Time and Archaeology

by Murray,Tim; Murray,Tim

• ISBN13: 9780415117623
• ISBN10: 0415117623
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-11
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This pioneering collection is the first comprehensive survey of time and archaeology. It includes chapters from a broad, international range of contributors, which combine theoretical and empirical material. They illustrate and explore the diversity of archaeological approaches to time. The contributors contrast between a scientific understanding of time and social, cultural and religious ideas of time, and show how both are important to archaeology.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
List of contributors	xi
Preface	xiii
Introduction	1	(7)
Tim Murray
A return to the `Pompeii premise'	8	(20)
Tim Murray
Introduction	8	(1)
Archaeological records: time, scale, phenomenon	9	(6)
Archaeological records: reconstructionism and its discontents	15	(7)
Conclusions	22	(6)
Indian and other concepts of time: a holistic framework	28	(10)
D.P. Agrawal
V. Bhalakia
S. Kusumgar
Introduction	28	(1)
Archaeology and time	29	(1)
Cultural conditioning of the concept of time	30	(1)
Time in Indian philosophy	31	(3)
Finite time	34	(1)
Genetic distance and evolution	34	(1)
Time, physics and dissipative structures	35	(1)
Conclusions	36	(2)
Puranic time and the archaeological record	38	(23)
Michael A. Cremo
Graman Romantic chronology and its impact on the interpretation of prehistory	49	(9)
Frank Jolles
Summary and conclusion	58	(3)
Keeping industrial time	61	(19)
John Rule
Developing an Indian stone age chronology	80	(29)
Sheila Mishra
Introduction	80	(1)
Impact of radiocarbon dating of the Indian Palaeolithic	81	(1)
The Nevasian	82	(1)
Dating the Acheulian at Bori	83	(1)
British Archaeological Mission to Pakistan	84	(1)
The Soanian and the acheulian problem	85	(1)
Conclusions	86	(2)
Appraising the urban future: an archaeological time perspective	88	(1)
Roland Fletcher
Introduction	88	(1)
Rates of settlement growth	89	(4)
Behavioural parameters of viable community life: a model of interaction and communication stress	93	(3)
Low-density, dispersed settlements	96	(1)
The nature of settlement growth	96	(1)
Future urban growth	97	(8)
Conclusions	105	(4)
The Hochdorf `princely' grave and the question of the nature of archaeological funerary assemblages	109	(30)
Laurent Olivier
Introduction: the `princely' graves of the Late Hallstatt in European archaeology	109	(3)
The organization of funerary space in the Hochdorf grave	112	(6)
The funerary assemblage: a superimposition of different meanings?	118	(2)
The archaeological sequencing of the constitution of the assemblage of grave goods	120	(7)
The interpretation of the Hochdorf grave and the question of archaeological temporalities	127	(5)
Perspectives: the nature of archaeological funerary assemblages	132	(1)
Conclusions	133	(6)
The times of history: archaeology, narrative and non-linear causality	139	(25)
James Mcglade
Introduction	139	(2)
Archaeological times	141	(3)
Chronological versus kairological time	144	(2)
Historiography and the time of narrative	146	(1)
From linear to non-linear causality	147	(3)
The structure of disorder	150	(2)
Archaeology and non-linear dynamics	152	(2)
Social--natural co-evolution	154	(1)
Characteristic scales of human eco-dynamic phenomena--embedded times	155	(2)
Towards an alternative archaeological narrative: a model of `contingent necessity'	157	(1)
A reflexive conclusion: archaeology as long-term history	158	(6)
Index	164