Archaeology at the Heart of a Political Confrontation
@article{Ratnagar2004ArchaeologyAT, title={Archaeology at the Heart of a Political Confrontation}, author={Shereen Ratnagar}, journal={Current Anthropology}, year={2004}, volume={45}, pages={239 - 259} }
Despite its recourse to scientific (laboratory) investigations, archaeology is a social science, researching the cultures of past societies through their material culture residues. No social science proceeds in an ideological vacuum, and historians or geographers who claim not to be theoretical may simply be unaware of the conceptual or ideological underpinnings of the paradigms they use. Being “apolitical,” in turn, often amounts to an acceptance of the status quo. Thus archaeological methods…
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