Critique - notes Ch.4

Giorgio Buccellati, A Critique of Archaeological Reason
Notes to Chapter 4. The search for objectivity

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4.1 Objectivity as calibration of perception
4.2 The record: stratification and stratigraphy
4.3 The objectivity of grammar
4.4 Emplacement and deposition: a basic antinomy
4.5 Operational aspects of stratigraphic analysis
4.6 Observation as the foundation of objectivity
      4.6.1 Primacy of atomistic observations
      4.6.2 Irreplaceability and explicitness of original observations
      4.6.3 Precision and accuracy
      4.6.4 The merit of minimalism
4.7 The nature of strategy
      4.7.1 The fluidity of observation
      4.7.2 Strategy and tactics

4.1 Objectivity as calibration of perception

For the history and objectivity of science, see e.g. Kuhn 1962. Indeed this is remarkable piece of work that left a great mark in the scientific environment of its era. It must be stressed however that Kuhn relies on an immense amount of narrative information lacking largely other types of illustrations which would make the reading and understanding increasingly easier. Attention is constantly given to natural science and the many achievements of this field. Science in itself is viewed within the constraints of the tested result at a time. This emphasis is rather hard to adapt to that degree of ambiguity that both humanities and social sciences impose. An additional matter regards the concept of revolution. It remains rather unclear why the gradual progress and development is science is seen as a revolutionary process. [Esmeralda Agolli, July 2014]
For application of hermeneutics in archaeology, see e.g. Johnsen and Olsen 1992.
Focault's archaeology on knowledge, see e.g. Foucault 1972
A parable for the archaeology of the 1980's see e.g. Flannery 1982, Renfrew 1980 The Great Tradition and the Great Divide
Binford 2001 How to create the research query, the importance of the subject matter. [Esmeralda Agolli, September 2014]
An overview on the analogical inference, its scientific and objective usage to archaeology see e.g. Wylie 1995
Childe 1946: A sucessful marriage between Archaeology and Anthropology mixed with some Marxist salience.
Read and LeBlanc 1978: How to achieve scientific results on deductive and inductive level.
Trigger 1984 Exterior factors in Archaeology.
For the blurring of the subject-object opposition in excavation, see Yarrow 2003 [Laerke Recht, September 2014].
See Lucas 2001a for discussion on the detrimental effect of a rhetoric of destruction in archaeological discourse [Laerke Recht, September 2014].
Note here the difference between stratigraphy and seriation as methods of measuring time: seriation is a procedure that can be replicated, whereas stratigraphic excavation is not O'Brien and Lyman 2002. [Laerke Recht, October 2015]
Arguing for the possibility of objectivity, if understood correctly, see O'Meara 2001. [Laerke Recht, April 2016]
Observers relating to data, e.g. Gero 1996; Shanks & Tilley 1992. [Laerke Recht, July 2016]

4.2 The record: stratification and stratigraphy

Compare stratification to superposition in O'Brien and Lyman 2002. [Laerke Recht, October 2015]
Stratification and stratigraphy, Eggert 2001; Harris 1975, Harris 1989. [Laerke Recht, July 2016]
Cf. McAnany & Hodder 2009; Schiffer 1987. [Laerke Recht, August 2016]