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The Archaeology of Personhood: An Anthropological Approach

Chris Fowler
TLDR
The Archaeology of Personhood examines the characteristics that define a person as a category of being, highlights how definitions of personhood are culturally variable and explores how that variation is connected to human uses of material culture as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract
Bringing together a wealth of research in social and cultural anthropology, philosophy and related fields, this is the first book to address the contribution that an understanding of personhood can make to our interpretations of the past Applying an anthropological approach to detailed case studies from European prehistoric archaeology, the book explores the connection between people, animals, objects, their societies and environments and investigates the relationship that jointly produces bodies, persons, communities and artefacts. The Archaeology of Personhood examines the characteristics that define a person as a category of being, highlights how definitions of personhood are culturally variable and explores how that variation is connected to human uses of material culture.

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Through a Glass, Darkly: Clouded Perceptions of Feminist and Gender Archaeology

Yasmin Carter
TL;DR: The latest outbreak of gender archaeology which is actually feminist archaeology (a new racket for the girls) bears a great resemblance to the good old days of New Archaeology.
Journal ArticleDOI

Moral Discourse and Personhood in Overseas Chinese Contexts

TL;DR: In this article, the authors take the construction of the transcontinental railroad (1865-1869) as a case study to explore this question, focusing on the High Sierras section of the railroad around Tahoe National Forest.
Journal ArticleDOI

Decapitated Heads as Elite Visual Culture in Late Shang China

TL;DR: It is argued that the dramatic increase in decapitation at Yinxu necessitated the development of a ritually informed process for handling these remains that transformed them into elite objects, while simultaneously pacifying their potentially dangerous post-mortem agency.