Behavior and practice in archaeology: a realist view

AXEL E. NIELSEN

Explorations in Behavioral Archaeology

University of Utah Press

Lugar: Salt Lake City; Año: 2015; p. 170 - 186

In this paper I report on some of my own efforts at developing such a ?hybrid conceptual toolkit,? integrating what I see as valuable and potentially compatible contributions of Behavioral Archaeology and Practice and Agency theories (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1984; Sahlins 1981), and of other programmes that I see as corollaries of the latter, like Material Culture studies (Miller 1998; Tilley et al. 2006) and a new pragmatism that finds its roots in Peircean semiotics (Gell 1998; Hookwell 2013; Keane 2005; Parmentier 1994). I focus on the implications of taking into account agency ?therefore, intentional and accountable action? as an essential faculty of humans. Building on this idea, I discuss the possibilities of integrating tools from BA and PT to explore practical webs of meaning and senses of agency implied by past artifacts and activities.