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Assemblages, relationality and recursivity. Comments on ‘Archaeology and contemporaneity’ by Gavin Lucas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2015

Andrew Meirion Jones
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Extract

I warmly welcome Gavin Lucas's discussion of time and contemporaneity. I view this as another component of a sustained (and much-needed) investigation of the ontological character of archaeology. Gavin Lucas is presently at the forefront of this line of enquiry. His analysis is much more than an exploration of the ontology of archaeology. It is also a radical rethinking of the basis of the discipline. His analysis takes us back to ‘first principles’ and reveals unexpected and thought-provoking conclusions. Excitingly, his discussion touches upon the very basis of archaeological chronologies and archaeological stratigraphies, and forces us to think about them afresh. Worsaae, Montelius, Childe: these figures stalk the pages of elementary textbooks on archaeology, yet Lucas's analysis allows us not only to appreciate their analytical skills, but also to rethink and question them.

Type
Discussion
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , June 2015 , pp. 21 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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