Archaeological typology and practical reality: a dialectical approach to artifact classification and sorting

Classifications are central to archaeology. Yet the theoretical literature on the subject, both in archaeology and the philosophy of science, bears very little relationship to what actually occurs in practice. This problem has long interested William Adams, a field archaeologist, and Ernest Adams, a...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Beteilige Person: Adams, William Yewdale 1927-2019 (VerfasserIn)
Format: Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1991
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Links:https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511558207
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511558207
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511558207
Zusammenfassung:Classifications are central to archaeology. Yet the theoretical literature on the subject, both in archaeology and the philosophy of science, bears very little relationship to what actually occurs in practice. This problem has long interested William Adams, a field archaeologist, and Ernest Adams, a philosopher of science, who describe their book as an ethnography of archaeological classification. It is a study of the various ways in which field archaeologists set about making and using classifications to meet a variety of practical needs. The authors first discuss how humans form concepts. They then describe and analyse in detail a specific example of an archaeological classification, and go on to consider what theoretical generalizations can be derived from the study of actual in-use classifications. Throughout the book, they stress the importance of having a clearly defined purpose and practical procedures when developing and applying classifications
Beschreibung:Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015)
Umfang:1 online resource (xxiii, 427 pages)
ISBN:9780511558207
DOI:10.1017/CBO9780511558207