Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T12:06:52.305Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Hollow Men? A Reply to Steven Mithen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Julian Thomas
Julian Thomas
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, St David's University College, Lampeter, Dyfed SA48 7ED
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article constitutes a reply to a piece by Steven Mithen, in which an earlier contribution in this journal (Thomas 1988) is criticized as misrepresenting the character of Mesolithic archaeology. Mithen contends that the ‘processual’ archaeology which dominates that period can be humanized by introducing a consideration of emotion into the adaptive process. In this contribution it is suggested that the emphasis on emotion and rationality betrays a misunderstanding of the character of ‘post-processual’ archaeology, while the attempt to encompass emotion in an evolutionary ecological framework does no more than extend the remit of an inherently reductionist perspective. Emphasis is laid upon the notions of history and contextualized social action, and it is recognized that these concepts cannot be accommodated unless we allow that the fundamental characteristics of humanity are not fixed, but are themselves contingent and historically situated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , 1991 , pp. 15 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barthes, R. 1973. Mythologies. London: Paladin.Google Scholar
Binford, L. 1987. Data, relativism and archaeological science. Man 22, 391–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. & Parry, J. 1982. Death and the Regeneration of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1990. In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braithwaite, M. 1982. Decoration as ritual symbol: a theoretical proposal and an ethnographic study in southern Sudan. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, 80–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dews, P. 1989. The return of the subject in late Foucault. Radical Philosophy, 37–41.Google Scholar
Eagleton, T. 1983. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1970. The Order of Things. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1973. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1984. Nietzsche, genealogy, history. In Rainbow, P. (ed.), The Foucault Reader, 76–100. Harmondsworth: Peregrine.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1988. Technologies of the self. In Martin, L.Hutton, P. & Gutman, H. (eds), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, 16–49. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M. 1962. Being and Time. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hertz, R. 1960. Death and the Right Hand. Aberdeen: Cohen and West.Google Scholar
Hugh-Jones, S. 1979. The Palm and the Pleiades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huntingdon, R. & Metcalf, P. 1979. Celebrations of Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hutton, P. 1988. Foucault, Freud, and the technologies of the self. In Martin, L.Gutman, H. & Hutton, P. (eds), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, 121–44. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Kristeva, J. 1986. Word, dialogue and novel. In Moi, T. (ed.), The Kristeva Reader, 34–61. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mithen, S. 1988. Looking and learning: Upper Palaeolithic art and information gathering. World Archaeology 19, 297–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mithen, S. 1989. Evolutionary theory and post-processual archaeology. Antiquity 63, 483–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, J. 1988. Neolithic explanations revisited: the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Britain and south Scandinavia. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54, 59–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, J. 1991. Rethinking the Neolithic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar