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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
Joukowsky_Institute@brown.edu
Posted at Mar 06/2011 10:51PM:
Aniqa:
Hawkes claimed that while drawing physical and subsistence-related conclusions from artifacts is easy, it is much harder drawing inferences about a society's social/political and religious institutions. This fit with the claim that some archaeologists made that socially-influenced writings barely touched on production or technology and that this was archaeology’s "niche".
The "rungs" of the ladder are: inferences about production techniques, subsistence of economies, social/political institutions, and religious institutions.
The Ladder is significant because it is characteristic of the way the role of artifacts has been traditionally viewed- they are supplementary in terms of value and can only be used to shed light on basic physical information. Moreland critiques this model and claims that if objects are studied within the right context and attributed with the same efficacy they had in the past, they can be just as useful as text and can illuminate information about both "peasants" and elites in society.
Posted at Mar 10/2011 06:45PM:
bmb: https://beastrabban.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/archaeologys-rediscovery-of-religion/
This was a conceptual ladder which ranked the inferences that could be made about a past society from its archaeological evidence according to the ease with which such inferences could be made. At the bottom rung – the easiest level of inference – was technical processes. Next up were ‘subsistence economics’, then social and political institutions. On the top rung, representing the most difficult level of interpretation, was ‘religious institutions and spiritual life’. Hawkes’ diagram of the levels of difficulty in interpreting the archaeological evidence, although categorising religion as the most difficult societal process to interpret, nevertheless showed that it was possible and made the archaeological investigation of religion more respectable.
Posted at Mar 10/2011 07:48PM:
ian: Awesome