988, pp. 467--468; Trigger, 1989a, 1991, pp. 68-69; Rosenau,
1992), or "interpretationism" (Harding, 1990, p. 102, n. 5).
Anthropology has always been sensitive to the formation of ethnic
identities, even as it strives to maintain "an objective distance from its eth-
nographic reality" (Friedman, 1992, p. 847). Since the time of Boas in the
early 20t h century, a major tenet of anthropology holds that it is the study
of differences; if the postmodernist position merits consideration (e.g.,
Burr, 1990), this tenet is no longer tenable. Wolf (1994, pp. 10-11) suggests
that postmodernist thought has transformed the "existentialist other" into
a subject so incomprehensible that comparative understandings of sociocul-
tural encounters have been declared inadmissible evidence. Postmodernists
believe that ideal of objectivity pursued by social scientists during the co-
lonial era was no more than a tool of domination and oppression (also
Said, 1978, 1985) and that "subjectivist relativism" provides a way of freeing
ourselves from them.
In archaeology, and by extension the study of the past, nihilism sur-
faces at several points, most disconcertingly in the notion that we cannot
know the past (i.e., some "truth" about the past) or that the past is only
useful inasmuch as it can be made relevant to an activist political present.
136 Knapp
The ultimate outcome would be to disempower archaeology as a viable

source of knowledge about the past (Trigger, 1991, p. 69).
The past resists our constructions, its empirical materiality has to be respected. At
the same time it is necessary to realise that there is no firm bedrock or foundation
to which we can anchor our statements about the past, no criteria of validity to
come to terms with a materialist position in which it is realised that any (serious)
archaeological practice involves minimally a triple dialectical relation: between the
materiality of the past, the materiality of the present, and the materiality of the
process of constructing discourses, writing texts. (Tilley, 1990, p. 136)
Today, such "radical" poststructuralist statements about the past have

become more moderate, and we might state instead that archaeology com-
prises many different practices, types of evidence, and aspects of theory:
no definitive statement applies to all of them. We can "know" more about
some things than others where there is a hierarchy of knowledge (Trigger,
1989b, pp. 391-396). It may be a commonplace in the mid-1990s to say
that we can never know the "real" past (or truth) unerringly: even so, it
remains a common goal, one that stimulates archaeological research, and
motivates the legitimate study of the past. Our understanding of the past,
not its explanation, may become increasingly comprehensive, but it will
never be complete (Trigger, 1991, p. 73; Johnsen and Olsen, 1992, pp. 420-
422). As is the case with cosmology or quantum mechanics, one may obtain
an "answer"--an approximation that fills ones needs, but never "the" an-
swer. Moreland (1990, p. 259) emphasizes that even if we cannot acquire
objective knowledge of the past, at least we can gain some understanding
about the "polyphonic" past.
Postmodernists prefer relativism to objectivity and, in any case, regard
the former as inescapable: "signifiers" (words or texts) "trigger off an infinite
number of meanings to any number of people and the meanings experienced
by each person are going to be unique" (Walsh, 1990, p. 280). Critical post-
modernists maintain that language transforms truth and theory alike into
linguistic conventions. Since, therefore, it is impossible to say anything with
confidence, everything is worthy of attention and a pluralism of more or
less equal viewpoints exists (Rosenau, 1992, p. 22). Good or bad criteria do
not exist, and all interpretations therefore become equally valid.
Relativism in postmodernism raises the question of authority: Whose
interpretation of some past social world is correct? What sort of "security"
or "independence" of evidence is required to substantiate interpretive
claims (Wylie, 1992a, pp. 276-281)? How closely are archaeological notions
of "truth" linked to the archaeologist's contemporary politics (Fotiadis,
1994)? As Shanks and Hodder (1994) point out, the main point of concern
about relativism and pluralism is centered on absolutes: "truth" and objec-
tivity do not exist inherently as abstract principles in the past but, rather,
have to be demonstrated and "crafted."
The four main tenets of a "relativist epistemology" (Laudan, 1990 as
outlined by Trigger, 1991, pp. 65-66)--subjectivity, underestimation of the-
ory through the use of data, a holistic approach, science as a social activ-
ity-serve to deconstruct the positivist approach that has long characterized
Anglo-American archaeology. Given the polysemous nature of human cul-
ture and the diversity of material culture, a theoretical and methodological
pluralism is dearly warranted. In the field of (cultural) anthropology, criti-
cal postmodernists have welcomed relativism because it incorporates their
own belief that cultural traditions are unique, synchronic, and analytically
unable to encompass the meaning and discourse of other cultural traditions
(Tyler, 1984, p. 328; Marcus and Fisher, 1986, p. 32). Whereas histOrians
have often embraced a moderate form of relativism (e.g., Collingwood,
1946; Carr, 1961), Trigger (1989a, pp. 778, 791) warns that the social sci-
ences must avoid "the current trap of extreme relativism." In archaeology,
the application of critical theory as a way of linking the material past, self-
reflexively, to the present first led to the call for experimental site reports,
excavation as theater, and other "alternative forms of archaeological dis-
course" (Potter, 1991; Tilley, 1989; Hodder, 1989b). R. Watson (1990, pp.
678-679) castigated much of this "dogmatic relativism" as contradictory or,
at best, inconsistent. However one regards these earlier stances in post-
processualism, there is a growing acceptance among archaeologists that hu-
man behavior has produced an archaeological record far too variable and
complex to be explained by Neo-evolutionism and/or ecological determi-
nism (Trigger, 1991, p. 66; Wylie, 1992a, 1993).
Moderate postmodernists seem uncomfortable with both relativism
and objectivity and, occasionally, make contradictory compromises. Femi-
nists, for example, support postmodernism's criticism of modern social sci-
ence and its denial of a privileged male status; at the same time they must
denounce postmodernism because it gives equal authority to the oppressor
and the oppressed, to perpetrators and victims alike. A relativist form of
postmodernism, in other words, is inconsistent with a commitment to chal-
lenge an objective reality (Harding, 1990, pp. 88, 102, n. 6; Rosenau, 1992,
p. 115). While the mainly male, white, and Western postmodernists are
proclaiming the death of anthropology and the social sciences generally,
the voices of women, people of color, and aborigines struggle to constitute
themselves as subjects of history, and makers of their own history (Lee,
1992, p. 36).
On the one hand, then, "polyvocality" may be regarded as highly rele-
vant for developing contemporary social theory or as deeply significant for
those utilizing "signifiers" to push semiotic theory in anthropology and ar-
138 Knapp
chaeology. On the other hand, polyvocality must be understood not just as

a concept that can demonstrate how restricted our archaeological imagi-
nation can be, but also as a reality that may threaten the identity and self-
determination of people who are the victims of unequal access to power
or resources (Hodder, 1991c, p. 9; Murray, 1993, pp. 504-505). In a mul-
tivocal world, where everything is subjective and every voice must be heard,
of necessity some people will be empowered, while others will be margi-
nalized (Bender, 1993, p. 258).
The postmodernist notion that there is no truth, and that everything
is a construction, is in fact the ultimate contradiction. Moreland (1990, p.
260) points out that even those historical constructions that make no claims
to the truth (concerning their particular vision of the past) in fact create
narratives that can be read as reconstruction (and thus a particular version
of the "truth"). By asserting the view that "there is no truth," postmod-
ernists assume a position of privilege and at the same time affirm the pos-
sibility of truth--their own truth. Some postmodernists try to circumvent
this dilemma by maintaining that the views they express are strictly their
own and, therefore, not superior to other views. But even this relativist
position assumes truth, by stating that it is no more true than other posi-
tions (Rosenau, 1992, p. 90). Silence may offer the only logical escape from
such a contradiction (Gellner, 1992, p. 37).
POSTMODERNISM AND THE PAST
Postmodernists have concerned themselves with the unique instead of

