METHOD
AND
THEORY
IN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Anthropology 508	Cabell Hall:331
University of Virginia	Tuesday:7:00-9:30
Spring 2001	Fraser D.Neiman

How can we decipher what happened in the past from the mute bones and stones that comprise the archaeological record? This seminar examines the principle answers to this question that can be found in the recent Anglo-American literature. The emphasis is on clarifying the epistemological assumptions and methodological entailments of different theoretical approaches, and the sense in which accounts of the past produced using them may be evaluated with reference to theoretical structures in adjacent fields of study, empirical evidence, and political concerns. The course aims at understanding archaeological theory in contemporary practice. Because treatments of some crucial theoretical topics are unavailable in the contemporary literature and because much of the current literature is a polemical reaction to what has gone before, we will selectively sample earlier work.

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