A History of Archaeological Thought PDF Download

Author: Bruce G. Trigger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521840767
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Author: Ronald F. Williamson
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773585346
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Bruce Trigger has merged the history of archaeology with new perspectives on how to understand the past. He is a critical analyst and architect of social evolutionary theory, an Egyptologist, and an authority on aboriginal cultures in north-eastern North America. His contextualization of archaeology within broader society has encouraged appreciation of the power of archaeological knowledge and he has been an effective voice for non-oppositional forms of argument in archaeological theory. In The Archaeology of Bruce Trigger, leading scholars discuss their own approaches to the interpretation of archaeological data in relation to Trigger's fundamental intellectual contributions Contributors include Michael Bisson (McGill), Stephen Chrisomalis (Toronto), Jerimy J. Cunningham (Calgary), Brian Fagan (Lindbrior Corporation), Clare Fawcett (St. Francis Xavier), Junko Habu (California at Berkeley), Ian Hodder (Stanford), Jane Kelley (Calgary), Martha Latta (Toronto), Robert MacDonald (Archaeological Services Inc.), Randall McGuire (Binghamton), Lynn Meskell (Columbia), Toby Morantz (McGill), Robert Pearce (London Museum of Archaeology), David Smith (Toronto), Peter Timmins (Timmins Martelle Heritage Consultants), Silvia Tomásková (North Carolina), Bruce G. Trigger (McGill), Alexander von Gernet (Toronto), Gary Warrick (Wilfrid Laurier), Ronald F. Williamson (Archaeological Services Inc.), Alison Wylie (Washington), and Eldon Yellowhorn (Simon Frasier)

Author: Bruce Trigger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351324063
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Prehistoric archaeologists cannot observe their human subjects nor can they directly access their subjects' ideas. Both must be inferred from the remnants of the material objects they made and used. In recent decades this incontrovertible fact has encouraged partisan approaches to the history and method of archaeology. An empirical discipline emphasizing data, classification, and chronology has given way to a behaviorist approach that interprets finds as products of ecologically adaptive strategies, and to a postmodern alternative that relies on an idealist, cultural-relativist epistemology based on belief and cultural traditions. In Artifacts and Ideas, Bruce G. Trigger challenges all partisan versions of recent developments in archaeology, while remaining committed to understanding the past from a social science perspective. Over 30 years, Trigger has addressed fundamental epistemological issues, and opposed the influence of narrow theoretical and ideological commitments on archaeological interpretation since the 1960s. Trigger encourages a relativistic understanding of archaeological interpretation. Yet as post-processual archaeology, influenced by postmodernism, became increasingly influential, Trigger countered nihilistic subjectivism by laying greater emphasis on how in the long run the constraints of evidence could be expected to produce a more comprehensive and objective understanding of the past. In recent years Trigger has argued that while all human behavior is culturally mediated, the capacity for such mediation has evolved as a flexible and highly efficient means by which humans adapt to a world that exists independently of their will. Trigger agrees that a complete understanding of what has shaped the archaeological record requires knowledge both of past beliefs and of human behavior. He knows also that one must understand humans as organisms with biologically grounded drives, emotions, and means of understanding. Likewise, even in the absence of data supplied in a linguistic format by texts and oral traditions, at least some of the more ecologically adaptive forms of human behavior and some general patterns of belief that display cross-cultural uniformity will be susceptible to archaeological analysis.Advocating a realist epistemology and a materialist ontology, Artifacts and Ideas offers an illuminating guide to the present state of the discipline as well as to how archaeology can best achieve its goals.

Author: Bruce G. Trigger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521338189
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Bruce Trigger's new book is the first ever to examine the history of archaeology from medieval times to the present in world-wide perspective. At once stimulating and even-handed, it places the development of archaeological thought and theory throughout within a broad social and intellectual framework. The successive but interacting trends apparent in archaeological thought are defined and the author seeks to determine the extent to which these trends were a reflection of the personal and collective interests of archaeologists as these relate - in the West at least - to the fluctuating fortunes of the middle classes. While subjective influences have been powerful, Professor Trigger argues that the gradual accumulation of archaeological data has exercised a growing constraint on interpretation. In turn, this has increased the objectivity of archaeological research and enhanced its value for understanding the entire span of human history and the human condition in general.