the general, with "intertextual relations" instead of causality; with the un-
repeatable instead of the recurring. From a postmodernist perspective,
then, human science becomes more humble and subjective as truth gives
way to uncertainty, and synthesis to difference (Rosenau, 1992, p. 8). In
certain respects, the postmodernist position is based in hermeneutics, and
the debate between positivism and hermeneutics is already an old one in
social theory (e.g., Popper vs. Adorno). More usefully from the perspective
of studying the past, postmodernists have rejected the traditional, rigid
boundaries between academic disciplines, notably between the natural and
social sciences, the humanities, art and literature. However, on the archae-
ological side, the extreme versions of postprocessualism rampant in the late
1980s often sought to sever interdisciplinary links rather than construct or
develop them.
Prima facie, the moderate trajectory of postmodernism seems favorably
inclined to the study of the past and, concomitantly, to the interpretation
of archaeological data. Such postmodernists question the superiority of the
present as a source of real knowledge, and reject any preference for the
complex, intellectual lifestyle of the modern urban center over the more
simple, practical, peasant routines of the countryside (Rosenau, 1992, p.
6). Traces of 61ite culture, material or documentary, have too long been
used to construct discourses applied to society as a whole, rather than--as
would be more appropriate--to other, alternative voices or meanings within
society (Barrett, 1988, pp. 9-12). Postmodernists regard the traditional, the
sacred, and the irrational as worthy of serious scholarly attention, as they
do studies related to custom, myth, intuition, chronology, magic, and mys-
ticism.
At the same time, postmodernists reveal a measure of contempt for
conventional history. Any attempt to know and represent the past is re-
garded with suspicion, and the critical postmodernists collapse history into
an instantaneous moment between yesterday and tomorrow. Critical post-
modernists promote a depthless, synchronic history, a personal rhetoric
which maintains that we can only catch hazy glimpses of a past that has
never really existed (Walsh, 1990, p. 281). Time and space are regarded as
uncontrollable and unpredictable, and in the end there remains only "pas-
tiche," a free-floating hodge-podge of views and ideas, including elements
of opposites [such as old and new (Rosenau, 1992, pp. 21-22)], that denies
logic and symmetry and, instead, sanctions contradiction and confusion. In
terms of modern society, culture is seen to have reached its pinnacle: all
that can be done is to copy and/or remix previous styles and call them
something new. Postmodernists are especially critical of "humanist" history,
i.e., the view that humans can direct the course of events, and that human
agents represent society's individual and collective experiences (Rosenau,
1992, p. 63). Postmodernists, like poststructuralists, make an issue of de-
centering individuals or of discounting human beings as subjects of inten-
tionality (Patterson, 1989, p. 559); in Trigger's (1991, p. 68) estimation,
"such approaches treat people as prisoners of their own culture."
Moderate postmodernists, however, while agreeing that the more re-
pressive qualities of time, space, and history need to be transformed, look
for inspiration to various forms of "New History" (e.g., Burke, 1991)--ge-
nealogy, gender, microhistory, oral history, "history from below"--and give
priority to local regional space. In other words, they seek to revitalize his-
tory, perhaps to reconsider its epistemologicat assumptions rather than to
annihilate it as their more radical counterparts might. These postmodernists
regard "storytelling" (Terrell, 1990), what Geertz termed "thick descrip-
tion," to be as valuable' as explanation; there is tittle room for exclusively
event-oriented history on their agenda. Contradictions are acceptable, in-
asmuch as we may expect many different "stories" for any historical epoch
or event (Scott, 1989), not least because each generation--if not each dif-
140 Knapp
ferent school of thought--asks different questions about the past (Lowen-

thai, 1985).
The study of the human past is contingent on the existence and inter-
pretation of evidence derived from previous human experience--experience
that is natural, social, or artifactual, and evidence that is material, textual,
tithic, or skeletal. If there are no facts to consider, or processes to unravel,
and if all interpretations are equal, as critical postmodernists maintain, then
it would be pointless to question the validity of different approaches to the
study of the past. However, the notion of eliminating history, or ignoring
historical depth is not revolutionary: sociology, social anthropology, struc-
turalism, and the "new archaeology" (especially where systems analysis was
involved) have long maintained a similar viewpoint, which also precluded
the study of ideology, cognition, and human agency.
Many of these exclusionary notions, or claims to the "truth" held by
groups as disparate as postmodernists, social anthropologists, structuralists,
antiquarians, or religious fundamentalists ought to be rejected outright. An-
thropologists increasingly accept the need to situate cultures in their historical
context or to consider the "social life of things" (Appadurai, 1986), while
historians today pursue short-term, particularistic goals within a social or idea-
tional framework. Archaeologists have been even more innovative: in the
search for models to interpret the material remnants of the past, they have
cast their nets not only toward anthropology and history, but to fields ranging
from molecular biology to hermeneutics. Given this profusion of paths to the
study of the past, where does postmodernism fit in? Is postmodernism the
"intellectual parent" of postprocessualism (Bintliff, 1993, p. 91)?
POSTMODERNISM AND POSTPROCESSUALISM
If it is acknowledged that certain similarities exist between the two

movements, does it necessarily follow that postprocessualism in archaeology
is simply derivative of postmodernism? As is the case in postmodernism,
there is no single, coherent postprocessual movement: Patterson (1989) de-
fined three "strains" of postprocessualism based, respectively, on the ideas
of Hodder, Shanks and Tilley, and Leone. In the early 1990s, there was
still as much variation, discourse, and disagreement within postprocessual
archaeology as there was between it and processual archaeology (e.g., Hod-
der, 1991a, p. 37; Watson and Fotiadis, 1990, pp. 613-615). Watson (1991,
p. 270) personified processualism as a vision of "soulless method" and post-
processualism as a vision of "methodless soul." Shanks and Hodder (1994)
point out that the current, "(post)modern" debate between processualism
and postprocessualism revolves around (1) the forms of knowledge appro-
priate to a social science (their emphasis) (2) archaeological conceptions

of society (structure and pattern vs individual intention and power), and
(3) the ideologies and cultural politics of late 20th century archaeology.
As is the case with postmodernists, many contemporary archaeologists
might be categorized as either critical or moderate, even if many of them
would contest the categorization (Bintliff, 1993, p. 100). More to the point,
Thomas and Tilley (1992) have reacted justifiably against the charge that
postprocessualism can be equated simplistically and directly with postmod-
ernism. The fundamental distinction between what may be called, in par-
allel with the discussion above, critical and moderate postprocessualists is
that the former would not consider themselves bound to the study of ar-
chaeological data, whereas the latter do (see the exchanges in Shanks and
Tilley, 1989). Ironically, as Hodder pointed out (1991a, p. 39), processual-
ists were interested chiefly in adaptive processes within ecoenvironmental
systems, while the more dynamic, social processes were relegated to a static,
systemic role. In other words, postprocessualists have for the first time de-
veloped an adequate account of "process," and considered the relational
process that links social structures to human agents or historical events.
On the other hand, making assumptions explicit--which translates today
into the concepts of consciousness, critique, and deconstruction--was a
core concept of processualism. Combined with the locational techniques
and statistical analyses that helped to establish a "quantitative revolution"
in spatial archaeology and the "new geography" alike, processualism held,
and still deserves to hold, a prominent place in archaeology's theoretical
development. And yet, despite the explicit attention give to theory, the
main contributions of processualism were largely methodological in nature
(Schiffer, 1988; Hodder, 1991b, p. 6).
Furthermore, there was a fatal flaw in the processual edifice: it re-
volved around the diminished, if not denied, role of human agency in all
these generalizing, systemic, ecoenvironmental preoccupations [this short-
coming has recently been foregrounded by the "distinguished lecturers" in
the American Anthropological Association's lecture series (Brumfiel, 1992;
Cowgill, 1993; but cf. Redman, 1991)]. Social (i.e., gender, class, faction),
ideological, and cognitive factors placed a distant second, if they were ever
considered. Processualists drew a distinction between evolutionary studies
and history, favoring the former because, it was said, evolutionary gener-
alizations could account for most specific, historical situations (Trigger,
1991, p. 66). An antihistorical bias was evident, particularly to those work-
ing in Old World archaeology: textual (historical) evidence was distrusted
and often discounted, because it was not material and mute (similarly,
Moreland, 1990, p. 256). Because such documentary evidence could have
been subject to manipulation and misrepresentation by the ancient authors,
142 Knapp
processualists often surmised that material data alone provided more "ob-
jective" evidence. This position, of course, presumed that new archaeolo-
gists had no biases whatsoever, based as they were in sound "Scientific,"
and thus "objective," procedure. This position was perhaps revealed most
directly in Earle and Preucel's (1987, p. 506) review of processual archae-
ology, where they stated that prehistory is the primary focus of archaeology
and that a "contextual" approach (like that of Hodder) might lead archae-
ologists astray, toward fuller consideration of historical and ethnographic
contexts (similarly Gamble, 1993, p. 39). Why were some processualists so
blinkered to historical and ethnographic input? Why was historical archae-
ology, primarily the domain of anthropological archaeologists like Stanley
South, James Deetz, or Mark Leone, marginalized within mainstream
American archaeology? Why did processualists believe so strongly that ar-
chaeology was primarily the study of prehistory?
Data were paramount, numbers were privileged, and the cult of the
computer was restricted to a small but growing elite. In other words, proc-
essualism involved a clear power strategy. The sharp dividing line between
those who studied lithics and skeletal evidence (the majority of American
anthropological archaeologists) and those who worked with pottery, metals,
and architecture was more than just material in nature. This breach also
involved more than Giddens' (1982, p. 7) "double hermeneutic" in sociol-
ogy (the social world; the world of social science) or Shanks and Tilley's
(1992, pp. 107-108) "fourfold hermeneutic" in archaeology (past and pre-
sent; the "other;" contemporary society; contemporary archaeology): it is
likely that at some deep level of materialism, "man the hunter" was felt
to be a more suitable topic of study than woman the gatherer, or potter
(similarly, Conkey and Williams, 1991, pp. 115-117; Gosden, 1994, p. 170).
Such an observation is mitigated by the fact that virtually all archaeology
from its inception to the 1960s was dominated by white, middle- and up-
per-class males.
The methodological and theoretical rift that separates processualism
and postprocessualism once seemed insuperable (Renfrew, 1980; Dyson,
1982; Glock, 1985; Snodgrass, 1985; Schiffer, 1988), but a competent ar-
chaeological discussion engages both positions (Gamble, 1986), what
Shanks and Hodder (1994) have recently termed a "fusion of horizons."
The prehistorian must deal with the same type of hermeneutic issues as
an archaeologist working in historical or protohistoric periods: one cannot
assume that any given culture in space and time was more similar to our
own culture than any other. But can processualism possibly span the hori-
zons of postprocessuat archaeology, with its jarring and often inconsistent
postmodernist irruptions?
Binttiff (1991, pp. 275-276), although decrying most postmodernist ap-

