Archaeology Experiences Spirituality?

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4438-3368-4
Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 225 Seiten

This book’s aim is to go beyond the limits of the contemporary scientific paradigm of “material culture” by presenting some of the issues confronting archaeology, as it attempts to approach the spirituality of the past.

It brings together archaeologists from Western and Eastern Europe, and the USA who, more or less obviously, have used their experientiality to approach the world view and mystic experience of ancient peoples.

The book intends to present several arguments in support of an archaeology of spirituality through a series of seven case studies.

What method should we use to approach spirituality? Are we still dependent on quantitative methods? Is phenomenology an appropriate instrument? Can experientiality approach a spiritual experience? Is the emic approach efficient enough to approach the spiritual side of a studied phenomenon? Are the analogous ethnographic models suitable instruments for this task? How much of the spirituality of the past is still accessible today? Could we build artificial contexts that would allow the recreation of the phenomenological condition analogous to the originals?

Archaeology Experiences Spirituality? goes beyond the archaeological study of material culture, offering a fascinating lecture for the reader of the twenty-first century.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gheorghiu, Dragos

Über Autor(innen)

Gheorghiu, Dragos
Professor Dragos Gheorghiu is an anthropologist and experimental archeologist whose studies focus on the process of cognition and material culture, of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies of South Eastern Europe. His most recent research is concerned with the reconstruction at large scale of prehistoric contexts and their analysis. He is the author, editor and co-editor of multiple books on archaic technologies and semiotics of material culture, and has a sustained publication activity on prehistoric Europe.

Professor Dragos Gheorghiu is an anthropologist and experimental archeologist whose studies focus on the process of cognition and material culture, of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies of South Eastern Europe. His most recent research is concerned with the reconstruction at large scale of prehistoric contexts and their analysis. He is the author, editor and co-editor of multiple books on archaic technologies and semiotics of material culture, and has a sustained publication activity on prehistoric Europe.