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Assemblage Theory and the Capacity to Value: An Archaeological Approach from Cache Cave, California, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2017

David Robinson*
Affiliation:
School of Forensic and Applied Sciences, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK Email: [email protected]

Abstract

New discoveries from a Californian cave have found a remarkable assemblage of cached perishable and other artefacts. Comprised of baskets, cordage, bone, antler, leather, food residues and other materials, the assemblages are dispersed through four caves in the largest ever cache discovered in the borderland region attributable to the native Californian linguistic group known as the Chumash. This paper develops a methodology based upon DeLanda's philosophy of assemblages and Graeber's anthropological theory of value. Importantly, following Normark, it is argue that assemblage theory needs to be operationalized into a methodological approach in order to apply it archaeologically. This methodology illustrate how a capacity analysis of the Cache Cave assemblage relates to values within the society which cached it by revealing the relational capacities within assemblages and relative capacities between them. Importantly, as a scalable approach, capacity analysis allows the investigation of the heterogeneous dynamics within complex societies.

Type
Special Section: Archaeology and Assemblage
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2017 

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