proaches to the past, once suggested that a postmodernist perspective could
make three "positive contributions" to archaeology:
(1) postmodernism forces archaeologists to examine critically their
social, moral, and emotional involvement with the study of the
past in the present and, thus, to consider how the general public
interacts with the past;
(2) postmodernism calls into question the validity of reading all
archaeological publications as "fact sheets" and, instead, implies
that such "fact-sheets" should be regarded as "expressions" of
specific culture-historic attitudes to the past; and
(3) postmodernism encourages multiple views of the past and
promotes greater awareness of the experiences of women,
nonelites, and ethnic minorities in the past.
Among those who have addressed directly the issue of archaeology
and postmodernism are Patterson (1989), Hodder (1989a, 1990), Burr
(1990), Tilley (1990), Yates (1990), Walsh (1990, 1992), Preucel (1991a),
Bintliff (1991, 1993), Kirk (1991), Thomas and Ttlley (1992), Lee (1992),
Davis (1992), Thomas (1993), Yoffee and Sherratt (1993a), and Shanks and
Hodder (1994). Walsh and Hodder concern themselves more with the heri-
tage "industry" and CRM than with the wider field of archaeology. Walsh's
studies are comprehensive but critical in their assessment of postmod-
ernism's impact on archaeology; they are also confined almost exclusively
to museums and the English Heritage. The studies by Burr, Yates, Tilley,
and Kirk are essentially nihilistic and look forward to the demise of ar-
chaeology as a closed discipline whose adherents seek only to dominate
and limit social thought. Such views, typical of much postprocessual or post-
structuralist thought in the late 1980s-early 1990s, have undergone a re-
markable transformation: most practitioners are now more guardedly
optimistic, and more open to reconciliation with other approaches in ar-
chaeology. "Radical" perspectives, for example, the stance that archaeology
is relevant only inasmuch as it is capable of challenging the contemporary
political order, have been displaced by "mainstream" postprocessualism
(e.g., Shanks and Hodder, 1994). In keeping with its middle-class roots,
however, postprocessualism resonates most with issues related to gender
and to native or aboriginal peoples (e.g., Engelstad, 1991; Wylie, 1992b;
Smith, 1995); it has revealed rather less interest in class issues (e.g., various
papers in Gathercole and Lowenthal, 1990; Leone and Potter, 1992).
Hodder (1990, p. 13) maintained that postmodernism is for the most
part concerned with the present and concluded that its fascination with the
past really stems from the "foreign-ness" of the past (i.e., its concern with
the "other") and from the disconnected nature of the past. Archaeological
144 Knapp
data are fragmentary, and often have poor contextual associations, while
archaeological time is distant, unconnected to the present. Archaeological
data tend to be of an everyday, nonelitist nature and, accordingly, provide
access to the mundane, the neglected, or the deprived. As such, they are
susceptible to commodification. Indeed, the past can often be packaged and
sold as a commodity: Viking coins at Yorvik, Cypriot pottery that replicates
in detail the styles and techniques of Bronze and Iron Age potters, an ex-
hibition catalogue which instructs the buyer in the pedigree of an artifact
(Gill and Chippendale, 1993), or guides a consumer/collector in its purchase.
The past, claims Hodder, is also put to use by various "subordinate groups,"
in order that they may situate themselves in relation to their heritage or
experience, and thus maintain an alternative identity: national and ethnic
minorities, women; rural and local folk and their lineage: At the same time,
dominant groups and developers commercialize the past in the attempt to
undermine claims to legitimacy (e.g., property ownership, access to mineral
resources) made by subordinate groups (Hodder, 1990, p. 15).
The perception and condemnation of postmodernism by Bintliff
(1993), Lamberg-Karlovsky (1989), and Peebles (1991, 1993) are constricted
and unwarranted, particularly inasmuch as they see it in monolithic terms
and thus regard the postmodern "agenda" as inimical to the interests of
individuals and socially marginalized groups alike. More to the point is
Sherratt's charge (1993, p. 123) that a postcolonial guilt has often led to
denunciations of the comparative method as inherently racist and coloni-
alist, which in turn means that the "parochial tendencies of culture-histori-
cal archaeology" adopted by the postprocessualists preclude broader
examination of the role and meaning of material culture. Yet this obser-
vation too must be tempered in part by realizing that certain trends in
postprocessual archaeology are actively committed to understanding the
broader (comparative) structures in which local manifestations occur and
to considering a full range of spatial and temporal scales (e.g., Hodder,
1987; Knapp, 1992).
Thomas and Tilley (1992, p. 107) insist that by its very nature there
is no such thing as a postmodernist archaeology. They regard the barrage
of new theoretical stances in archaeology as a generalized extension and
opening up of the discipline to the current concerns of a social archaeology
and the human sciences. This realignment of archaeology has enabled it
to take on board a wide range of intellectual positions, many of which have
little in common with postmodernism and to inculcate those positions into
their own areas of expertise, e.g., into material culture theory, the study of
long-term socio-structural change, or the role of human agency in the past
and in the recreation of the past (Thomas and Tilley, 1992, p. 107; as an
example, see Dobres and Hoffman, 1994). The fact that archaeologists write
from within a given cultural and historical situation, lacking total knowledge
of the world in general and the object(s) of their study in particular, does
not mean that "anything goes." Gosden (1994, p. 59) makes much the same
point: "Post-structuralism and hermeneutics represent an ongoing attempt
to move from an objective of the world towards the idea that all truth is
contingent, being culturally and historically based." Thomas (1993, p. 5)
rejects any simplistic notion of a postmodernist archaeology, and instead
presents a position which, whilst seeking no truths or common language,
nonetheless eschews "a retreat into solipsism or an unqualified relativism."
Following Bhaskar (1989), Shanks and Hodder (1994) now subscribe
to an "epistemic relativism," in which knowledge is constructed and firmly
grounded in a particular time and culture; this is quite different from main-
taining that all forms of knowledge are equally valid. Just because we can-
not present the full and indisputable "truth" about what really happened,
it does not follow that total relativism is the only course open. "What it
means is that while we accept that different accounts of the past may be
written by different people, they are [all] equally deserving of our scrutiny
within a critical archaeology" (Thomas and Tilley, 1992, p. 108; original
italics). The real problem lies not with those who write from a particular
viewpoint--be it political, Green, ethnic, sexist, masculinist, or feminist--
since they make clear their points of view; the problem lies with those who
believe they are writing objective, apolitical, ideology-free archaeology.
Among the more basic issues to emerge in postmodernism and post-
processualism alike are the centrality of the "text" (both as metaphorical
material product and as concrete historical document), and the changing
nature of textual production and consumption. Trigger (1991, p. 70) warns
that equating archaeological data and speech as "text" ignores the active
and symbolic aspects of certain artifacts. As material culture, "texts" are
said to represent enclosed symbolic systems that ordered and impacted on
people's daily lives even as, recursively, people created these symbolic sys-
tems. As documents, most "texts" that concern archaeologists were pro-
duced by 61ites and must be assessed in a way that permits them to be
seen as possibly biased attempts to impose a specific worldview, to legiti-
mize the relations of subordination and domination, and to reify the his-
torically contingent (Moreland, 1990, pp. 256-257). Both archaeologists and
historians, therefore, function as "readers" and as "second authors" (Dyson,
1993, p. 202) who write down new texts that re-create the past. The mean-
ing of any text may change as a result of the context and conditions of its
reading--texts are not fixed but in a continuous process that structures,
produces, and transforms their reading (Tilley, 1993, p. 12). In other words,
the meaning of the text is not inherent in it, but in the way that people
read or experience the text (Bruner, 1994, p. 407). Literacy and textuality
146 Knapp
(Goody, 1986) do not have the same social meanings and implications
through time and throughout space. Archaeologists must deal recursively
with ethnohistoric documents and material data (Knapp, 1992), which gain
meaning only in relationship to one another, not in isolation. Both are
forms of discourse (Barrett, 1988) that constitute and transform social re-
lationships (Moreland, 1990, p. 257).
Whereas such considerations provide both the necessity and the
methodology for bringing together materiality and intentionality, the re-
lationship between archaeology and history is still fraught with difficulties,
misunderstandings, and conflicting--often nationalistic--traditions (vari-
ous chapters in Hodder, 1991d; Klejn, 1993). Inasmuch as archaeology,
like history, is concerned with the study of the past, both should draw
inspiration from the ongoing discourse between the humanities and the
social sciences. Archaeology, in fact, represents the critical methodological
and theoretical link between the historical and the prehistoric approaches
to the study of the past (similarly Schiffer, 1992). Because historians are
by training bound to documentary sources, they often regard archaeology
simply as the handmaiden--the man-servant?--of history. This viewpoint,
archaeology as the means through which documentary data can be illu-
minated or "proven," is not only naive and misinformed, but detrimental
to the practice of a holistic history. Archaeological data and primary docu-
mentary sources are as often contrasting or contradictory as they are com-
plementary.
In the study of a past informed (or dominated) by textual evidence,
there must be a recursive dialogue between archaeological and documen-
tary resources. Ancient textual evidence often deals with elite situations,
whereas archaeological data stem from both extraordinary and mundane
circumstances. Anyone who studies the past must not only make use of a
diverse range of relevant material or documentary data, they must also be
prepared to evaluate those data within an appropriate and relevant inter-
pretative framework. Even if the resulting interpretations are often contra-
dictory, this does not mean that one interpretation or the other is
necessarily right or wrong; multiple interpretations of the past must be ex-
pected. We cannot gain the ultimate "truth." When we ask different ques-
tions of the past, we must expect different answers.
However early, or "prehistoric," or "mute" the archaeological record
may be, people acted according to the social construction of their world
(Head, 1993, pp. 495-496). The "meanings" archaeologists place upon the
material record must be regarded as public and social, rather than individ-
ual in nature (Shanks and Hodder, 1994). Furthermore, in terms of their
theoretical perspectives, archaeologists are influenced by the contemporary
sociocultural matrix as well as the material record of any given region, and
by the nature of their own intellectual and social commitments (Paddaya,

1990, p. 46). Archaeologists not only have to deal with worlds widely sepa-
rated in space and time, and to translate between this "other" world and
their own present reality, they must also negotiate the variable social and
cultural layers that have to be bridged. Past worlds have an otherness that
may be encountered more usefully if we recognize that our own assump-
tions about the past are grounded in current discourses (Hill, I993, p. 71);
Trigger (1989a, pp. 784-785) regards this as relativism's most important role
in archaeology.
This entire argument draws us toward a position which some writers have routinely
castigated as relativism. In other words, the pasts which are created in the present
appear devoid of any external, objective measure by which assessment can be made
of their "validity" or "truth." It as if no external reality, i n d e p e n d e n t of
interpretation, is being allowed to intervene in the construction of this "relativistic"
knowledge. This kind of criticism is misplaced. First, we are dealing with selections
of material data without which no archaeological practice would be possible.
Certainly our view of those data is necessarily prejudiced and interpretive, ...but
the data are not entirely malleable and different ways of seeing them will produce
recognizable, objectified paths for future research .... Second, if history is created
out of numerous and sometimes contradictory interpretive programmes of action,
then there never existed a single and unambiguous reality. (Barrett, 1994a, pp.
170-171)
TOWARD SOCIAL AND INTERPRETIVE

ARCHAEOLOGIES
While Binford (1962), L o n g a c r e (1970), Earle and Preucel

(1987), and most recently Plog (1991) and Kingsnorth (1993) have
maintained that only processualists and prehistorians can do archae-
ology, Wylie (1992b, c), Hodder (1991a, c), Preucet (1991a), Trigger
(1991), and many others have sought to find a middle ground between
processualism and postprocessualism. Archaeology in the 1990s has
moved far beyond processualism, and a narrow, systemic, and strictly
"anthropological" ethnography of the past (Whitley, 1992, pp. 76-77).
The "postprocessual program" is not simply limited to "schools" that
follow the lead of Hodder, Shanks and Tilley, and Leone (Patterson,
1989). Archaeology--whether that of yesterday, today, or tomorrow--
cannot be dichotomized simply into processual and postprocessual
paradigms (Stevenson, 1989, pp. 305-306; Watson and Fotiadis, 1990;
Hodder 1991c, pp. 12-13; Wylie, 1992b, pp. 65-66; Zubrow, 1994, pp.
108-109): there are as many antiprocessualists as there are antipost-
processualists, and many others who are either oblivious to or dis-
missive of the entire debate. There is, in any case, a serious attempt
148 Knapp
to move beyond polemics to explore areas of possible a g r e e m e n t

amongst c o n t e m p o r a r y archaeologists, and to demonstrate that no
"grand synthsis [is going to] emerge Phoenix-like out of the ashes of
existing programs" (Preucel, 1991b, p. 4). Processual and postprocessual
approaches often appear blind to the conditions that spawned their differ-
ing perspectives (Hodder, 1991c, p. 12; Zubrow, 1994, p. 109). Multiple
paths and multiple perspectives are called for, and postprocessualism, like
moderate postmodernism, dictates that archaeologists must learn to live
with the notion of mutually irreconcilable views about the past.
Yoffee and Sherratt (1993a, p. 8) recognize the positive elements of
postprocessualism:
Postprocessual archaeologists have effectively emphasized that archaeology is an
interpretive science, that symbols, ideologies and structures of meaning are not
merely reflections of how humans cope with the vagaries of external environments.
Furthermore, as post-processualists have stressed, archaeologists have special
responsibilities, not only in recovering the past, but also in ensuring that the past
is not maliciously used in the present.
Wylie (1993, p. 15) proclaims that the archaeological record has an

"infinite capacity" to "surprise" and to shape or constrain our interpreta-
tions of the past. There is no real contradiction between the goals of an
interpretive archaeology (Hodder, 1991c; Shanks and Hodder, 1994) as they
might be realized through the social-archaeological theory of Yoffee and
Sherratt (1993b) or the cognitive-processual archaeology of Renfrew and
Zubrow (1994). Sherratt (1993, p. 123) states that processualists need to
confront instances of particularity and alternative interpretations, just as
postprocessualists must take cognizance of the eco-environmental con-
straints that are common to past societies: "There is no necessary conflict
between these objectives, and a recognition of this could help to overcome
the cyclical social pressures to cast archaeology in one mould or another."
Hodder (1991c, p. 10) stresses that it is time to stop emphasizing theory
and, instead, to start relating theory to data as part of the interpretive proc-
ess (similarly Trigger, 1991, pp. 69-70).
If the label "postprocessual" has become too loaded for universal ac-
ceptance, even criticized as "obscure and difficult" by some of its leading
figures (e.g., Hodder, 1991c, p. 9), it must also be pointed out that this
term says nothing about the practice and procedures of postprocessualism
(except as a reaction to processualism). Perhaps, then, it is time put these
polarizations aside and consider the main tenets of an interpretive archae-
ology (Hodder, 1991c; Shanks and Hodder, 1994):
(1) archaeologists are interpreters who must take responsibility in the
academy and in public for their actions and interpretations;
(2) archaeology is social in nature;
(3) social p r a c t i c e s have to do with m e a n i n g s , and social

