Archaeological Theory in a Nutshell

✍ Scribed by Adrian Praetzellis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 238
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book provides a brief, readable introduction to archaeological theory.

Adrian Praetzellis demystifies a pile of tricky contemporary concepts for the theory-phobic undergraduate or beginning graduate student. This new edition adds chapters on Indigenous, cognitive, and behavioral archaeologies and now covers 15 contemporary theories from neoevolutionism to queer theory. Each chapter begins with a description of the concept, its origin and significance. Next up is an example of how an archaeologist has used the idea to understand their site, making the connection between the idea and the archaeology plain and unambiguous. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. A glossary of postmodern discourse (including that word) concludes the book.

Using plain English to clarify some of the more baffling ideas used in contemporary archaeology, this book is a vital resource for students studying archaeological theory and the discipline as a whole.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Dedication
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 How theory works
Chapter 2 Neoevolutionism
Chapter 3 Behavioral archaeology
Chapter 4 Marxism
Chapter 5 Critical theory
Chapter 6 Postcolonialism
Chapter 7 Indigenous archaeology
Chapter 8 Feminism
Chapter 9 Queer Theory
Chapter 10 Structuralism
Chapter 11 Agency, structure, and structuration
Chapter 12 Transgressive archaeologies
Chapter 13 Archaeological biography
Chapter 14 Cognitive archaeology
Chapter 15 Phenomenology
Chapter 16 Materiality and Thing Theory
Chapter 17 The next big thing or where do we go from here?
Chapter 18 Parlez-Vous Po-Mo? A mostly postmodern phrasebook
Index
About the author/illustrator