Framing Archaeology in the Near East - The Application of Social Theory to Fieldwork - Ianir Milevski

Framing Archaeology in the Near East - The Application of Social Theory to Fieldwork - Ianir Milevski

Index

Framing Archaeology in the Near East - The Application of Social Theory to Fieldwork - Ianir Milevski

Ianir Milevski [+-]
Israel Antiquities Authority
Ianir Milevski is a Senior Research Archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Corresponding Researcher in the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). He has also been visiting lecturer at several universities in Argentina as part of the “Raíces” program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of that country. Until recently he was Head of the Prehistoric Branch of the IAA. His research focused on the socio-economic processes of the late prehistory of the southern Levant utilizing a historical materialistic viewpoint. In the last few years his main research concentrates on cultural heritage issues, archaeological theory and the art history of the Levantine prehistory and protohistory. He has produced more than 150 articles and chapters in books, and 15 authored and edited volumes.
Thomas E Levy [+-]
University of California, San Diego
Thomas E. Levy is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division, Co-Director of the Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability at the Qualcomm Institute and inaugural holder of the Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands at the University of California, San Diego. With over thirty years of archaeological field experience in Israel and Jordan, Levy’s current research focuses on the Iron Age historical archaeology of Edom in southern Jordan. He is Associate Director of the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3) at UCSD's California Insitute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). Levy is editor of Archaeology, Anthropology and Cult: The Sanctuary at Gilat, Israel (Equinox Publishing, 2006) and co-editor, with Thomas Higham, of The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science (Equinox Publishing, 2005). His most recent book, with his wife Alina and the Sthapathy brothers of Swamimalai is Masters of Fire: Hereditary Bronze Casters of South India (German Mining Museum, 2008). Levy is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Description

This volume presents a series of studies by scholars working in Middle Eastern archaeology who actively apply social theory to interpret their fieldwork. It aims to highlight the value of using social theory in the interpretation of field work in a region where, traditionally, such approaches have not played a major role. There are a number of factors that account for why social theory is often under-exploited by archaeologists in this part of the world. In many countries, where large numbers of the foreign archaeologists are involved, a division between those doing fieldwork and those undertaking archaeological interpretation can easily arise. Or, the lack of interest in social theory may stem from a legacy of positivism that overrides other approaches. There is also the fact that archaeology and anthropology often belong to separate academic departments and are considered two separate disciplines disconnected from each other. In some cases the centrality of historical paradigms has precluded the use of social theory. There are also divisions between universities and other research institutions, such as departments of antiquities, which is not conductive to interdisciplinary cooperation. This factor is especially debilitating in contexts of rapid destruction of sites and the exponential growth of salvage excavations and emergency surveys. The papers integrate a wide range of perspectives including ‘New’ or ‘Processual’ archaeology, Marxist, ‘Post-Processual’, evolutionist, cognitive, symbolic, and Cyber- archaeologies and touch on many topics including 3D representation, GIS, mapping and social theory, semiotics and linguistics, gender and bioarchaeology, social and technical identities, and modern historical modellingy and social practices in Middle Eastern archaeology.

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Citation

Milevski , Ianir ; Levy, Thomas. Index. Framing Archaeology in the Near East - The Application of Social Theory to Fieldwork. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 141-146 Dec 2016. ISBN 9781781796351. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=32612. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.32612. Dec 2016

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