interpretations are concerned more with understanding than with
causal explanation;
(4) interpretation is a multivocal, "polysemous" activity that must be
responsive not only to the data but also to various constituents
in the present and to disciplinary practice.
We must, therefore, expect a plurality of archaeological interpretations,
even as we seek out common ground for different archaeologies (e.g.,
Moreland, 1990, pp. 258-261; Hodder, 1991a; Wylie, 1992a, pp. 274-282;
Tilley, 1993, pp. 3-5, 23).
Archaeological goals cannot be met by empirical means alone. The
division of knowledge into "facts" and "theories" is a spurious and mis-
leading undertaking. Facts do not simply exist in a vacuum, waiting for
the astute archaeologist to come along and reveal them, observe them,
add them all up, and produce "truth" or "reality." Facts are important
or unimportant only in relation to some general (or specific) theory
(similarly Barrett, 1994a, pp. 168-169). And archaeological evidence is
at least partially defined by our own assumptions about what is or is
not relevant: it is thus partly constituted by theory, whether implicit or
explicit. Even if we shift emphasis from studying the patterning of things
to structuring social practice (Barrett, 1988, p. 11), what we observe as
archaeologists are static materials that exist in the present: it is impos-
sible to know or even to consider what sort of phenomena gave rise to
their existence, distribution, or structuring in the absence of theory. This
is an archaeological knowledge that implicates an understanding of past
social processes. I am not making an argument for lack of rigor in data
collection and analysis: the field techniques and analytical methods de-
veloped in archaeology are fundamental to the study of the past. But
theory requires as much effort and rigor as do the empirical aspects of
investigation.
To consider basic human motivations such as the exercise of power or
the role of gender in social relations is a pursuit far too important to be
limited to a single discipline--or even a pair of disciplines (e.g., Cherry,
1987; Gero and Conkey, 1991; Saitta, 1992, pp. 894-895; Sherrat, 1993, p.
123). It is contradictory to call for an archaeology based partially on the
level of individual decision-making and, at the same time, to play down
historical methodology or the archaeology of historical periods (complex
societies), as some new archaeologists did. The historical aspects of archae-
ological theory must be recognized and emphasized if cognition, ideology,
and mentalitY--i.e., human agency--are to be accorded their proper role
in the study of the past. This is the single most important factor that post-
processualism has raised in the debates that dominate the field of archae-
150 Knapp
ology in the late 20th century. The second most important factor, already
foreshadowed by processualism, is the recognition of the active role played
by material culture in past social practice and social change. The former,
namely, the role of the human agent in society, is consistently downplayed
or denied by most strains of postmodernism, whereas the latter--material
culture, and the changing nature of material relationships--forms an im-
portant tenet of "moderate" postmodernism.
Unlike other human sciences, archaeology is seldom able to probe
the nature of specific events, individual histories, or immediate circum-
stances. Rather it must set out the parameters and outline the circum-
stances in which human action takes place in the world. To do so, the
notion of past meaning in social theory within archaeology must be seen
as only one level of (pre)history, stemming from and interacting with
other, slower-moving, behavioural, economic, or ecoenvironmental levels
beneath (Gosden, 1992, p. 808). Moreover, past "meanings" of material
goods were never fixed in the objects themselves but, rather, were "read"
into them from other experiences and expectations, and acted upon: so-
cial life is therefore played out against material conditions which are
themselves revised or reworked according to an individual's interpreta-
tion of some material reality (Barrett, 1994a, p. 170). As archaeologists,
we must give primacy to material data, but "mindless empiricism" (Lee,
1992, p. 41) will not suffice: we must have a theoretical context as well.
To do this, archaeology cannot simply borrow theory or metaphor from
postmodernism or any other intellectual movement or discipline: it must
continue to develop its own (Schiffer, 1976; Binford, 1977; Clarke, 1978;
Hodder, 1991e; Yoffee and Sherratt, 1993b). This is the real way forward
in the study of the past.
WHICH WAY(S) TO THE PAST?.
Post-processualism, ...while acknowledging the difficulties posed by interpretation,

opens up the past. It stresses that it is human beings who reproduce and transform
structures through daily practice. It asserts that we should not ignore the aspects
of elite material culture which have been the bread and butter of archaeological,
art historical, and historical research, but suggests that by putting them in the
context of all material culture we can begin to better understand relations of
subordination and domination .... Lastly, it offers us the chance to write a more
democratic history and one which gives voice to those who so far have been denied
history. (Moreland, 1990, p. 261)
Archaeology, history, and anthropology appear as increasingly arbitrary positions

of the necessary elements of comprehensive understanding. Far from being an
activity of marginal theoretical relevance, therefore, archaeology is arguably central
to a future configuration of disciplines capable of transcending the limitations of

their cultural origins. (Sherratt, 1993, pp. 123-124)
...Approaches derived from post-structuralism and phenomenology actually have a

greater general applicability than those operated by processual archaeology. Simply
by ceasing to attempt to fix the past in a cage of inflexible concepts, one allows it
a greater historicity. (Thomas, 1993, p. 23)
It is simply no good to talk about studying the past; we need to specify what
processes/practices/forces we wish to discuss and then explain how we are going to
proceed. (Barrett, 1994b)
If postmodernism has taught us anything important, it is that there are

alternative ways of knowing, conceiving of, and writing about, the past
(Thomas, 1990; Wylie, 1993, pp. 14-15). That some (re)constructions of
the past are erroneous, or limited, or different, is only to acknowledge the
gaps in the archaeological record, our mishandling or misinterpretation of
archaeological data, or the impact of our own views--and our own preju-
dices-on what is significant amongst those data (Renfrew, 1994, p. 10).
Whatever Our approach to the study of the past may be, we cannot observe
it directly: our evidence is incomplete, and our models--which seek to link
the static (material or documentary) remains of the present to social prac-
tice in a dynamic past--are problematic, often contradictory, always sub-
jective. There is no single truth, no one correct interpretation, no ultimate
explanation. We not only develop alternative ways of understanding the
past, in fact we develop alternative pasts.
Pluralist enthusiasm and critical intelligence, however, need not cancel
out one another. That such "polyvocalic" viewpoints are conflicting (Mur-
ray, 1993, pp. 504-505), and historically situated, and thus not just "alter-
native," is apparent in anthropology, for example, in the Mead-Freeman
debate over the interpretation of Samoan culture; in ancient history, in
Bernal's expos6 of the "ancient," Victorian, and contemporary "models"
used to understand--or ignore--the Egypto-Semitic impact on Greek his-
tory and culture; in archaeology, in the striking contrast between Ian Hod-
der's contextual view of the European and Near Eastern Neolithic, and
the prevailing processual views of James Mellaart, Donald Henry, Timothy
Champion, and others. The presentation of different archaeological pasts
opens up the possibility of recognizing differences, and for situating the
present as a specific product of history (Hodder, 1990, p. 5). Preucel
(1991b, p. 14) points out that "learning how to live with mutually irrecon-
cilable views about the past ... does not imply that there was no real past,"
but, rather, that there are multiple perspectives--based upon specific re-
search interests and procedure--that can be adopted to study the past in
the present. At the same time, we must realize that one of the major theo-
retical tasks of archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians is to over-
152 Knapp
come the contradictions--and artificially contrasting conceptions of their

research--created by the changing social contexts of each individual disci-
pline (Sherratt, 1993, p. 123).
Even if we must be resigned to the postmodern condition, to post-
modernist dilemmas, does it necessarily follow that everything is hyperre-
lative and that we can never know the past? As a discipline, archaeology
is responding to the valid challenges raised by postmodernism. Through its
culture-historical bias, archaeology can provide the diachronic perspective
that has always limited structuralist approaches to the past (Sherratt, 1993,
p. 123). There is a decided shift away from simplistic evolutionary or eco-
logical paradigms (Yoffee, 1993) toward a more nuanced, sensitive, critical,
and historically aware understanding of the past. Make no mistake, in this
regard archaeology leads the way. Even if there is no single explanation,
at least there exists an array of interpretive approaches that provide a more
comprehensive understanding of the past. Because of the ferment and fer-
tility of thought that have characterized archaeology over the past quarter-
century, no discipline is better poised to exploit such alternative ways of
examining the past.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Earlier versions of this study were presented at Macquarie University,

Sydney (1993), the University of Pennsylvania (1993), U.C. Berkeley (1993),
and the University of Sydney (1994). I am grateful to those who organized
these seminars and, especially, to those who attended and responded, be-
cause they gave me some measure of how the archaeological community
would react to these issues. I also wish to thank Wendy Ashmore, Philip
Duke, David Frankel and Jenny Webb, Sturt Manning, Lynn Meskell, K.
Paddaya, Ariel Salleh, Adam Smith, and some anonymous reviewers for
comments on early drafts of this paper. Suggestions from Alison Wylie,
and protracted discussions with Christopher Chippindale, helped me to re-
organize the presentation substantially. The title and several ideas devel-
oped in the paper resulted from discussions with Peter Grave (University
of Sydney) about postmodernism, archaeology, and the movie Falling Down;
I am grateful for his endless enthusiasm about the topic and for several
references. Research for this study was conducted while the author held
an Australian Research Fellowship (from the Australian Research Council,
Commonwealth Government of Australia) in the School of History, Phi-
losophy and Politics at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. I am most
grateful for that support.
REFERENCES CITED
Atcoff, L. (1988). Poststructuratism and cultural feminism. Signs 13(3): 4-36.

