Relational Typologies, Assemblage Theory and Early Bronze Age Burials

Bibliographic Data

ID6044804
AuthorsChris Fowler (0000-0003-3794-9298, Newcastle University, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume27
Issue1
Pages95-109
Publication date2017-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCambridge Archaeological Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0959-7743 • E-ISSN: 1474-0540
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0959774316000615
OpenAlexW2574565517
LanguageEN
Citations received50

This article argues that artefact types and typologies are kinds of assemblages, presenting an explicitly relational interpretation of typology grounded in a more-than-representational assemblage theory. In the process it evaluates recent approaches to typology, and the interpretations these typologies have supported, and compares these with approaches which emphasize materiality and experience. It then illustrates the benefit of drawing these two angles of analysis closer together within an approach grounded in a more-than-representational assemblage theory. Throughout, the discussion revolves around British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burials and types of artefacts commonly found within them. The core argument is that, if used appropriately, typologies are not constraints to the appreciation of distinctiveness, difference and relationality in the past, but can rather form an important tool in detecting those relations and making sense of different past ways of becoming

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Argument (complex analysis · Art · Assemblage (archaeology · Bronze Age · Epistemology · Grounded theory · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Materiality (auditing · Optimal distinctiveness theory · Qualitative research · Sociology · Typology · Anthropology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · History · Philosophy · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Psychology · Social Psychology

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