Archaeology : The Conceptual Challenge (Debates in Archaeology)

This series of short volumes, each devoted to a theme which is the subject of contemporary debate in archaeology, ranges from issues in theory and method to aspects of world archaeology.The central question this book seeks to explore is this: Are we trying to reconstruct a past in our own image, chained solely to our own unacknowledged emotional, intellectual, and philosophical traditions, or should we attempt to look beyond this at the fundamental concepts we often take for granted, but which if recognised as constructs of the relatively recent past, might begin to allow us to acknowledge our limitations and potentially more profitably engage with archaeological evidence in various ways.The end result is not another nihilist offering based upon a post-modernist collapsed perspective, but rather a considered approach, which, if anything, is ultimately positivist in tone, owing a debt, if anything, to the philosophical outlooks of critical realism.This is a critical yet positive approach to how contemporary conceptual outlooks, if unacknowledged, can seriously influence our understanding of the past. It is an exploration and evaluation of conceptual categories, of great significance to archaeology, which are nevertheless often neglected - age, experience, emotion, the senses, distance, colour etc.