Entangled : an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things / Ian Hodder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hodder, Ian.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Material culture.

Social archaeology.

Physical Description:

xi, 252 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell, [2012]

Summary:

There has been a much-charted journey of the social sciences and humanities into the study of material culture in recent decades. In general, these narratives continue a mostly human-centered perspective on history and so have missed the importance of the ways in which material things draw us in, direct and define us.

In his new book, influential archaeologist Ian Hodder discusses our human "entanglements" with material things, and how archaeological evidence can help us to understand the direction of human social and technological change.

Using examples drawn from the early farming villages of the Middle East as well as from our daily lives in the modern world, Hodder shows how things can and do entrap humans and societies info the maintenance and sustaining of material worlds. The earliest agricultural innovations, the phenomena of population increase, settlement stability, domestication of plants and animals can all be seen as elaborations of a general process by which humans were drawn into the lives of things.

Using ideas from archaeology and related disciplines and engaging with evolutionary theories, Hodder shows how the co-dependencies of humans and things are the hidden drivers of human progress. Book jacket.

Contents:

Thinking about things differently

Humans depend on things

Things depend on other things

Things depend on humans

Entanglement

Fittingness

The evolution and persistence of things

Things happen-

Tracing the threads

Conclusions.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780470672112

0470672110

9780470672129

0470672129

OCLC:

758385613