Archaeologies

Giorgio Buccellati – July 2026

Lato sensu

Thee are different “archaeologies” depending on the epistemic dimension that is privileged. Thus we may look at

the culture from which the evidence originated: Mesopotamian archaeology, industrial archaeology, etc.;
the material data: ceramic archaeology; lithic archaeology, etc.;
the technique that is applied to the data: underwater archaeology, digital archaeology, etc.;
the method: processual archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, etc.;
and more.

Other epistemics

Here, we will distinguish five different ways in which we “know” broken traditions. We “know” these traditions in different ways depending on the approach we use and its formalization. Here is a brief definiton of each “epistemic”; we will describe individually each system in the following pages (see the sidebar to the left).

Outer view: a first look at a site, a standing monument or an object.
Contextual archaeology: we look at the data in terms of how they are tied to place, whether through excavation (discrete elements embedded within an amorphous mass) or not (cultural elements are as seen standing or loose in a context extraneous to their original function).
Constructional analysis: we look at the processes through which elements came into existence as they were originally “constructed”. Here the epistemic dimension emerges from the projected insight into what the dynamics would have been in the planning and executing of what we see as a finished product.
Antiquarian view: monuments and objects are described in terms of purely typological criteria, without reference to their original context.
Socio-cultural development: the material culture we expose carried a specific meaning for the carriers of that socio-cultural tradition, a meaning we seek to appropriate.