| Abstract: |
A consideration of material culture style has been a part of archaeology almost from the beginning. However, only in the past few decades have many archaeologists begun to question and discuss explicitly what style is and how it can be used [summaries of these trends can be found in a recent review in this series (99) and elsewhere (16, 36a)]. Recent examinations of style by archaeologists (17:1) and by an art historian (117:253) both cite Gadamers (36:466) statement that the notion of style is one of the undiscussed self-evident concepts upon which our historical consciousness is based. These researchers then go on to argue that archaeologists no longer share a united approach to style. Various kinds of style have been defined (e.g. 135, 112-114), and it sometimes appears that archaeologists have as many approaches to style as we have works on the topic. In reviewing the literature, however, I found that despite different labels, archaeologists generally agree on what is meant by style and are able to launch profitable discussions of stylistic variation (e.g. 99) or of particular styles (e.g. 42) without lengthy preamble. Archaeologists have a common ground for considering style, though it is manifested in various definitions. At the core of the definitions used by a number of archaeologists with very different theoretical perspectives are two basic tenets. First, style is a way of doing something (e.g. 66, 112, 139), and second, style involves a choice among various alternatives (20:365
47:591
112). If archaeologists can agree on so basic an issue, then why the debate? Why another review of style and archaeology fewer than ten years after the last (99)? Why so many books on style and related topics (12, 17, 65, 122)? The source of the debate becomes apparent, of course, when the various definitions are examined in more detail. According to Sackett, style (in traditional archaeological approaches) involves choice between functionally equivalent alternatives, and a style is a highly specific and characteristic manner of doing something, which, by its very nature is peculiar to a specific time and place (112:63
113-115). Wiessner argues that style is a form of non-verbal communication through doing something in a certain way that communicates information about relative identity (139:107). Finally, Hodder states that style is a way of doing, where doing includes the activities of thinking, feeling, being (66:45). Thus for Sackett, style bears particularly on time-space systematics, for Wiessner it has a communicative function, and for Hodder it relates to cognitive processes. Thus, despite this general agreement that style is a way of doing, debate arises about specifics: What, if anything, does style do? How does style relate to social and cultural processes? How is it best analyzed and studied archaeologically? Here I focus primarily on these questions, on style in artifacts (rather than architecture, mortuary practices, etc), and on work done in the past 15 years.
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