On the need for more "gut theory" in academic archaeology

Summary

If we want archaeology to matter we need to get back to some basics. Processual archaeology got archaeologists drunk on theory. Post-Processual archaeology offered what appeared to be a hangover cure, but was really just the "hair-of-the-dog." In its theory addiction, the discipline seems to be hooked on a "philosophy du jour," stimulating in the classroom, a dissertation, or a monograph, but which quickly gets stale and unsatisfying. Academic archaeologists in particular seem to lose sight of what they have and its real power, material culture in its contexts. Artifacts don’t lie; they are there or they are not. All we have to do is to figure out what they are, who put them there, when, possibly why, and maybe even how that information might be applied. Most of that is nothing fancy, requiring only some decent technology and common sense—gut theory—to figure out. Much we do relies on straightforward pattern recognition, not some philosophical perspective that even philosophers argue about and have a tough time communicating. Several examples from activist archaeology demonstrate that archaeology’s publics have little use for what they see as abstruse, ivory-tower silliness and how we might do things better.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeology of Common Sense   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

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