Reading the Past

Ian Hodder's controversial new book focuses on meaning in archaeology, arguing that the interpretation of meaning needs to be closely integrated with adaptive, economic and social factors when we are seeking to explain the behaviour of past societies. Symbolism and ideology are discussed in relation to history and social practice and general accounts are provided of systems theory in archaeology, of structuratist and Marxist archaeology, and of the relationships between archaeology and history. The author then defines what he has termed contextual and post-processual archaeology and examines their implications for the practice of the discipline. In particular, he argues that while material culture is not a literary text, an analogy with texts offers powerful insights into the nature of archaeological data and into the procedures involved in 'reading the past'.