An Archaeology of Interaction: Network Perspectives on Material Culture and Society

Author:   Carl Knappett (Walter Graham/ Homer Thompson Professor of Aegean Prehistory, Department of Art, University of Toronto)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
ISBN:  

9780198706939


Pages:   262
Publication Date:   12 June 2014
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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An Archaeology of Interaction: Network Perspectives on Material Culture and Society


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Overview

Think of a souvenir from a foreign trip, or an heirloom passed down the generations - distinctive individual artefacts allow us to think and act beyond the proximate, across both space and time. While this makes anecdotal sense, what does scholarship have to say about the role of artefacts in human thought? Surprisingly, material culture research tends also to focus on individual artefacts. But objects rarely stand independently from one another they are interconnected in complex constellations. This innovative volume asserts that it is such 'networks of objects' that instill objects with their power, enabling them to evoke distant times and places for both individuals and communities.Using archaeological case studies from the Bronze Age of Greece throughout, Knappett develops a long-term, archaeological angle on the development of object networks in human societies. He explores the benefits such networks create for human interaction across scales, and the challenges faced by ancient societies in balancing these benefits against their costs. In objectifying and controlling artefacts in networks, human communities can lose track of the recalcitrant pull that artefacts exercise. Materials do not always do as they are asked. We never fully understand all their aspects. This we grasp in our everyday, unconscious working in the phenomenal world, but overlook in our network thinking. And this failure to attend to things and give them their due can lead to societal 'disorientation'.

Full Product Details

Author:   Carl Knappett (Walter Graham/ Homer Thompson Professor of Aegean Prehistory, Department of Art, University of Toronto)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.20cm
Weight:   0.404kg
ISBN:  

9780198706939


ISBN 10:   0198706936
Pages:   262
Publication Date:   12 June 2014
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Part 1 1: Introduction 2: Interaction, Space, and Scale 3: Networks Between Disciplines Part 2 4: Micro-Networks: Proximate Interactions 5: Meso-Networks: Communities of Practice 6: Macro-Networks: Reginal Interactions Part 3 7: Networks of Objects 8: Meshworks of Things 9: Temporalities and Biographical Care Epilogue Future Challenges

Reviews

Carl Knappett's An Archaeology of Interaction sets the agenda for archaeological studies of networks. This volume traverses different theoretical approaches with astonishing breadth making it an important resource for archaeologists interested in applying a network perspective in their work, as well as for those more generally interested in contemporary material culture studies. --Barbara Mills, University of Arizona Carl Knappett's book represents a milestone in the study of archaeological distribution patterns. Network analysis has in recent years become highly influential in the study of past human interaction as represented by material culture. Knappett shows, through the skilful use of a range of case-studies and theoretical standpoints, how the network approach to material culture can shed new and sometimes unexpected light on many aspects of interactions in the ancient past. --Anthony Harding, University of Exeter


Author Information

Carl Knappett is Walter Graham/Homer Thompson Professor of Aegean Prehistory at the University of Toronto.

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