Appadurai, A. (ed.) (1986). The Social Life of Things, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Barrett, J. C. (1988). Fields of discourse: reconstituting a social archaeology. Critique of
Anthropology 7(3): 5-16.
Barrett, J. C. (1994a). Fragmentsfrom Antiquity: An Archaeology of Social Life in Britain,
2900-1200 BC, Blackwell, Oxford.
Barrett, J. C. (1994b). Postmodern creationists? Posting on Arch-Theory bulletin board
(arch-theory@mailbase. ac. uk), 23 Nov. (text in author's files).
Baudrillard, J. (1983). Simulations, Semiotext(e), New York.
Bender, B. (1993). Cognitive archaeology and cultural materialism. CambridgeArchaeological
Journal 3: 257-260.
Benhabib, S. (1994). Feminism and the question of postmodernism. Polity Reader in Gender
Studies, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp. 76-92.
Bhaskar, R. (1989). Reclaiming Reality, Verso, London.
Binford, L. R. (1962). Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 28: 217-225.
Binford, L. R. (1977). For Theory Building in Archaeology, Seminar Press, New York.
Bintliff, J. L. (1991). Post-modernism, rhetoric and scholasticism at TAG: the current state of
British archaeological theory. Antiquity 65(247): 274--278.
Binttiff, J. L: (1993). Why Indiana Jones is smarter than the post-processualists. Norwegian
Archaeological Review 26: 91-100.
Boyne, R. (1990). Foucault and Detrida: The Other Side of Reason, Unwin Hyman, London.
Bordo, S. (1990). Feminism, postmodernism, and gender-scepticism. In Nicholson, L. J. (ed.),
Feminism/Postmodernism, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 133-156.
Brumfiel, E. M. (1992). Breaking and entering the ecosystem--Gender, class, and faction steal
the show. American Anthropologist 94: 551-567.
Bruner, E. M. (1994). Abraham Lincoln as authentic reproduction: A critique of
postmodernism. American Anthropologist 96: 397--415.
Burgin, V. (1986). The End of Art Theory: Criticism and Postmodernity, Macmillan, London.
Burke, P. (ed.) (1991). New Perspectiveson Historical Writing Polity Press, Cambridge.
Burr, G. (1990). The joker is wild, the text untameable: The analytics of homo analogicus
(anthropology, post-structuralism, and post modernism). In Bapty, I., and Yates, T (eds),
Archaeology After Structuralism, Routledge, London, pp. 35-59.
Callinicos, A. (1989). Against Post Modernism, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Carr, E. H. (1961). What Is History? Pelican, Harmondsworth.
Carrian, T, Connell, R. W., and Lee, J. (1985). Towards a new sociology of masculinity. Theory
and Society 14: 551--603.
Cherry, J. E (1987). Power in space: Archaeological and geographical studies of the state. In
Wagstaff, J. M. (ed.), Landscape and Culture: Geographicaland Archaeological Perspectives,
Blackwell, London, pp. 146-172.
Christian, B. (1988). The race for theory. Feminist Studies 14: 67--69.
Clarke, D. L. (1978). Analytical Archaeology, 2nd ed., Columbia University Press, New York.
Collingwood, R. G. (1946). The Idea of History, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Conkey, M. W., with Williams, S. H. (1991). Original narratives: the political economy of
gender in archaeology. In di Leonardo, M. (ed.), Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge:
Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era, Berkeley, University of California Press, pp.
102-139.
Cowgill, G. L. (1993). Distinguished lecture in archaeology: Beyond criticizing the New
Archaeology. American Anthropologist 95: 551-573.
Daniel, G. (1981). A Short History of Archaeology, Thames and Hudson, London.
Daniels, S., and Cosgrove, D. E. (1988). Introduction: iconography and landscape. In
Cosgrove, D. E., and Daniels, S., (eds.), The Iconography of Landscape Essays on the
Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-10.
154 Knapp
Davis, W. (1992). The deconstruction of intentionality in archaeology. Antiquity 66(251):

334-347.
Den'ida, J. (1981). Positions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
di Leonardo, M. (ed.) (1991). Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology
in the Postmodern Era, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Dobres, M.-A., and Hoffman, C. R. (1994). Social agency and the dynamics of prehistoric
technology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 1(3): 211-258.
Dyson, S. L. (1982). Archaeological survey in the Mediterranean basin: A review of recent
research. American Antiquity 47: 87-98.
Dyson, S. L (1993). From New to New Age archaeology: archaeological theory and classical
archaeology--a 1990s perspective. American Journal of Archaeology 97: 195-206.
Earle, T. K., and Preucel, R. (1987). Processual archaeology and the radical critique. Current
Anthropology 28: 501-538.
Eco, U. (1987). Travels in Hyperreali~ Picador, London.
Engelstad, E. (1991). Images of power and contradiction: feminist theory and post-processual
archaeology. Antiquity 65(248): 502-514.
Featherstone, M. (1988) In pursuit of the postmodernism: an introduction. Theory, Culture
and Society 5: 195-217.
Flax, J. (1987). Postmodernism and gender relations in feminist theory. Signs 12: 621-643.
Flax, J. (1990). Postmodernism and gender relations in feminist theory. In Nicholson, L. J.
(ed.), Feminism/Postmodemism, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 39-62.
Fokkema, D., and H. Bertens (eds) (1986). Approaching Postmodernism, John Benjamins,
Philadelphia.
Fotiadis, M. (1994). What is archaeology's "mitigated objectivism" mitigated by? Comments
on Wylie. American Antiquity 59: 545-555.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge--SelectedInterviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977,
Harvester Press, Brighton.
Fraser, N., and Nicholson, L. J. (1990) Social criticism without philosophy: An encounter
between feminism and p o s t m o d e r n i s m . In Nicholson, L. J. (ed.),
Feminism/Postmodernism,Routledge, London and New York, pp. 19-38.
Friedman, J. (1992). The past in the future: History and the politics of identity. American
Anthropologist 94: 837--859.
Gamble, C (1986). Hunter-gatherer studies and the origin of states. In Hall, J. A. (ed.), States
in History, Blackwell, London, pp. 22-47.
Gamble, C (1993) Ancestors and agendas. In Yoffee, N., and Sherratt, A. (eds.), Archaeological
Theory--Who Sets the Agenda? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 39-52.
Gathercole, P., and Lowenthal, D. (eds.) (1990). The Politics of the Past, One World
Archaeology 12, Routledge, London and New York.
Gettner, E. (1992). Postmodemisrn, Reason, and Religion, Routledge, London and New York.
Gero, J., and Conkey, M. W (eds.) (1991). EngenderingArchaeology: Women and Prehistory,
Basil BlackweU, Oxford.
Giddens, A. (1982). Profiles and Critiques in Social Theory, University of California Press,
Berkeley.
Gill, D. W. J., and Chippendale, C. (1993). Material and intellectual consequences of esteem
for Cycladic figurines. American Journal of Archaeology 97: 601-659.
Gitlin, X (1989). Postmodernism: Roots and politics, tn Angus, I., and Jhally, S. (eds), Cultural
Politics in ContemporaryAmerica, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp. 347-360.
Glock, A. (1983). Texts and archaeology at Tell "l~'annek. Berytus 31: 57-66.
Glock, A. (1985). Tradition and change in two archaeologies. American Antiquity 50: 464-477.
Gold, J. R. (1992). Image and environment: The decline of cognitive behaviouralism in human
geography and grounds for regeneration. Geoforum 23: 239-247.
Goody, J. (1986). The ~ c of Writing and the Organization of Society, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge.
Gosden, C. (1992). Is what we write right? Antiquity 66(252): 803-808.
Gosden, C. (1994). Social Being and 77me, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Grimshaw, J. (1986). Philosophy and Feminist Thinking, University of Minnesota Press,

Minneapolis.
Gutterman, D. S. (1994). Postmodemism and the interrogation of masculinity. In Brod, H.,
and Kaufmann, M. (eds.), Theorizing Masculinities, Research on Men and Masculinities
5, Sage, London, pp. 219-238.
Habermas, J. (1986). Autonomy and Solidarity, Verso, London.
Haraway, D. (1990). A manifesto for cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in
the 1980s. In Nicholson, L. J. (ed.), Feminism/Postmodemism, Routledge, London and
New York, pp. 190-232.
Harding, S. (1990). Feminism, science, and the anti-enlightenment critiques. In Nicholson, L.
J. (ed.), Feminism/Postmodernism, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 83-106.
Hartsock, N. (1987). Rethinking modernism: Minority vs. majority theories. Cultural Critique
7: 187-206.
Harvey, D. (1990). The Condition of Postmodemity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural
Change, Blackwell, Oxford.
Head, L. (1993). Unearthing prehistoric cultural landscapes: A view from Australia.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers n.s. 18: 481--499.
Hill, J. D. (1993). Can we recognise a different European past? A contrastive archaeology of
later prehistoric settlement in southern England. Journal of European Archaeology 1:
57-75.
Hodder, I. A. (ed.) (I987). Archaeology as Long-Term History, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Hodder, I. A. (1989a). Post-modernism, post-structuralism and post-processual archaeology.
In Hodder, I. (ed.), The Meanings of Things, One World Archaeology 6, Unwin Hyman,
London, pp. 64-78.
Hodder, I. A. (1989b). Writing archaeology: Site reports in context. Antiquity 63(239): 268-274.
Hodder, I. A. (1990).Archaeology and the post-modern. Anthropology Today 6(5): 13--15.
Hodder, I. A. (1991a). Postprocessual archaeology and the current debate. In Preucel, R. W.
(ed.), Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies: Multiple Ways of Knowing the Past,
Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 10, Carbondale, IL, pp. 30-41.
Hodder, I. A. (1991b). Archaeological theory in contemporary European societies: The
emergence of competing traditions. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Archaeological Theory in Europe,
Routledge, London and New York, pp. 1-24.
Hodder, I. A. (199Ic). Interpretive archaeology and its role. American Antiquity 56: 7-18.
Hodder, I. A. (ed.) (1991d). Archaeological Theory in Europe: The Last Three Decades,
Routledge, London.
Hodder, t. A. (1991e). Reading the Past, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Jameson, E (1984). Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. New Left Review
146: 53-92.
Johnsen, H., and B. Olsen (1992). Hermeneutics and archaeology: On the philosophy of
contextual archaeology. American Antiquity 57: 419-436.
Kingsnorth, A. (1993). Complexities of complexity: An anthropological concern. Bulletin of
the American Schools of Oriental Research 292: 107-120.
Kirk, " (1991). Structure, agency, and power relations "Chez les Derniers Chasseurs-Cueitleurs"
of northwestern France. In Preueel, R. W. (ed.), Processual and Postprocessual
Archaeologies: Multiple Waysof Knowing the Past, Center for Archaeological Investigations,
Occasional Paper 10, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, pp. 108-125.
Klejn, L. S. (1993). To separate a centaur: on the relationship of archaeology and history in
the Soviet tradition. Antiquity 67(255): 339-348.
Knapp, A. B. (ed.) (1992). Archaeology, Annales and Ethnohistory, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Kroker, A., and D. Cook (1986). The Postmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and the
Hyper-Aesthetics, St Martin's Press, New York.
Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C. (1989). Introduction. In C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky (ed.),
Archaeological Thought in America, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-16.
156 Knapp
Laudan, L. (1990). Science and Relativism: Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Lee, R. B. (1992). Art, science, or politics? The crisis in hunter-gatherer studies. American
Anthropologist 94: 31-54.
Leone, M. P., and Potter, P. B., Jr. (1992). Legitimation and the classification of archaeological
sites. American Antiquity 57: 137-145.
Longacre, W. A. (1970). Archaeology as Anthropology: A Case Study, Anthropological Papers
of the University of Arizona 17, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Lovibond, S. (1989). Feminism and postmodernism. New Left Review 178: 5-28.
Lowenthat, D. (1985). The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lyotard, J.-E (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (translated by
Bennington, G. and Massouri, B.)University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Marcus, G. E., and Fischer, M (1986). Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental
Moment in the Human Sciences, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Mascia-Lees, E, Sharpe, P. and Cohen, C. B. (1989). The postmodernist turn in anthropology.
Signs 15: 7-33.
Moreland, J. (1990). Review article of P. Courbin, What is Archaeology? (University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 1988). History and Theory 30: 246--261.
Morin, E. (1986). Ce qui h change dans la vie intellectuale franqaise. Revue le d~bat 40(6t6):
72-82.
Murray, T. (1993). The childhood of William Lanne: contact archaeology and Aboriginality
in "lhsmania. Antiquity 67(256): 504-519.
Nicholson, L. J. (ed.) (1990). Feminism/Postmodemism, Routledge, London and New York.
Paddaya, K. (1990). The New Archaeology and Aftermath: A View from Outside the
Anglo-American World, Ravish, Pune.
Patterson, T C. (1989). History and the post-processual archaeologies. Man 24: 555-565.
Peebles, C. S. (1991). Annalistes, hermeneutics and positivists: squaring circles or dissolving
problems. In Bintliff, J. (Ed.), The Annales School and Archaeology, Leicester University
Press, Leicester, pp. 108-124.
Peebles, C. S. (I993). Aspects of a cognitive archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal
3: 250-253.
Plog, E (1991). Central themes in archaeology. In Kottak, C. P. (ed.), Central Themes in the
Teaching of Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC.
Potter, P. B., Jr. (1991). Self-reflection in archaeology. In Preucel, R. W. (ed.), Processual and
PostprocessualArchaeologies: Multiple Waysof Knowing the Past, Center for Archaeological
Investigations, Occasional Paper 10, Southern IUinois University, Carbondale, IL, pp.
225-234.
Preucel, R. W. (ed.) (1991a). Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies: Multiple Ways of
Knowing the Past, Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 10, Southern
Illinois University, Carbondale, IL.
Preucel, R. W. (1991b). Introduction. in Preucel, R. W. (ed.), Processual and Postprocessual
Archaeologies: Multiple Waysof Knowing the Past, Center for Archaeological Investigations,
Occasional Paper, 10, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, pp. 1-14.
Price, M., and Lewis, M. (1993). The reinvention of cultural geography. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 83: 1-17.
Redman, C. L. (199I). Distinguished lecture in archeology: In defense of the seventies.
American Anthropologist 93: 295-307.
Renfrew, A. C. (1980). The Great Tradition versus the Great Divide: Archaeology as
anthropology. American Journal of Archaeology 84: 287-298.
Renfrew, A. C. (1994). Towards a cognitive archaeology. In Renfrew, C., and Zubrow, E. B.
W. (eds.), The Ancient Mind." Elements of a CognitiveArchaeology, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, pp. 3-12.
Renfrew, A. C., and Zubrow, E. B. W. (eds) (1994). The Ancient Mind: Elements of a Cognitive
Archaeology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Rodden, J. (1981). The development of the Three Age System: Archaeology's first paradigm.
In Daniel, G. (ed.), Towards a History of Archaeology, London, Thames and Hudson, pp.
51-68.
Rosenau, E M. (1992). Post.Modernism and the Social Sciences, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ.
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism, Pantheon, New York.
Said, E. W. (1985). Orientalism revisited. In Barker, E (ed.), Europe and its Other, University
of Essex Press, Colchester.
Saitta, D. (1992-). Radical archaeology and middle-range methodology. Antiquity 66(253):
886-897.
Schiffer, M. B. (1976). Behavioral Archeology, Academic Press, New York.
Schiffer, M. B. (1988). The structure of archaeological theory. American Antiquity 53: 461-485.
Schiffer, M. B. (1992). Archaeology and behavioral science: manifesto for an imperial
archaeology. In Wandsnider, L. (ed.), Quandaries and Quests: V'~sions of Archaeology's
Future, Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 20, Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale, IL, pp. 225-238.
Scott, J. W. (1989). History in crisis? The others' side of the story. American Historical Review
94: 680-692.
Seidman, S. (ed.) (1994). The Postmodern Turn: New Perspectiveson Social Theory, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
Seidman, S., and Wagner, D. G. (eds.) (1992). Postmodernism and Social Theory: The Debate
Over General Theory, Blackwell, Oxford.
Shanks, M., and Hodder, I. A. (1994). Processual, postprocessual and interpretive
archaeologies. In Hodder, I. A., Shanks, M., Alexandri, A., Buchli, V., Carman, J., Last,
J., and Lucas G. (eds.), InterpretingArchaeology: Finding Meaning in the Past, Routledge,
London and New York, pp. 3-29.
Shanks, M., and Tilley, C. (1989). Archaeology into the 1990s. Norwegian Archaeological Review
22: 1-54.
Shanks, M., and Tilley, C. (1992). Re-Constructing Archaeology: Theory and Practice, 2nd ed.,
Routledge, London and New York.
Sherratt, A. G. (1993). The relativity of theory. In Yoffee, N., and Sherratt, A. (eds),
Archaeological Theory--Who Sets the Agenda? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.
119-130.
Smith, L. (1995). What is this thing called postprocessual archaeology ... and is it relevant for
Australian archaeology? Australian Archaeology 40: 28-32.
Snodgrass, A. M. (1985). The new archaeology and the classical archaeologist. American
Journal of Archaeology 89: 1-7.
Soja, R. W. (1989). Postmodern Geographies, Verso, London.
Spector, J. (1991). What this awl means: Toward a feminist archaeology. In Gero, J. M. and
Conkey, M. W. (eds.), Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory, Basil Blackwell,
Oxford, pp. 388-406.
Stauth, G., and Turner, B. S. (1988). Nostalgia, postmodernism and the critique of mass
culture. Theory, Culture and Society 5: 509-527.
Stevenson, M. G. (1989). Sourdoughs and cheechakos: The formation of identity-signaling
social groups. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 8: 270-312.
Terrell, J. (1990). Storytelling and prehistory. In Schiffer, M. B. (ed.), Archaeological Method
and Theory 2, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 1-29.
Thomas, J. (1990). Some, other, analogue: Writing the past. In Baker, E, and Thomas, J.
(eds.), Writing the Past in the Present, Department of Archaeology, St David's University
College, Lampeter, pp. 18-23.
Thomas, J. (1993). After essentialism: Archaeology, geography and post-modernity.
Archaeological Review from Cambridge 12: 3-27.
Thomas, J., and Tilley, C. (1992). TAG and "post-modernism': A reply to John Bintliff.
Antiquity 66(250): 106-114.
Tilley, C. (1989). Excavation as theatre. Antiquity 63(239): 275-280.
158 Knapp
TiUey, C. (1990). On modernity and archaeological discourse. In Bapty, I., and Yates, "E (eds.),
Archaeology After Structuralism, Roufledge, London and New York, pp. 127-152.
Tilley, C. (ed.) (1993). Interpretative Archaeology, Berg, Oxford.
Trigger, B. G. (1989a). Hyperrelativism, responsibility, and the social sciences. Canadian Review
of Sociology and Anthropology 26: 776-797.
Trigger, B. G. (1989b). A History of Archaeological Thought, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Trigger, B. G. (1991a). Post-processual developments in Anglo-American archaeology.
Norwegian Archaeological Review 24: 65-76.
Tringham, R. (1991b). Households with faces: The challenge of gender in prehistoric
architectural remains. In Gero, J. M., and Conkey, M. W (eds.), EngenderingArchaeology:
Women and Prehistory, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 93-131.
Tyler, S. (1984). The poetic turn in postmodern anthropology--the poetry of Paul Friedrich.
American Anthropologist 86: 328--336.
Vattimo, G. (1988). The End of Postmodernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-Modern
Culture, Polity Press, London.
Walsh, K. (1990). The Post-Modern threat to the past. In Bapty, I., and Yates, T (eds),
Archaeology After Structuralism, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 278-293.
Walsh, K. (1992). The Representation of the Past: Museums and Heritage in the Post-Modern
World, Routledge, London and New York.
Watson, P. J. (1991). A parochial primer: The new dissonance as seen from the Midcontinental
United States. In Preucel, R. W. (ed.), Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies:
Multiple Ways of Knowing the Past, Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional
Paper 10, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, pp. 265-274.
Watson, P. J., and Fotiadis, M. (1990). The razor's edge: Symbolic-structuralist archaeology
and the expansion of archaeological inference. American Anthropologist 92: 613-29.
Watson, R. A. (1990). Ozymandias, King of Kings: Postprocessual radical archaeology as
critique. American Antiquity 55: 673-689.
Whitley, D. S. (1992). Prehistory and post-positivist science: A prolegomenon to cognitive
archaeology. In Schiffer, M. B. (ed.), Archaeological Theory and Method 4, University of
Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 57-100.
Wolf, E. (1994). Perilous ideas: Race, culture, people. Current Anthropology 35: 1-12.
Wylie, A. (1992a). On "heavily decomposing red herrings": Scientific method in archaeology
and the ladening of evidence with theory. In Embree, L. (ed.), Metaarchaeology:
Reflections by Archaeologists and Philosophers, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 269-288.
Wylie, A. (1992b). Feminist theories of social power: Some implications for a processual
archaeology. Norwegian Archaeological Review 25: 51-68.
Wylie, A. (1992c). The interplay of evidential constraints and political interests: recent
archaeological research on gender. American Antiquity 57: 15-35.
Wylie, A. (1993). Invented lands, discovered pasts: The westward expansion of myth and
history. Historical Archaeology 27: 1-19.
Yates, T (1990). Jacques Derrida: "There is nothing outside of the text." In Tilley, C. (ed.),
Reading Material Culture: Structuralism, Hermeneutics, and Poststructuralism, Basil
Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 206-280.
Yoffee, N. (1993). Too many chiefs? (or, safe texts for the '90s). In Yoffee, N., and Sherratt,
A. (eds.), Archaeological Theory--Who Sets the Agenda? Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, pp. 60-78.
Yoffee, N., and Sherratt, A. (1993a). Introduction: The sources of archaeological theory. In
Yoffee, N., and Sherratt, A. (eds.), Archaeological Theory--Who Sets the Agenda?
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-9.
Yoffee, N., and Sherratt, A. (eds.) (1993b). Archaeological Theory--Who Sets the Agenda?
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Zubrow, E. B. W. (1994). Knowledge representation and archaeology: A cognitive example
using GIS. In Renfrew, C., and Zubrow, E. B. W (eds.), The Ancient Mind." Elements of
a CognitiveArchaeology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 107-118.

