Ideology, Power and Prehistory

This book starts from the premise that methodology has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory.

Daniel Miller (Author), Christopher Tilley (Author)

9780521090896, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 November 2008

168 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 9.1 cm, 0.26 kg

This book starts from the premise that methodology - the procedures for obtaining an 'objective' knowledge of the past - has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory. It argues that social theory is archaeological theory, and that past failure to recognise this has resulted in disembodied archaeological theory and weak disciplinary practice. Ideology, Power and Prehistory therefore seeks to reinstate the primacy of social theory and the social nature of the past worlds that archaeologists seek to understand. The contributors to this book argue that past peoples, the creators of the archaeological records, should be understood as actively manipulating their own material world to represent and misrepresent their own and others' interests. Thus the concepts of ideology and power, long discussed in social and political science yet largely ignored by archaeologists, must henceforward play a central role in our understanding of the past as a social creation. Archaeologists must now consider how the material remains they study were used to create images by past societies, which do not simply mirror or reflect but actively orientate the nature of these societies.

Part I. Theoretical perspectives I: 1. Ideology, power and prehistory: An introduction Daniel Miller and Christopher Tilley
Part II. Ideology and Power in the Present and historical Past: 2. Endo ceramics and power strategies Alice Welbourn
3. Interpreting ideology in historical archaeology: The William Paca Garden in Annapolis, Maryland Mark Leone
4. Modernism and suburbia as material ideology Daniel Miller
Part III. Ideology and Power in Prehistory: 5. Burials, houses, women and men in the European Neolithic Ian Hodder
6. Economic and ideological change: Cyclical growth in the pre-state societies of Jutland Michael Parker Pearson
7. Ritual and prestige in the prehistory of Wessex c. 2200–1400 BC: A new dimension to the archaeological evidence Mary Braithwaite
8. Ideology and the legitimation of power in the Middle Neolithic of Southern Sweden Christopher Tilley
Part IV. Conclusions: 9. Ideology, power, material culture and long-term change Daniel Miller and Christopher Tilley.

Subject Areas: Archaeology [HD]