Author: Bruce G. Trigger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521822459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 784

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Author: Bruce G. Trigger
Publisher: Transaction Pub
ISBN: 9780765801654
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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"... a fine narrative of the development of Trigger's metaphysics in his archaeological and historical research. It is accessible, clearly written, and worth close reading."--Journal of Field Archaeology Prehistoric archaeologists cannot observe their human subjects nor can they directly access their subjects' ideas. Both must be inferred from the remnants of the material objects they made and used. In recent decades this incontrovertible fact has encouraged partisan approaches to the history and method of archaeology. An empirical discipline emphasizing data, classification, and chronology has given way to a behaviorist approach that interprets finds as products of ecologically adaptive strategies, and to a postmodern alternative that relies on an idealist, cultural-relativist epistemology based on belief and cultural traditions. In Artifacts and Ideas, Bruce G. Trigger challenges all partisan versions of recent developments in archaeology, while remaining committed to understanding the past from a social science perspective. Over 30 years, Trigger has addressed fundamental epistemological issues, and opposed the influence of narrow theoretical and ideological commitments on archaeological interpretation since the 1960s. Trigger encourages a relativistic understanding of archaeological interpretation. Yet as post-processual archaeology, influenced by postmodernism, became increasingly influential, Trigger countered nihilistic subjectivism by laying greater emphasis on how in the long run the constraints of evidence could be expected to produce a more comprehensive and objective understanding of the past. In recent years Trigger has argued that while all human behavior is culturally mediated, the capacity for such mediation has evolved as a flexible and highly efficient means by which humans adapt to a world that exists independently of their will. Trigger agrees that a complete understanding of what has shaped the archaeological record requires knowledge both of past beliefs and of human behavior. He knows also that one must understand humans as organisms with biologically grounded drives, emotions, and means of understanding. Likewise, even in the absence of data supplied in a linguistic format by texts and oral traditions, at least some of the more ecologically adaptive forms of human behavior and some general patterns of belief that display cross-cultural uniformity will be susceptible to archaeological analysis. Advocating a realist epistemology and a materialist ontology, Artifacts and Ideas offers an illuminating guide to the present state of the discipline as well as to how archaeology can best achieve its goals. Bruce G. Trigger is James McGill Professor in the department of anthropology at McGill University. His numerous books include The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660, A History of Archaeological Thought, and Sociocultural Evolution.

Author: Andre Costopoulos
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442614226
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Human Expeditions pays tribute to Trigger's immense legacy by bringing together cutting edge work from internationally recognized and emerging researchers inspired by his example.

Author: Bruce G. Trigger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780500050347
Category : Archaeologists
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Author: Bruce G. Trigger
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773561498
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 952

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Trigger's work integrates insights from archaeology, history, ethnology, linguistics, and geography. This wide knowledge allows him to show that, far from being a static prehistoric society quickly torn apart by European contact and the fur trade, almost every facet of Iroquoian culture had undergone significant change in the centuries preceding European contact. He argues convincingly that the European impact upon native cultures cannot be correctly assessed unless the nature and extent of precontact change is understood. His study not only stands Euro-American stereotypes and fictions on their heads, but forcefully and consistently interprets European and Indian actions, thoughts, and motives from the perspective of the Huron culture. The Children of Aataentsic revises widely accepted interpretations of Indian behaviour and challenges cherished myths about the actions of some celebrated Europeans during the "heroic age" of Canadian history. In a new preface, Trigger describes and evaluates contemporary controversies over the ethnohistory of eastern Canada.

Author: Bruce G. Trigger
Publisher: American Univ in Cairo Press
ISBN: 9789774243653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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"An important scholarly contribution not only to the study of early civilizations, but also to archaeological theory. . . . It should be required reading for any course on ancient civilization." --Kathryn A. Bard, Journal of Field Archaeology