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Stonehenge and its Environs

The Secrets of Stonehenge

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tjj T
tjj Jun 2, 2009 15:30:05
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
moss wrote:
Well perhaps one word will give a clue to exploration..'phenomenological', this perhaps is where some of the new archaeologists are coming from, experiencing the landscape through a 'thought' process of what it might have been like at that particular time of history.. It is a subjective approach, the old objective 'interpretation' of earlier archaeology has been dissed for a new modern approach;).. Julian Thomas is a phenomenologist I believe, cant say about the others, and I think MPP has been criticised to some extent for a reliance on other cultures to interpret Stonehenge... in the game of theories you can never arrive at an ultimate truth, unless of course you're Dr.Who...
I think if the next generation become any more phenomenological then MPP will seen as comparatively acceptable . Hopefully there will be a reaction and maybe a return to the less subjective .A more objective approach like Anthony Johnson might be a start although he is a wee bit too established to be considered "new generation "
http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/phenom.htm

For anyone like me who didn't know what phenomenology means .... or is this just another method of making the subject of archaeology inaccessible to all but the sanctified few.

N nigelswift
nigelswift Jun 2, 2009 15:39:25
Replying to tjj

"or is this just another method of making the subject of archaeology inaccessible to all but the sanctified few."

Well,
during the 1920s it spread to Australia, France, Hungary, The Netherlands and Flanders, Poland, and the United States and to research on communicology (then called symbolism), education, music, and religion; and during the 1930s it spread to Czechoslovakia, Italy, Korea, and Yugoslavia and to research on architecture, literature, and theater. Right after World War II, phenomenology then spread to Portugal, Scandinavia, and South Africa, and also to research on ethnicity, film, gender, and politics; in the 1960s and 1970s it spread to Canada, China, and India and to dance, geography, law, and psychology; and, finally, in the 1980s and 1990s it spread to Great Britain and also to ecology, ethnology, medicine, and nursing. In view of its continual development and its spread into other disciplines as well as across the planet, phenomenology is arguably the most significant philosophical movement in the 20th century "

so no, it probably isn't just another method of making the subject of archaeology inaccessible to all but the sanctified few!
;)

T tiompan
tiompan Jun 2, 2009 15:43:19
Replying to tjj

tjj wrote:
tiompan wrote:
moss wrote:
Well perhaps one word will give a clue to exploration..'phenomenological', this perhaps is where some of the new archaeologists are coming from, experiencing the landscape through a 'thought' process of what it might have been like at that particular time of history.. It is a subjective approach, the old objective 'interpretation' of earlier archaeology has been dissed for a new modern approach;).. Julian Thomas is a phenomenologist I believe, cant say about the others, and I think MPP has been criticised to some extent for a reliance on other cultures to interpret Stonehenge... in the game of theories you can never arrive at an ultimate truth, unless of course you're Dr.Who...
I think if the next generation become any more phenomenological then MPP will seen as comparatively acceptable . Hopefully there will be a reaction and maybe a return to the less subjective .A more objective approach like Anthony Johnson might be a start although he is a wee bit too established to be considered "new generation "
http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/phenom.htm

For anyone like me who didn't know what phenomenology means .... or is this just another method of making the subject of archaeology inaccessible to all but the sanctified few.

The use of the term is a bit older than is suggested by the site , Lambert 18 th C certainly used it . Similar to the misuse of deconstruction , it is really a synonym for subjectivity ., sling in a bit of Merleau -Ponty and you can happily twitter about how you feel about any site anywhere and because you are a qualified archaeo it just might provide new info . Posters do it all the time here and it's no more or less valid but doesn't really tell us anything new about the site other than learning how others "see/feel " it . The technical term for any P word stuff I have ever read in relation to archaeology is bollocks .