Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Against Typological Tyranny in Archaeology

A South American Perspective

  • Book
  • © 2014

Overview

Editors:
  1. Cristóbal Gnecco

    1. Universidad del Cauca, Popayan, Colombia

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Carl Langebaek

    1. Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Includes case studies from South America and most authors are from South America

  • Departs from traditional metropolitan dominance

  • Important for any decolonial/anticolonial consideration of archaeology

  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Social Complexity in Ancient Amerindian Societies: Perspectives from the Brazilian Lowlands

    • Cristiana Barreto
    Pages 1-23

  3. Blind Men and an Elephant: Exchange Systems and Sociopolitical Organizations in the Orinoco Basin and Neighboring Areas in Pre-Hispanic Times

    • Rafael A. Gassón
    Pages 25-42

  4. Palenques and Palisades: A Revision of Social Complexity Issues in Contact-Period Eastern Venezuela

    • Rodrigo Navarrete
    Pages 43-56

  5. Agricola est quem domus demonstrat

    • Alejandro F. Haber
    Pages 57-73

  6. Social Space and the Archaeology of Inequality: Insights into Social Differences at Ambato Valley, Southern Andes, Argentina

    • Andrés Laguens
    Pages 75-98

  7. Poor Chiefs: Corporate Dimensions of Pre-Inca Society in the Southern Andes

    • Axel E. Nielsen
    Pages 99-120

  8. Against the Domain of Master Narratives: Archaeology and Antarctic History

    • Maria Ximena Senatore, Andrés Zarankin
    Pages 121-132

  9. Testing a Model of Site Location in the Alto Magdalena, Colombia

    • Víctor González Fernández
    Pages 133-151

  10. Children of the Creeks: Cultural Characterization of Nasa Politics

    • Wilhelm Londoño
    Pages 153-163

  11. On Hybrids Recently Unleashed

    • Cristóbal Gnecco
    Pages 165-178

  12. The Role of Place-Making in Chiefdom Societies

    • Hope Henderson
    Pages 179-200

  13. Words, Things and Text: El Infiernito, Archaeology, Documents and Ethnology in the Study of Muisca Society

    • Carl Henrik Langebaek
    Pages 201-230

  14. Back Matter

    Pages 231-236
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

The papers in this book question the tyranny of typological thinking in archaeology through case studies from various South American countries (Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil) and Antarctica. They aim to show that typologies are unavoidable (they are, after all, the way to create networks that give meanings to symbols) but that their tyranny can be overcome if they are used from a critical, heuristic and non-prescriptive stance: critical because the complacent attitude towards their tyranny is replaced by a militant stance against it; heuristic because they are used as means to reach alternative and suggestive interpretations but not as ultimate and definite destinies; and non-prescriptive because instead of using them as threads to follow they are rather used as constitutive parts of more complex and connective fabrics. The papers included in the book are diverse in temporal and locational terms. They cover from so called Formative societies in lowland Venezuela to Inca-related ones in Bolivia; from the coastal shell middens of Brazil to the megalithic sculptors of SW Colombia. Yet, the papers are related. They have in common their shared rejection of established, naturalized typologies that constrain the way archaeologists see, forcing their interpretations into well known and predictable conclusions. Their imaginative interpretative proposals flee from the secure comfort of venerable typologies, many suspicious because of their association with colonial political narratives. Instead, the authors propose novel ways of dealing with archaeological data.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Universidad del Cauca, Popayan, Colombia

    Cristóbal Gnecco

  • Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

    Carl Langebaek

About the editors

Cristobal Gnecco is professor in the Department of Anthropology, Universidad del Cauca (Colombia), where he teaches issues related to the political economy of archaeology, discourses on the other, and geopolitics of knowledge.

Carl Langebaek is professor in the Department of Anthropology, Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), where he teaches archaeology and ethnohistory.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Against Typological Tyranny in Archaeology

  • Book Subtitle: A South American Perspective

  • Editors: Cristóbal Gnecco, Carl Langebaek

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8724-1

  • Publisher: Springer New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4614-8723-4Published: 25 October 2013

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4939-4764-5Published: 23 August 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4614-8724-1Published: 25 October 2013

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVIII, 236

  • Number of Illustrations: 24 b/w illustrations, 6 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, Regional and Cultural Studies

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation