Material Culture Studies in a Transatlantic Perspective: How to Define an Adequate Theoretical Framework?

Summary

Since the beginnings of the discipline, the French archaeologists have superposed descriptive, analytical and interpretative stages to study the artifacts. The objects were first defined in a typo-chronological perspective, as dating element reflecting spatio-temporal evolutions. The processual perspective introduced by André Leroi-Gourhan had few impact on French historical archaeology, due to political and academic contexts. However, it allowed to see the artifacts in a consummation point of view and shed light on the questions of their use, function and significance. The French archaeologists base now their interpretation on spatial analysis crossed with sociological one's, even if the typo-chronological perspective is still important.

Those stages are not so different from the culture-historical, processual and post-processual perspectives. By spotting the similarities and differences between French and North-American material culture studies, the purpose of this paper is to offer an adequate theoretical framework to study material culture in a transatlantic perspective.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• "Totus mundus agit histrionem": Global and Trans-National Historical Archaeologies   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 80