Archaeologia Polona vol. 34:1996, Special Theme: The Concept of Archaeological Cultures Description: 249 pages, drawings, photos Condition: very good- (stains on cover) Weight: 425g. Price: $15.68 This item is in stock Quantity:

Archaeologia Polona vol. 34:1996, Special Theme: The Concept of Archaeological Cultures, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw 1996



Editorial

Professor Kazimicrz Godlowski in memoriam Michai Parczewski

SPECIAL THEME: THE CONCEPT OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL CULTURES

Objectual correlates of culture: the significance of the concept and the

problems of interpretation in archaeological investigations

Stanisiaiv Tabaczynski Aspects of cultural definition in Central European prehistory

Paul Barford Culture and society in traditional and processual archaeology

Danuta Minta-Tivonouska Archaeological cultures and reality

Lech Czerniak All these fantastic cultures? Concepts of archaeological cultures, identity and

ethnicity

Boqena Werbart Society and culture, two faces of the same ethnic coin?

Eva Andersson, Magnus Anderssen, Ingrid Bergenstrdhle,

MikaeL Dahlgren, Bo Knarrstrom Does the Kongemose Culture exist? About the concept of culture

Bo Friman Reconstructing the spatial extension of ancient societies. A Scandinavian

Viking Age example

Mats Burstrom Language and culture in an archaeological perspective

John Hines Culture and the uncultured: archaeological constructs based on behavioural

debris (aspects of the Warsaw Rubbish Project)

Paul Barford

Cognitive issues in archaeology

J.-C. Gardin

Some comments to Paul Barford's review of Birgitta Hardh and Bozena Wyszomirska-Werbart (eds), Contacts across the Baltic Sea during the Late Iron Age (jth-izth centuries). Institute of Archaeology, Report Series 45, Lund

Birgitta Hdrdb and Bozena Werbart

BOOK REVIEWS

Baltic-Pontic Studies vols. 1-4 (edited by Aleksander Kosko)

(Paul Barford) Ljudmila V. Pekarskaja, Daffydd Kidd et al., Der Silberschatz von Martynovka (Ukraina) aus dem 6. und 7. Jahrhundert, (edited by Falko Daim)

(Helena Zoll-Adamikoiva) Egon Wamers, Die friihmittelalterlichen Lesefunde aus der Lohrstrasse

(Baustelle Hilton) in Mainz

(Helena Zoll-Adamikoaia)

Editorial comment

Rebkowski Marian, Sredniowieczna ceramika miasta lokacyjnego w Kolobrzegu

(A.ndrzej Buko)



Cognitive issues in archaeology

J.-C. Gardin

Some comments to Paul Barford's review of Birgitta Hdrdh and Bozena Wyszomirska-Werbart (eds), Contacts across the Baltic Sea during the Late Iron Age (jth-izth centuries). Institute of Archaeology, Report Series 45, Lund

Birgitta Hdrdh and Bozena Werbart

BOOK REVIEWS

Baltic-Pontic Studies vols. 1-4 (edited by Aleksander Kosko)

(Paul Barford) Ljudmila V. Pekarskaja, Daffydd Kidd et al., Der Silberschatz von Martynovka (Ukraina) aus dem 6. und 7. Jahrhundert, (edited by Falko Daim)

(Helena Zoll-Adamikona) Egon Wamers, Die friihmittelalterlichen Lesefunde aus der Lohrstrasse

(Baustelle Hilton) in Mainz

(Helena Zoll-Adamikotva)

Editorial comment

Rebkowski Marian, Sredniowieczna ceramika miasta lokacyjnego w Kolobrzegu

 

 

cultures and of the conceptualisation of particular archaeological cultures. We should also reconsider perhaps the methods of distinguishing "archaeological cultures" and their relationship to the socio-cultural reality they represent; in particular it is difficult to escape the question of the relationships between "archaeological cultures" and cultural identity ("ethnicity"), philosophy, ideology, politics and ethics. A general question which we would like to pose is: "do we still need archaeological cultures?" If so, "in what terms?

The post-modernist approaches to cultures see them as composed of other features than simply material ones, of economic, social, political, ritual, and psychological considerations, of ritual and time. This approach is also to seek new meanings, to see culture as human creativity, and as an intellectual identity. What place do (or did) archaeological cultures have in this sort of social relationships? "Culture groups", "sub-cultures" or "supercultures" are various forms of social communication without relation to what would normally be referred to as "ethnicity". Variants within the contents and concepts of culture can represent a great potential, but they arc essentially restrictive. It is possible to understand this importance only by studying it in the context of its own culture. It is significant to each particular society and to every particular period. Definitions of "archaeological cultures", cultural identity and/or "ethnicity" cannot however exist without discussions on contemporary concepts and contents.

This volume includes papers written in several different research environ?ments, and reflects various approaches to the problems being discussed. It would be presumptuous to propose that it contains papers touching more than a few aspects of this complex question, nevertheless some of the Polish contributions present material and concepts and discuss literature which may be less well-known in the English-speaking world and worthy of further discussion. Polish consider?ations of the concept of archaeological cultures owe much to the approaches of the German schools of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but in addition, after the Second World War the approach to archaeological cultures was for several decades concerned with questions of ethnogenesis (particularly of the Slavs) and the ethnic qualification of archaeological sources. Attempts to break out of the sometimes circular arguments which this created produced results which were in many ways innovative.

On reading through these various papers, one is struck by the emphasis which appears in several of them on questions of ethnicity (see "Archaeologia Polona" volume 29), it seems that - despite the intentions of the editors - we still find it very difficult to break free of certain mental stereotypes. Another interesting feature is the frequency of the use in the discussions presented here of examples drawn from the Neolithic period. Is this accidental, or are we beginning to see the development in parts of Europe of new trends in archaeological reflection which.....

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