Scott Hutson

Technoshamanism: Spiritual healing in the rave subculture

(1999). Technoshamanism: Spiritual healing in the rave subculture. Popular Music and Society: Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 53-77.

HOUSE RULES?: The practice of social organization in Classic-period Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico

This paper presents results of excavations from three house lots at Chunchucmil, a Classic-period site in northwestern Yucatan, Mexico. Each of the three house lots contains multiple residential structures organized around patios with temples on the east side of the patio. The boundaries of the house lots are clearly marked by low walls that encircle the architecture and non-mounded space. These house lots were occupied by multiple-family groups that held a common identity. Inequality existed within these groups insofar as one residence in each group was larger and better constructed than the others. In discussing the succession of leadership within these groups, we argue that social organization resembled the flexible house society model presented by Claude Lévi-Strauss, as opposed to rule-guided models based solely on descent or kinship. The practical nature of social organization is seen in the type of modifications found on the east structures of these groups.

Reading the past: Post-processual archaeology

Processual archaeology made contributions to archaeological theory by encouraging the notion of culture as adaptive, and by applying systems theory, information exchange theory and a host of other general theories. Many of these ideas had existed in some form in earlier approaches in archaeology, and the extent of this continuity will be further examined below. Yet perhaps the major contribution made by the New Archaeology was methodological (Meltzer 1979; Moore and Keene 1983, p. 4). Archaeologists became more concerned about problems of inference, sampling and research design. Quantitative and statistical techniques were used more frequently; procedures were questioned and made more explicit. Contextual archaeology is an attempt to develop archaeological methodology further. In the realm of theory, there have been a number of developments since the early 1960s which, it can be argued, indicate movement from the initial stance of processual archaeology as represented by the early papers of Binford (1962; 1965) and Flannery (1967). In the 1980s, what we now call post-processual archaeology encouraged an engagement with the theoretical turns taken in other fields, particularly anthropology, which had explored many new directions not foreseen by the first wave of anthropological archaeology in the 1960s. In the new millennium, as the debate between processualism and post-processualism gives way to a thousand archaeologies (Preucel 1995; Schiffer 2000), the usefulness of this debate is as questionable as the demand for a resolution (Hutson 2001; cf. Van Pool and Van Pool 1999).

Reading the past: Structuralist, post-structuralist and semiotic archaeologies

When Edmund Leach (1973) suggested that archaeology would soon turn from functionalism to structuralism, following the path of social anthropology, he was clearly unaware that structuralist archaeology already existed. In particular the work of Leroi-Gourhan (1965), similar in some respects to that of Levi-Strauss, had been widely debated. Certainly structuralism has never dominated the discipline, but its wide-spread attraction cannot be denied (Anati 1994; Bekaert 1998; Bintliff 1984; Campbell 1998; Collet 1993; Deetz 1983; Helskog 1995; Hill 1995; Hingley 1990, 1997; Huffman 1981, 1984; Kent 1984; Lenssen-Erz 1994; Leone 1978; Miller 1982a; Muller 1971; Parker Pearson 1996, 1999; Richard and Thomas 1984; Schnapp 1984; Small 1987; S⊘rensen 1987; Schmidt 1997; Tilley 1991; Van de Velde 1980; Wright 1995; Yates 1989; Yentsch 1991). These various articles, in addition to those to be discussed in this chapter, suggest that one can now talk of a structuralist archaeology. Yet why has the analysis of ‘structured sets of differences’ been so slow to arrive and so slight in impact? Why has structuralism never formed a major coherent alternative in archaeology? The first answer to these questions is that structuralism is not a coherent approach itself, since it covers a great variety of work, from the structural linguistics of Saussure, and the generative grammar of Chomsky, to the developmental psychology of Piaget and the analysis of ‘deep’ meanings by Levi-Strauss.

Reading the Past by Ian Hodder

The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and method has been fully updated to address the burgeoning of theoretical debate throughout the discipline. Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson argue that archaeologists must bring to bear a variety of perspectives in the complex and uncertain task of constructing meaning from the past. While remaining centred on the importance of hermeneutics, agency and history, the authors explore cutting-edge developments in areas such as post-structuralism, neo-evolutionary theory and whole new branches of theory such as phenomenology. With the addition of two completely new chapters, the third edition of Reading the Past presents an authoritative, state-of-the-art analysis of contemporary archaeological theory. Also including new material on feminist archaeology, historical approaches such as cultural history, and theories of discourse and signs, this book represents essential reading for any student or scholar with an interest in the past.

Reading the past: Frontmatter

The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and method has been fully updated to address the burgeoning of theoretical debate throughout the discipline. Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson argue that archaeologists must bring to bear a variety of perspectives in the complex and uncertain task of constructing meaning from the past. While remaining centred on the importance of hermeneutics, agency and history, the authors explore cutting-edge developments in areas such as post-structuralism, neo-evolutionary theory and whole new branches of theory such as phenomenology. With the addition of two completely new chapters, the third edition of Reading the Past presents an authoritative, state-of-the-art analysis of contemporary archaeological theory. Also including new material on feminist archaeology, historical approaches such as cultural history, and theories of discourse and signs, this book represents essential reading for any student or scholar with an interest in the past.

Reading the past: Index

The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and method has been fully updated to address the burgeoning of theoretical debate throughout the discipline. Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson argue that archaeologists must bring to bear a variety of perspectives in the complex and uncertain task of constructing meaning from the past. While remaining centred on the importance of hermeneutics, agency and history, the authors explore cutting-edge developments in areas such as post-structuralism, neo-evolutionary theory and whole new branches of theory such as phenomenology. With the addition of two completely new chapters, the third edition of Reading the Past presents an authoritative, state-of-the-art analysis of contemporary archaeological theory. Also including new material on feminist archaeology, historical approaches such as cultural history, and theories of discourse and signs, this book represents essential reading for any student or scholar with an interest in the past.

Reading the past: Conclusion : archaeology as archaeology

The archaeology for which we have been advocating attempts to capture a new openness to debate in archaeology – a broadening to include a variety of influences including Marxism, structuralism, practice theories, embodiment, feminist critiques and public archaeology. At the same time, the aim is to establish archaeology as a discipline able to contribute an independent voice to both intellectual and public debates. The contextual approach discussed in chapter 8 is one way of doing this which we personally find attractive, given our own views of the society in which we live and of what ought to happen to it, and given our opinion of the development of archaeology over the last 20 years. In contributing to and being involved in broader interdisciplinary debate, archaeologists read various types of general meaning in their data. We have discussed three overlapping types of meaning. One is the meaning of objects as physical, involved in exchanges of matter, energy and information; the concern here is with the object as a resource, functioning after its production, to facilitate organizational needs. A second is the meaning of objects in relation to the structured contents of historical traditions. A third kind of meaning – operational meaning – resides in the specifics of the context of each event or expression. Operational meaning is shaped by the previous two meanings but also takes into account (1) the specific intentions underlying the discrete actions of people in the past and (2) the unique lived, embodied experience of each actor.