Non-anglophone Ethnoarchaeologies in the Past and Today: An Introduction

Abstract

Ethnoarchaeology is a mature and well-established discipline with a long and rich history. Its importance is founded on the recognition of the enormous distances between patterns of reasoning that prevail in the contemporary West and those found in certain non-Western societies in the present. This makes it possible to understand (or at least imagine) the distance between the Western present and its prehistoric past. Ethnoarchaeology thus offers us a conceptual framework of enormous potential for understanding prehistoric cultures. It is not a case of comparing cultures but of understanding other orders of thought, other forms of personal and cultural identity, to which, arguably, premodern archaeological sites attest.