3 Structuralist, post-structuralist and semiotic archaeologies

  
Functionalism 
Structuralism
There are many close similarities between systems analysis and structuralism:
(1) Both are concerned with ‘systemness’. The emphasis is on inter-relationships between entities. The aim of both systems and structuralist analysis is to provide some organization which will allow us to fit all the parts into a coherent whole. In both systems and structuralist analysis it is the relationship between parts that is more important. 
(2) Both involve rigorous analysis of observable data. 
The type of structuralism 
Formal analysis and generative grammars
结构语言学家 索绪尔Saussure（瑞士）认为 The sign itself is seen as arbitrary and conventional. In other words any symbol could be used to signify a chief; there is no necessary relationship between the signifier and the signified (chiefness). So Saussure’s analysis of meaning concentrated on structured sets of differences. Analysis is of form not content. (p47)
形式分析formal analysis最好的例子在Washborn：concerntrated on the way symmetry rules
对称法则？？can be identified and compared within and between cultures. (Eg. Pottery designs can produce classification based on the way the motifs are organized in symmetrical relationships. Ethnographic research has shown that design content is not a good indicator of group affiliation. Design construe is thought to be a more stable measure of cultural groupings. ) (p47~48)
Symmetry analysis is non-generative.不可衍生的（理解为：不是广泛适用的） (p48)
·Hodder基于对努比葫芦装饰的研究提出一种generative grammar p49.即对陶器图案构成变化的组成分析，但没有涉及到纹样意义的解读，仅仅停留在形式分析中。作者认为这实际上有涉及到意义的解读：the symmetrical analysis is a description within a set of interpretive decisions. To perceive a mark on a pot as ‘a unit of analysis’, or as a ‘design motif’, is to give meaning to that mark, to interpret its content, to try to see the design as prehistoric people saw it. （指出形式分析中辨别出“装饰母题、装饰组合”的重要性。）
Design structure may have different meanings in different cultural contexts. --- need a scientific analysis needs to examine the symbolic meanings which mediate between structure (of design) and social function.
Structuralist analysis
Strucuralist analysis: means when we consider whether the symmetries in the pottery decoration are transformations of those in the organization of settlement space, or in burial practices, and when we relate such structures to abstract structures in the mind. 
Without some notion of the meaning content of decorative or spatial elements, it is difficult to see how the structures of signification can be interpreted in relation to other aspects of life. But how?
General limitations of the structuralist approach(p57)
作者认为要想了解旧石器时代岩画就需要去了解更多的其他地区旧石器文化的信息，去了解 social geography and the historical contexts (p57)
To interpret meaning contents one has to be willing to make abstractions from associations and contrasts in the archaeological record. This can be done with greater care and rigor where there is more associational information in different types of data.(associational, contextual analysis, in which meanings are assigned and links are make between structures occurring in different activities.) (p57)
In the central European Neolithic there is a shift through time from the deposition of refuse in pits along the sides of houses to discard away from houses towards the edges of the settlements. The deposition of ‘dirt’ marks salient重要的 social and cultural boundaries between clean and dirty, culture and nature, us and them. The change in discard behavior in the European Neolithic is associated with the increased definition of group boundaries beyond the household level. It seems that as larger groups were increasingly well demarcated定界限, so refuse ‘dirt’, initially used to mark the boundaries around the house, was used to help define larger entities. (p59)
Critique
Objects and their meanings are more susceptible to control by certain factions of society.
In seeking the relationships between structure and action, structuralism plays a necessary but insufficient role. Structures are the media for action in the world, but actions such as control and manipulation can effectively change those structures by altering meaning. (p61)【结构是行为的媒介，但是类似于控制和操控器物的，是可以通过改变器物意义来改变结构的。？？】
Critique: (p61~63) ----- 源于lack of agency, ahistoric tendencies.
(1) In much structuralist archaeology the rules appears to make up a set of shared norms. 将一切归为相同的范式
(2) Structuralism is ahistorical非历史的 in three senses. 1. 结合结构语言学家（索绪尔）的方法强调了标志的随意性，缺少历史语境对“标志”的意义限定；2.对特定“标志”的解读脱离具体的历史的地理语境；3. It is unclear how structural changes occur. This problem again results from the inadequate linkage between structure and process and from the minimal role given to the active individual in the creation of structures. 
The semiotics of Charles Peirce represents a fruitful approach in archaeology because of its ability to incorporate material cultural and agency.
(p63~64) In Peirce’s approach, signs can be both arbitrary (symbols) and non-arbitrary (icons and indexes). Icons show a formal relation to that which is being signified, in the sense of a drawing a pot referring to an actual pot. Indexes have an existential relation to their referent: for example, a crust of grime on the wall of an empty bathtub is an index of the level of the bathwater. 
Preucel and Bauer illustrate the archaeological applicability of these three types of signs (index, icon, symbol) in a hypothetical discussion of a jade axe in a burial.【玉斧的案例分析：index---玉斧可能是玉斧发现地和玉料产地之间跨区域贸易的体现；也可以是特殊时空语境的体现，可以以此参考墓主人的身体和其他后代; icon--- 是同一地区使用玉斧的标志；身份的标志】
(p64) semiotics is pragmatic in the sense that it stress the connectedness of people and contexts, needs and results. 
Not all material culture behaves as a sign. Objects may have their own life or may be inseparable from a subject’s sense of self.   
Post-structuralism
Post-structural approaches to archaeology attempt to identify and decenter the structure of archaeological practice and to create less absolute, less totalized ways of interacting with the past.
Verification
Structuralist analysis proceeds by the principles that involve interpreting the real world in the process of observation, and then fitting one’s theories to these observations in order to make a plausible, accommodative argument – claims to do anything else are illusory. (p69)
It is important to recognize that the structures need not be universal, and their proposed universality should not be a major part of the validation procedure. Part of the validation of structuralist analyses in archaeology must therefore concern the abstraction of particular meanings related to the structures. (p70)
As archaeologists, we may take depositional and post-depositional (埋藏时和埋藏后) factors into account and still find functional associations between objects on our sites. Such functional linkages play a part in the meanings assigned to objects--- part of the symbolic and cognitive significance of objects derives from their use. (p71)
Plausible structuralist arguments can be made by showing that the structures account for much, and many different categories of data. It is also necessary to ground the structures in their meaning content and in their context of use. (p72)
Conclusion: the importance of structuralist archaeology
Structuralism contributes to archaeology, of whatever character, the notion of transformation. Faris(1983): Material culture does not represent social relations --- rather it represents a way of viewing social relations. From work on artifact discard showing that notions of ‘dirt’ intervene between residues and societies, to work showing that burial is a conceptual transformation of society, the structuralist contribution is clear. The rules of transformation can be approached through systemic analysis. (p73)
Different spheres of material culture and of human activity (burial, settlement, art, exchange) may be transformations of the same underlying schemes, or may be transformations of each other. Rather than seeing each domain as a separate sub-system, each can be related to the other as different outward manifestations of the same practices. (pp73~74)