Interactions of theory, methodology and practice: Retrospect and commentary

Abstract

The development of regional projects over the last generation has been heavily influenced by changing theoretical agendas. Landscape archaeology had been a growing force since the 1920s, but after the highpoint of the ‘palaeoeconomy movement’ in the 1970s its ecological wing has been unjustly neglected over this period. The New Archaeology of the 60s and 70s injected a fascination with geographical, statistical and sampling approaches that is unlikely to disappear as an essential aspect for the analysis of settlement history. Post-processualism in the 80s and 90s has encouraged renewed interest in what has been termed the ‘culturalist’ perspective – the ways in which people's perceptions of landscape influence their behaviour across it. But it always needs repeating that this derivative movement of post-modernism is only one of several sets of approaches that has emerged since New Archaeology, so I prefer the term post-structuralist for all these ideas of the 80s and 90s: other packages that I have found exciting to read about and try to apply in archaeology include world systems/core periphery theory, the approaches of the French Annales school, and the rapidly-expanding chaos and complexity theory. My current reading of the theoretical scene sees a strong movement away from the rather tedious battle of the ‘isms’ and towards a new eclecticism – this is very much in tune with the current general intellectual trend in the West towards neo-pragmatism. Not to be forgotten finally is the greater involvement of academic regional projects with public archaeology and heritage management, areas of professional archaeology that have probably become the dominant ones over this same time-period. Indeed some regional projects, including my own in Boeotia, Central Greece, see the creation of a regional heritage centre as the logical outcome of what began as an academic research project.