KNAPP, A. Archaeology Without Gravity. Postmodernism and The Past.

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

KNAPP, A. Archaeology Without Gravity. Postmodernism and The Past.

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 3, No.

Archaeology Without Gravity: Postmodernism

In a recent essay on the "Crisis in Hunter-Gatherer Studies," Richard

1Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, Scotland G12 8QQ.

Turning to archaeology, Bintliff (1993, p.92) finds little to "salvage from

POSTMODERNISM: MOVEMENT OR "CONDITION"?

Postmodernism is not a cogent or unified philosophical, artistic, or po-

(a copy of a copy, lacking an original) is even better than the original. In

same guise): Ranke and Momigliano in history, Schliemann, Albright,

Postmodernism is perhaps easier to define in terms of what it is not, rather

[Benhabib, 1994 (1992), p. 77]. However, concerns with the ethnocentrism

NIHILISM AND RELATIVISM/PLURALISM

Whatever rationale one provides for postmodernism, the nihilism and

The ultimate outcome would be to disempower archaeology as a viable

Today, such "radical" poststructuralist statements about the past have

chaeology. On the other hand, polyvocality must be understood not just as

POSTMODERNISM AND THE PAST

Postmodernists have concerned themselves with the unique instead of

ferent school of thought--asks different questions about the past (Lowen-

POSTMODERNISM AND POSTPROCESSUALISM

If it is acknowledged that certain similarities exist between the two

priate to a social science (their emphasis) (2) archaeological conceptions

Binttiff (1991, pp. 275-276), although decrying most postmodernist ap-

by the nature of their own intellectual and social commitments (Paddaya,

TOWARD SOCIAL AND INTERPRETIVE

While Binford (1962), L o n g a c r e (1970), Earle and Preucel

to move beyond polemics to explore areas of possible a g r e e m e n t

Wylie (1993, p. 15) proclaims that the archaeological record has an

(3) social p r a c t i c e s have to do with m e a n i n g s , and social

WHICH WAY(S) TO THE PAST?.

Post-processualism, ...while acknowledging the difficulties posed by interpretation,

Archaeology, history, and anthropology appear as increasingly arbitrary positions

to a future configuration of disciplines capable of transcending the limitations of

...Approaches derived from post-structuralism and phenomenology actually have a

If postmodernism has taught us anything important, it is that there are

come the contradictions--and artificially contrasting conceptions of their

Earlier versions of this study were presented at Macquarie University,

Atcoff, L. (1988). Poststructuratism and cultural feminism. Signs 13(3): 4-36.

Davis, W. (1992). The deconstruction of intentionality in archaeology. Antiquity 66(251):

Grimshaw, J. (1986). Philosophy and Feminist Thinking, University of Minnesota Press,

S-ar putea să vă placă și