CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL最新文献

Semioidentity refers to the sign–identity relationship in its pragmatic and metapragmatic dimensions. A component of social semiotic analysis, the study of semioidentity offers a distinctive contribution to archaeology by making explicit the different kinds of signs and their functions in the interpretive process. It privileges indexical signs as a means of anchoring interpretation and thus provides opportunities for additional higher-order claims about ideology and belief systems. A semiotic approach contributes to knowledge growth by positing that the most reliable interpretations—that is, those most likely to be true in the long term—are those that incorporate a variety of semiotic resources since their functions will act to constrain one another. In this essay, I discuss semiotic resources and semiotic ideology from the perspective of Peircean semiotics. I then offer a case study focusing on the archaeology of the Pueblo Revolt and the emergence of a pan-Pueblo historical consciousness to illustrate some of the rich insights that it affords.

Identity is a permanent integral feature of archaeological research. Even when it seems marginal to the current archaeological agenda, identity is brought back into the discussion by the urgency to engage with—often homogenizing—identity-based policies in contemporary politics. Lately, the emphasis placed on difference, fluidity and multivocality within archaeology has sensibly advanced the debate. Nevertheless, immutable identities continue to arise in studies of antiquity, replicating essentialist assumptions on the human past built around binary structures and simplistic equations of culture-historical reminiscence between material culture/practices and identities. The contributors to this special issue show how informing archaeological discourse with a semiotic methodology enhances the visibility of social dynamism, cultural complexities, among ancient human groups. This is particularly true for the communities silenced by history. These papers push the ontological and epistemological boundaries of archaeology by envisaging the archaeological record as a set of interconnected signs, whose cognitive potential overcomes the material space they occupy so that they become meaningful to different individuals and communities in diverse ways. Their stance maintains that semiotics holds the largely unexplored potential to enhance our understanding of the complexity of the past, ultimately offering a compelling standpoint to engage with contemporary identity-centred political debates.

The capacity to relate a signal to an arbitrary, specific and generally understood meaning—symbolism—is an integral feature of human language. Here, we explore two aspects of knapping technology at the Acheulean site of Boxgrove that may suggest symbolic communication. Tranchet tips are a difficult handaxe form to create, but are unusually prevalent at Boxgrove. We use geometric morphometrics to show that despite tranchet flaking increasing planform irregularity, handaxes with tranchet tips have more standardized 3D shapes than those without. This challenging standardization suggests tranchet tips at Boxgrove were part of a normative prescription for a particular handaxe form. Boxgrove presents some of the thinnest handaxes in the Acheulean world. To replicate such thin bifaces involves the technique of turning-the-edge. Since this technique is visually and causally opaque it may not be possible to learn through observation or even pointing, instead requiring arbitrary referents to teach naïve knappers. We use scar ordering on handaxes to show a variety of instances of turning-the-edge in different depositional units at Boxgrove, indicating it was socially transmitted to multiple knappers. The presence of societally understood norms, coupled with a technique that requires specific referents to teach its salient features, suggests symbolism was a feature of hominin communication at Boxgrove 480,000 years ago.

Worldbuilding is a concept that has been used to describe the creation of immersive landscapes in fiction and games and is deeply resonant with archaeological knowledge construction. This article argues for worldbuilding in archaeology as a creative intervention that encourages an exploration of archaeological data throughout the process of creation, interpretation and dissemination to generate past worlds, shaped through community storytelling. Through the examples of Çatalhöyük in Second Life, Other Eyes and the Avebury Papers projects, I explore a playful practice that closely interrogates reuse of archaeological data and encourages lateral thinking amongst students and other archaeological storytellers.