Social Transformations in Archaeology - Global and Local Perspectives (Hardcover)

This volume brings together a series of papers which define the relevance of archaeology to the study of long term change and to the understanding of our contemporary world. It re-evaluates the premises and epistemologies which underlie the study of archaeology and looks at the ways discoveries about the past have a direct bearing oncontemporary beliefs and actions. The major theoretical ideologies which have influenced archaeology since the mid-1970s are considered: functionalism, determinism, structural Marxism, world systems theory, postmodernism and postprocessual archaeology. The papers in this volume, however, concentrate on the study of structures as far as the archaeological record brings new or different insight to their functioning in the long term. The volume also remains committed to the possibility of an historical reconstruction of social realities. The text is a compilation of papers in theoretical archaeology and should appeal to academics and postgraduates in archaeology, anthropology and history.