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Living artefact, personal ecosystem, biocultural schizophrenia: a novel synthesis of processual and post-processual thinking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Ben Cullen†
Ben Cullen†
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Wales, Lampeter
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Abstract

For well over a decade archaeological theory has been discussed in terms of a number of problematic yet familiar dichotomies. Prominent examples would include the distinction between processualist (scientific) and postprocessualist (post-modernist) thinking, and its concomitant distinctions of biology versus culture, Positivism versus Relativism, and Realism versus Idealism. This paper outlines a novel framework (Cultural Virus Theory) which crosscuts these familiar dichotomies, while also suggesting new explanatory possibilities. Recent convergent trends in archaeological theory are summarised. Some of the basic principles of the theory are defined. It is argued that ideas, rituals, and artefact production systems are culturally reproduced life-forms (‘viral phenomena’ or ‘living artefacts’); that people are therefore biocultural ecosystems of more than one lifeform (‘personal ecosystems’); and that the internal constituent life-forms of personal ecosystems may be found in both symbiotic, and parasitic or predatory relationships, just as are those of larger ecosystems. Human actions, therefore, cannot be approached as if they constitute the behaviour of a single united organism; as ecosystems, people are often subject to internal adaptive conflict and are, in short, ‘biocultural schizophrenics’. Lastly, the anatomy of the synthesis is briefly discussed with reference to first post-processual, and then processual approaches to the familiar ‘megalith icon’ of monuments and their associated rituals — termed ‘megalithic religions’ for convenience — in Neolithic north-west Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 61 , 1995 , pp. 371 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1995

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References

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