Archaeologia Polona

Theorizing archaeological practice. An outline

Arkadiusz Marciniak

The paper aims to outline the most crucial elements of archaeological practice in the period of disappearance of monolithic research agendas in prehistoric archaeology. They need to be identified and conceptualized in a highly heterogeneous and idiosyncratic process of collating/combining the entire heuristic potential of individual elements of material culture that constitute an assemblage. In particular, the nature of reasoning processes and strategies of justification is debated to provide the foundations of archaeology as a rigorous discipline able to produce convincing accounts of the past.

Keywords: archaeological practice, assemblage, justification, material culture, reasoning

Language: English