Entangled
An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things
Published on 19. March 2012
264 pages
978-1-118-24189-9 (ISBN)
Description
A powerful and innovative argument that explores the complexity ofthe human relationship with material things, demonstrating howhumans and societies are entrapped into the maintenance andsustaining of material worlds
* Argues that the interrelationship of humans and things is adefining characteristic of human history and culture
* Offers a nuanced argument that values the physical processes ofthings without succumbing to materialism
* Discusses historical and modern examples, using evolutionarytheory to show how long-standing entanglements are irreversible andincrease in scale and complexity over time
* Integrates aspects of a diverse array of contemporary theoriesin archaeology and related natural and biological sciences
* Provides a critical review of many of the key contemporaryperspectives from materiality, material culture studies andphenomenology to evolutionary theory, behavioral archaeology,cognitive archaeology, human behavioral ecology, Actor NetworkTheory and complexity theory
Reviews / Votes
"Entangledmay be Ian Hodder's most theoreticallyecumenical book to date. The discussion of the various currentapproaches being used in archaeology, anthropology, and many otherdisciplines makes this an extremely valuable work . . ."Hodder has written a tremendously useful addition to theliterature on the relationship of people and things that deservesclose reading." (Current Anthropology, 1 August2013) "Ian Hodder has written an extremely interesting,rigorously argued and intellectually adventurous book about thenature of things. . . Readers working across the social sciencesand humanities, and particularly those working at the intersectionof the physical and human sciences, will find the messy openness ofHodder's book vibrant and compelling." (Critical Quarterly, 2 July 2013) "Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students,faculty, professionals." (Choice, 1 May2013)"The quantity and diversity of Hodder's readings are simplyastonishing. His new conception of material entanglements is goingto change the way archaeologists understand theirfield." - Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan "Entangled is nothing less than a reframing ofarchaeological enquiry into things. It is a fundamental,first-principles rethinking of how archaeologists should understandthe world around them." - Matthew H. Johnson, Northwestern University "This book is a provocative and exciting contribution toarchaeological theory and beyond. Its central thesis is thatentanglement is both a condition of being in the world and aprocess of linking entities together in networks orassemblages. In charting a course across material, social,and evolutionary domains, it provides a novel way of bridging theGreat Divide between the social and natural sciences." - Bob Preucel, University of PennsylvaniaMore details
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04/2012
Wiley
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04/2012
Wiley
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Person
Ian Hodder is Dunlevie Family Professor in the Department ofAnthropology at Stanford University. Previously he was Professor ofArchaeology at Cambridge. His main large-scale excavation projectshave been at Haddenham in the east of England and atÇatalhöyük in Turkey. He has been awarded severalawards and honorary degrees. His books include TheLeopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries ofÇatalhöyük, The Archaeological Process(Blackwell), The Domestication of Europe (Blackwell),Symbols in Action and Reading the Past.
Content
Epigraph ix
List of Figures x
Acknowledgments xii
1 Thinking About Things Differently 1
Approaches to Things 1
Themes About Things 3
Things are Not Isolated 3
Things are Not Inert 4
Things Endure over Different Temporalities 5
Things Often Appear as Non-things 5
The Forgetness of Things 6
What Is a Thing? 7
Humans and Things 9
Knowing Things 10
Conclusion: The Objectness of Things 13
2 Humans Depend on Things 15
Dependence: Some Introductory Concepts 17
Forms of Dependence 17
Reflective and Non-reflective Relationships with Things 18
Going Towards and Away From Things 21
Identification and Ownership 23
Approaches to the Human Dependence On Things 27
Being There with Things 27
Material Culture and Materiality 30
Cognition and the Extended Mind 34
Conclusion: Things R Us 38
3 Things Depend on Other Things 40
Forms of Connection between Things 42
Production and Reproduction 42
Exchange 43
Use 43
Consumption 43
Discard 43
Post-deposition 44
Affordances 48
From Affordance to Dependence 51
The French School - Operational Chains 52
Behavioral Chains 54
Conclusion 58
4 Things Depend on Humans 64
Things Fall Apart 68
Behavioral Archaeology and Material Behavior 70
Behavioral Ecology 74
Human Behavioral Ecology 80
The Temporalities of Things 84
Conclusion: The Unruliness of Things 85
5 Entanglement 88
Other Approaches 89
Latour and Actor Network Theory 91
The Archaeology of Entanglement 94
The Physical Processes of Things 95
Temporalities 98
Forgetness 101
The Tautness of Entanglements 103
Types and Degrees of Entanglement 105
Cores and Peripheries of Entanglements 108
Contingency 109
Conclusion 111
6 Fittingness 113
Nested Fittingness 114
Return to Affordance 115
Coherence: Abstraction, Metaphor, Mimesis and Resonance 119
Abstraction, Metaphor and Mimesis 120
Synaesthesia 124
Resonance 125
Coherence and Resonance at Çatalhöyük 132
Conclusion 135
7 The Evolution and Persistence of Things 138
Evolutionary Approaches 139
Evolutionary Ecology (HBE) 141
Evolutionary Archaeology 142
Dual Inheritance Theory 144
Evolution and Entanglement 147
Niche Construction 149
Evolution at Çatalhöyük 151
Conclusion 156
8 Things happen ... 158
The Complexity of Entanglements 159
Open, Complex and Discontinuous Entanglements 159
Unruly Things: Contingency 159
Conjunction of Temporalities 160
Catalysis: Small Things and the Emergence of Big Effects 163
Is there a Directionality to Entanglements? 167
Some Neolithic Examples 171
Macro-evolutionary Approaches 173
Why Do Entanglements Increase the Rate of Change? 174
Conclusion 177
9 Tracing the Threads 179
Tanglegrams 180
Locating Entanglements 185
Sequencing Entanglements - at Çatalhöyük189
Sequencing Entanglements - the Origins of Agriculture
in the Middle East 195
Causality and Directionality 200
Conclusion 204
10 Conclusions 206
The Object Nature of Things 207
Too Much Stuff ? 210
Temporality and Structure 212
Power and Agency 213
To and from Formulaic Reduction 216
Things Again 218
Some Ethical Considerations 220
The Last Thing on my Mind 221
Bibliography 223
Index 245
