The postprocessual condition

Abstract

Previous evaluations of postprocessual archaeology have regarded it more as a critique of processual archaeology than as a viable research program. Today this statement needs to be modified to account for the diversity of frameworks that have grown up within and adjacent to the early postprocessual formulations. These new approaches include various admixtures of structural Marxism, poststructuralism, critical theory, and feminism. Significant philosophical differences separate some of these positions, but rather than being debilitating, the active exploration of these areas holds out new possibilities and prospects both for linking archaeology more securely to the other social sciences and for making unique contributions to the nature of social theory.