IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB001561191

The Life History of Klasies River Mouth: A Case Study of Archaeology and the History and Philosophy of Science (2008)

Arizona State University
Publication date: 2008
Language: English

Publication Date: 2008
Physical Details: 265 pp.

Outside Links

This history of Klasies River Mouth is a case study for understanding the interplay among archaeology, paleoanthropology, and the history and philosophy of science. This dissertation shows how Klasies progresses from being a "place," to an "event," and finally an "icon" during different episodes of its life history. The defining event in the history of Klasies River Mouth was its excavation and the subsequent interpretation of its artifacts within the transformative paradigm of processual archeology in the 1960s-1970s. As this dissertation argues, this event built on several earlier episodes and intellectual traditions connected to Klasies as a "place." The excavations and subsequent interpretations of Klasies coincided with changes in archaeological theory--this event actually was a break that represented a singularity, and many layers of context collapsed into one account of Klasies as an archeological site. This confluence of several historical contingencies was also the beginning of Klasies' history as an "icon" within contemporary and historical literature in archaeology and paleoanthropology. The narrative of "the cave" presented supports the argument that it was the particular sequence of historical events and local contingencies that helped to turn Klasies River Mouth into its current status as an "Icon of the Middle Stone Age." This study has demonstrated two things: (1) that narrative is a useful means of making sense of the intellectual history of an archaeological and paleoanthropological site, and (2) that focusing on one particular "entity" (in this case, the life history of Klasies River Mouth) is a way by which archaeology and paleoanthropology can be understood within history and philosophy of science. In summary, this dissertation has brought the various encounters of Klasies--as place, event, and icon--together by using the life history of the cave as an organizing device. It demonstrates the value of history and philosophy of science to understanding biological and cultural evolution as applied within the history of archaeology and paleoanthropology.

...More

Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 69/08 (2009). Pub. no. AAT 3327252.

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001561191

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Hochadel, Oliver; (2013)
A Boom of Bones and Books: The “Popularization Industry” of Atapuerca and Human-Origins Research in Contemporary Spain (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320415/)

Article Paige Madison; (2019)
All Things Bleak and Bare Beneath a Brazen Sky: Practice and Place in the Analysis of Australopithecus (/p/isis/citation/CBB654252561/)

Book Christa Kuljian; (2017)
Darwin's Hunch: Science, Race and the Search for Human Origins (/p/isis/citation/CBB789559227/)

Book Suryakanthie Chetty; (2021)
‘Africa Forms the Key’: Alex Du Toit and the History of Continental Drift (/p/isis/citation/CBB455924853/)

Book Clive Gamble; (2021)
Making Deep History: Zeal, Perseverance, and the Time Revolution of 1859 (/p/isis/citation/CBB209549346/)

Article Goulden, Murray; (2007)
Bringing Bones to Life: How Science Made Piltdown Man Human (/p/isis/citation/CBB000831461/)

Article Goodrum, Matthew R.; (2012)
The Idea of Human Prehistory: The Natural Sciences, the Human Sciences, and the Problem of Human Origins in Victorian Britain (/p/isis/citation/CBB001210310/)

Article Murray, Tim; (2005)
The Historiography of Archaeology and Canon Greenwell (/p/isis/citation/CBB000931110/)

Book Massimo Tarantini; (2012)
La nascita della paletnologia in Italia (1860-1877) (/p/isis/citation/CBB491933042/)

Book Schmalzer, Sigrid; (2008)
The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China (/p/isis/citation/CBB000970011/)

Book Krieger, William; (2011)
Science at the Frontiers: Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of Science (/p/isis/citation/CBB001421732/)

Article Rosanna Dent; (2020)
Subject 01: Exemplary Indigenous Masculinity in Cold War Genetics (/p/isis/citation/CBB943653735/)

Article Richmond, Jesse; (2012)
Discipline and Credibility in the Post-War Australopithecine Controversy: Le Gros Clark versus Zuckerman (/p/isis/citation/CBB001210307/)

Article Emily M. Kern; (2024)
Alternate Edens: History, Evolution, and Origins in UNESCO's Cultural and Scientific History of Mankind (/p/isis/citation/CBB083811818/)

Article Schwartz, Jeffrey H.; (2012)
Molecular Anthropology and the Subversion of Paleoanthropology: An Example of “The Emperor's Clothes” Effect? (/p/isis/citation/CBB001210314/)

Article Sommer, Marianne; (2008)
History in the Gene: Negotiations between Molecular and Organismal Anthropology (/p/isis/citation/CBB000850670/)

Article Yinghong Cheng; (2017)
“Is Peking Man Still Our Ancestor?”—Genetics, Anthropology, and the Politics of Racial Nationalism in China (/p/isis/citation/CBB750070549/)

Book Nattrass, Nicoli; (2012)
The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back (/p/isis/citation/CBB001252724/)

Article Simonne Horwitz; (2020)
Race, Kidney Transplants, Immunosuppression Research, and White Supremacy under Apartheid, 1960–80 (/p/isis/citation/CBB697529039/)

Article Frazier, Javan David; (2008)
Almost Persuaded: The Johnson Administration's Extension of Nuclear Cooperation with South Africa, 1965--1967 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001231517/)