Book Review: V. Oliveira Jorge and J. Thomas, eds, Overcoming the Modern Invention of Material Culture. (Porto: ADECAP, Journal of Iberian Archaeology 910, 2006—2007, Special Issue)
Abstract
Book ReviewV. Oliveira Jorge and J. Thomas, eds, Overcoming the Modern Invention of Material Culture. (Porto: ADECAP, Journal of Iberian Archaeology 9[10], 2006—2007, Special Issue) SAGE Publications, Inc.2007DOI: 10.1177/14619571070100020705 MarisaLazzari Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, UK This volume addresses the long overdue ques- tion of the dualism underlying the expression 'material culture', a concept that has domi- nated much of archaeological research over the last decades, while coming to designate a new field of interdisciplinary academic inquiry. The editors duly introduce the vol- ume by addressing the fact that words are never innocent. The words we choose engen- der social categories and taxonomies, therefore discussing and revising conceptual labels are never self-indulgent intellectual exercises but a constitutive aspect of any research agenda. Collected here are the presentations given at the 2006 TAG meeting in Exeter. An article by Ingold (2007), who was also the discussant, was pre-circulated among the participants. This enabled the authors to engage more thor- oughly with Ingold's critique of the distinction between a 'material' and a 'cultural' order implied in the term, and the seemingly spuri- ous attempts to overcome it that are concealed in the now increasingly popular term 'materi- ality' as