Abstract:
Why have such divisions become the norm in contemporary archaeological theory? The debates of the 1980s and early 1990s certainly prompted some attempts to synthesise the objectives of processual and postprocessual archaeologies (Renfrew 1994; Schiffer 1988; Trigger 1991, 1998; VanPool and VanPool 1999; cf. Hodder and Preucel 1996; Yoffee and Sherratt 1993), but the success of these is debateable. As the century has turned, it seems that many have been content to conduct ‘business as usual’ within their own approaches without seeking to win arguments that are perhaps regarded as unwinnable, or simply as tiresome (Hodder et al. 2008:38). The relationship between theoretical discussion and methods of data handling is also an issue here, with Johnson recently noting that core archaeological concepts remain largely immune to the more dynamic debates (Johnson 2006; cf. Johnson 2004), perhaps making the latter seem superfluous to many. Yet amid the seemingly placid landscape of archaeologists mixing and matching their theoretical viewpoints as they see fit, there lurks the danger that significant theoretical problems are not being worked through. The propensity of archaeological theorists to move overrapidly from one half-baked set of borrowed ideas to the next has been remarked upon frequently (e.g., Bentley and Maschner 2008:5-6; Chippindale 1993:33-35; Hodder 2002:77-78), and without sustained and constructive engagement between different perspectives this process will continue. Each iteration of the cycle leads to further fragmentation but can leave the gaps between approaches, where issues of real import lie, untouched.