دوفصلنامه تخصصی علمی، فرهنگی و پژوهشی باستان‌پژوه

دوفصلنامه تخصصی علمی، فرهنگی و پژوهشی باستان‌پژوه

Beyond Archaeological Trends: An Epistemological Critique and a Relational Reconfiguration of the Discipline

نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی

نویسنده
امیرعباس خلیل پور
دانش آموخته کارشناسی ارشد باستان‌شناسی، دانشگاه تهران
چکیده
The history of archaeological thought is commonly organized through categories such as “trends,” “schools,” and “paradigms.” Although these categories are useful for describing theoretical developments within the discipline, treating them as fundamental boundaries between distinct forms of archaeological knowledge requires epistemological reconsideration. This paper critically examines the concept of “archaeological trends” and argues that differences among culture-historical, processual, post-processual, and critical approaches do not necessarily constitute separate or mutually exclusive epistemic domains. Without denying their historical and methodological differences, the paper proposes that such approaches can instead be understood as shifts in theoretical emphasis and modes of questioning within a shared material field. A relational perspective is therefore introduced not as another archaeological “trend,” but as a framework for reconsidering theoretical plurality in archaeology through the interrelations among humans, materials, bodies, spaces, memories, and environments. The discussion of politics, embodiment, memory, and consumption further demonstrates that archaeological inquiry is not necessarily defined by a fixed chronological period or thematic specialization. Rather, its archaeological character emerges from the ways in which material traces, contexts, transformations, and relations are investigated and interpreted. The paper ultimately argues that “trend” is more appropriately understood as a historiographical and pedagogical category than as a fundamental basis for defining the nature of archaeology. From this perspective, archaeology is not primarily a collection of competing schools, but a relational mode of seeing, interpreting, and understanding the world through its material traces and relations
کلیدواژه‌ها
Archaeology
Archaeological Theory
Trends
Epistemology
Relational Archaeology

Read the article in the full issue: pp. 221-229

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دوفصلنامه تخصصی علمی، فرهنگی و پژوهشی باستان‌پژوه
دوره 25، شماره 30 - شماره پیاپی 30
سال بیست و چهارم و بیست و پنجم، شماره‌های سوم و چهارم سری جدید، شماره‌های 30 و 31 پیاپی
مهر 1405
صفحه 221-229