Dating and Cultural Processes: Interpretative Potential and Scientificity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v18i3.1Keywords:
absolute dating, relative dating, typology, cultural processes, interpretationAbstract
Since the beginning of archaeology as a discipline, the control of time, or in other words the placement of specific phenomena in a certain time frame has represented the basis of all research. Despite criticism of the concept of time in archaeology as limitedand linear, it is still prevalent. Absolute dating methods, as they are becoming more precise and available, are being widely used to thepoint that, no matter the subject matter, there are practically no scholarly articles that do not present in detail the results of dating multiplesets of samples. Simultaneously, methods of relative dating are not losing significance, so typology still represent the mainmethodological procedure with which archaeological finds are culturally and chronologically identified. On the other hand, however,scientific questions of the past are becoming more complicated. Numerous processes (which can either be long-lasting or relatively short episodes) are inextricably linked with dating, but it is not always clear how it contributes to the complete understanding of saidprocesses. This is where processes of technological innovation and of cultural transmission, which, in addition to temporally, can be spatially limited, come to light. This is why it is important to question the nearlyuniversally received stance, according to which dating methods have interpretative potential and, relating to that, whether they are always crucial for understanding the mechanisms of cul- tural processes. In other words, do the results of dating represent an illusion of scientificity as a substitute for weakness in interpretation.
Downloads
References
Arnold, Dean. 1985. Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bajčev, Olga. 2019. Slikana grnčarija ranog i srednjeg neolita centralnog Balkana: između stila i prakse. Nepublikovana doktorska disertacija. Beograd: Filozofski fakultet.
Bogdanović, Milenko. 2004. “Keramičko posuđe”. In Grivac: naselja protostarčevačke i vinčanske kulture, urednik Milenko Bogdanović, 47–126. Kragujevac: Centar za naučna istraživanja Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti, Univerzitet u Kragujevcu, Narodni muzej u Kragujevcu.
David, Nicolas. 1972. On the Life Span of Pottery, Type Frequencies and Archaeologi- cal Inference. American Antiquity 37(1): 141–142.
Deal, Michael. 1998. Pottery Ethnoarchaeology in the Central Maya Highlands. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.
DeBoer, Warren E. 1974. Ceramic Longevity and Archaeological Interpretation: An Example from Upper Ucayali, Peru. American Antiquity 39 (2): 335–343.
Dimitrijević, Stojan. 1974. Problem stupnjevanja starčevačke kulture s posebnim obzirom na doprinos južnopanonskih nalazišta rešavanju ovih problema. Materijali X, 59–122.
Garašanin, Milutin. 1973. Praistorija na tlu SR Srbije. Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga.
Garašanin, Milutin. 1979. “Centralnobalkanska zona”. U Praistorija jugoslavenskih zemalja II, urednik Alojz Benac, 79–212. Sarajevo: Svijetlost i Akademija nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine.
Jovanović, Jelena, Tamara Blagojević, Jelena Marković, Mario Novak, Željka Bedić, Goce Naumov, Elena Stojanova Kanzurova, Dženi Los, Mirela Hutinec, Ljubo Fi- danoski, Goran Skelac, Mario Šlaus, and Sofija Stefanović. 2021. New radiocarbon dates, stable isotope, and anthropological analysis of prehistoric human bones from the Balkans and Southwestern Carpathian Basin. Documenta Praehistorica XLVIII: 224–251. doi: 10.4312dp.48.18.
Kopytoff, I. 2000. The Cultural biography of things: Commodization as a process. In Interpretive Archaeology, edited by Julian. Thomas, 377–397. London and New York: Leicester University Press.
Kristiansen, Kristian. 2014. Towards a New Paradigm? The Third Science Revolution and its Possible Consequences in Archaeology. Current Swedish Archaeology 22, 11–71.
Lucas, Gavin. 2005. The Archaeology of Time. London: Routledge.
Manning, Sturt W. 2014. “Radiocarbon dating and archaeology: history, progress, and present status”. In Material Evidence: Learning from Archaeological Practice, edited by Robert Chapman and Alison Wylie, 128–158. London: Routledge.
Miller, Heather M. L. 2020. “Technological innovation. Defining terms and examining process through the talc-faience complex in the Indus Civilization”. In Detecting and Explaining Technological Innovation in Prehistory, edited by Michela Spataro and Martin Furholt, 218–229. Leiden: Sidestone Press.
Neff, Hector. 1992. “Ceramics and evolution.” In Archaeological method and theory, vol. 4, edited by Michael B. Schiffer, 141–193. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Palavestra, Aleksandar. 2011. Kulturni konteksti arheologije. Beograd: Filozofski fakultet.
Pollard, Mark and Peter Bray. 2014. “The Archaeological Bazzar. Scientific methods for sale? Or: ‘putting the “arch-” back into archaeometry’.” In Material Evidence: Learning from Archaeological Practice, edited by Robert Chapman and Alison Wylie, 113–127. London: Routledge.
Porčić, Marko. 2020. Observations on the origin and demography of the Vinča culture. Quaternary International 560–561, 57–64.
Rice, Prudence M. 1987. Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Schiffer, Michael B. 1972. Archaeological context and systemic context. American Antiquity 37(2): 156–65.
Schiffer, Michael B. 1987. Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Schiffer, Michael B. 2010. „Can Archaeologists Study Processes of Invention?“ In Innovation in Cultural Systems: Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology, edited by Michael J. O’Brien and Stephen J. Shennan, 235–249. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Senior, Louise M. 1995. “The Estimation of Prehistoric Values: Cracked Pot Ideas in Archaeology”. In Expanding Archaeology, edited by James M. Skibo, William H. Walker and Axel E Nielsen, 92–110. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Tasić, Nenad N. 2008. Neolitska kvadratura kruga. Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike.
Tasić, Nenad, Miroslav Marić, Kristina Penezić, Dragana Filipović, Ksenija Borojević, Nicola Russell, Paul Reimer, Alistair Barclay, Alex Bayliss, Dušan Borić, Bisserka Gaydarska, and Alasdair Whittle. 2015. The end of the affair: formal chronological modelling for the top of the Neolithic tell of Vinča–Belo Brdo. Antiquity 89 (347): 1064–1082.
Tasić, Nenad, Miroslav Marić, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Bernd Kromer, Alistair Barclay, Alex Bayliss, Nancy Beavan, Bisserka Gaydarska, and Alasdair Whittle. 2016. Vinča–Belo Brdo, Serbia: The times of a tell. Germania 93 (1–2): 1–75.
Vuković, Jasna 2015. Secondary Use, Reuse and Recycling of Ceramic Vessels: Eviden- ce from Late Neolithic Vinča, Arhaika 3, 111–126.
Vuković, Jasna. 2015. Izgubljeni u tranziciji: problem prelaza ranog/srednjeg u kasni neolit centralnog Balkana u jugoslovenskoj/srpskoj arheologiji druge polovine XX veka. Etnoantropološki problemi 10(3): 652–673. https://doi.org/10.21301/EAP.v10i3.5
Vuković, Jasna. 2019. Vinčanske trobojne posude sa lokaliteta Pavlovac–Čukar: tehnologija izrade i funkcija. Zbornik Narodnog muzeja XXIV/1, 31–47.
Vuković, Jasna. 2021. “The Neolithic Transition Crisis: Technological Hybridization as a Consequence of Stress”. In Archaeology of Crisis, edited by Staša Babić, 63–74. Belgrade: Faculty of Philosophy.
Vuković, Jasna. u pripremi Red vs. Black: Artisans’ Skill and Innovation in the Early Neolithic, Insights from Pavlovac–Čukar (Southern Serbia) Painted Pottery.
Whallon, Robert Jr. 1972. A New Approach to Pottery Typology. American Antiquity 37(1): 13–33.
Wheat, Joe B., James C. Gifford, and William W. Wasley. 1958. Ceramic Variety, Type Cluster, and Ceramic System in Southwestern Pottery Analysis. American Antiquity 24 (1): 34–47.
Whittle, Alasdair, Alex Bayliss, Alistair Barclay, Bisserka Gaydarska, Eszter Banffy, Dušan Borić, Florin Draşovean, János Jakucs, Miroslav Marić, David Orton, Ivana Pantović, Wolfram Schier, Nenad Tasić, and Marc M. Vander Linden. 2016. A Vinča potscape: formal chronological models for the use and development of Vinča ceramics in south-east Europe. Documenta Praehistorica XLIII: 1–60. doi: 10.4312dp.43.1.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
ERIH PLUS - European Reference Index for the Humanities
World Cat
AnthroSerbia
