Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T21:26:10.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Material Culture Texts and Social Change: A Theoretical Discussion and some Archaeological Examples

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2022

Ian Hodder
Ian Hodder*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Downing St, Cambridge CB2 3DZ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Material culture meanings are transferred between objects on the basis of similarities and differences. In order to fix the potential ambiguity of meanings, experience is bracketed within bounded contexts. New acts always refer back to existing organized experience or texts. It can be argued that text comes before action. This idea is used in a discussion of the appearance of agglomerated and bounded settlements in the European Neolithic. It is shown that occupied settlements are often preceded by non-domestic enclosures which sometimes have a ritual nature. Ritual text seems to prefigure practical event. A similar relationship between formalized ritual texts and social action is shown in a wide range of other examples. Finally some of the potential reasons for the observed relationship between text and action are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , 1988 , pp. 67 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andersen, N. H., 1981. Sarup. Befastede neolitiske anlag og deres baggrund. Kuml 1980, 63–103.Google Scholar
Barthes, R., 1972. Critical Essays. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Behrens, H., 1981. The first ‘Woodhenge’ in Middle Europe. Antiquity 55, 172–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogucki, P. I., 1982. Early Neolithic Subsistence and Settlement in the Polish Lowlands. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series 150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burkill, M., 1985. The middle neolithic of the Paris basin. In Scarre, C. (ed.), Ancient France 6000–2000 bc. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Case, H. J. and Whittle, A. W. R., (eds) 1982. Settlement Patterns in the Oxford Region: Excavations at the Abingdon Causewayed Enclosure and Other Sites. London: CBA Research Report 44.Google Scholar
Cauvin, J., 1978. Les Premiers Villages de Syrie-Palestine du IXeme au VIIeme Millenaire. Lyon: Maison de l'Orient Mediterraneen Ancien.Google Scholar
Cauvin, J., 1979. Les fouilles de Mureybet (1971–1974) et leur signification pour les origines de la sedentarisation au Proche-Orient. In Friedman, D. N. (ed.), Archaeological Reports from the Tabga Dam Project. Annual of the American School of Oriental Research 44.Google Scholar
Champion, T., Gamble, C., Shennan, S. and Whittle, A., 1984. Prehistoric Europe. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cherry, J. F., 1978. Generalization and the archaeology of the state. In Green, D., Haselgrove, C., and Spriggs, M. (eds), Social Organisation and Settlement, 411–37. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series 47.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1945. Directional changes in funerary practices during 50,000 years. Man 4, 13–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coles, J. and Harding, A., 1979. The Bronze Age in Europe. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Derrida, J., 1978. Writing and Difference. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Dickinson, O. T. P. K., 1977. The Origins of Mycenaean Civilisation. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 49.Google Scholar
Dixon, P. W., 1981. Crickley Hill. Current Archaeology 76, 145–47.Google Scholar
Dohle, H. J. and Stahlhofen, H., 1985. Die neolithischen Rindergräber auf dem ‘Löwenberg’ bei Derenburg, Kr. Wernigerode. Jahresschrift für Mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte 68, 179–220.Google Scholar
Ebbesen, K. and Petersen, E. B., 1973. Fuglebaeksbanken: en jaettestue paa Stevns. Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1973, 73–106.Google Scholar
Evans, C. and Hodder, I., 1985. The Haddenham project. Fenland Research 2, 18–23.Google Scholar
Evans, J. D., 1971. Neolithic Knossos; the growth of a settlement. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 37, 95–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, M., 1970. The Order of Things: an Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Fowler, P. J. and Evans, J. G., 1967. Plough-marks, lynchets and early fields. Antiquity 41, 289–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I., 1984. Burials, houses, women and men in the European Neolithic. In Miller, D. and Tilley, C. (eds), Ideology, Power and Prehistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., 1986. Reading the Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., (ed.) 1987a. The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., (ed.) 1987b. Archaeology as Long-term History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ilett, M., 1985. The early Neolithic of north-eastern France. In Scarre, C. (ed.), Ancient France 6000–2000 bc. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Kruk, J., 1980. The Neolithic Settlement of Southern Poland. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series 93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuper, R., Lohr, H., Lüning, J., Stehli, P. and Zimmerman, A., 1977. Der Bandkeramische Siedlungplatz Langweiler 9. Rheinische Ausgrabungen 18.Google Scholar
Lichardus, J. and Lichardus-Itten, M., 1985. La Protohistoire de l'Europe. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Madsen, T., 1979. Earthern long barrows and timber structures. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 45, 301–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madsen, T., 1982. Settlement systems of early agricultural societies in East Jutland, Denmark. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1, 197–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madsen, T., 1988. Causewayed enclosures in south Scandinavia. In Burgess, C., Topping, P., Mordant, C. and Maddison, M. (eds), Enclosures and Defences in the Neolithic of western Europe, 301–36. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 403.Google Scholar
Midgley, M., 1985. The Origin and Function of the Earthen Long Barrows of Northern Europe. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ørsnes, M., 1956. Om en Jaettestues konstruktion og bruk. Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Histoire, 1956, 211–34.Google Scholar
Ottaway, B., 1973. The earliest copper ornaments in northern Europe. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 39, 294–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., 1982. Mortuary practices, society and ideology: an ethnoarchaeological study. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, 99–114. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pavlů, I., 1982. Die neolithischen Kreisgrabenanlagen en Böhmen. Archeologicke Rozhledy 34, 176–89.Google Scholar
Pleinerová, I., 1980. Cultic features of the late neolithic period excavated at Březno, N. W. Bohemia. Pamatky Archeologicke 71, 10–60.Google Scholar
Preuss, J., 1980. Die altmärkische Gruppe der Tiefstichkeramik. Veröffentlichungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte in Halle 33.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G., 1981. Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution. In Hodder, I., Isaac, G., and Hammond, N. (eds), Pattern of the past, 261–306. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Starling, N., 1985a. Colonisation and succession: the earlier Neolithic of central Europe. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 51, 41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starling, N., 1985b. Social change in the later Neolithic of central Europe. Antiquity 59, 30–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strömberg, M., 1971. Die Megalithgräber von Hagestad. Zur Problematical von Grabbeuten und Grabriten. Acta Archaeologica Lundensia 9.Google Scholar
Taylor, T., 1987. Flying stags: icons and power in Thracian art. In Hodder, I. (ed.), The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings, 117–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thevenot, J. P., 1985. Bourgogne. Gallia Prehistoire 28, 171–210.Google Scholar
Thorsen, S., 1981. Klokkehøj ved Bøjden. Kuml 1980, 105–46.Google Scholar
Turner, V., 1969. The Ritual Process. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Whittle, A. W. R., 1977. The Earlier Neolithic of Southern England and its Continental Background. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A., 1985. Neolithic Europe: A Survey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar