The of Meaning in Modern Age IIIC - digital.csic.es

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Preprintpublishedinspanishtobequotedas:FelipeCriado‐Boado(2013):Laproduccióndesentido.LaArqueologíamásalládelainterpretación.InJuanAntonioQuirósCastillo(dir.),LamaterialidaddelaHistoria.LaArqueologíaenlosiniciosdelsigloXXI.Madrid:Edit.Akal,pp.101‐140.

(Thispre‐printisslightlydifferentfromtheprintedversionwhatwillcomeoutwithadifferenttitle:“TheproductionofMeaning.Archaeologybeyondinterpretation”)

AboutArchaeology,Interpretation,HumanitiesandKnowledge

TheProductionofMeaninginModernAgeIIICVersion revised the 21st of April 2010, specially for this preprint

English unedited yet 27 de enero de 2013 ∙ 23:16

FelipeCriado‐BoadoInstitute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)

In the Archaeology Museum of San Pedro of Atacama (Chile), May 2009.

Resumen

Ante la crisis de la Arqueología provocada por el acientificismo postprocesual, el subdesarrollo

teórico que aún persiste (ap. 1.2) y la frustración de la Arqueología Comercial (ap. 1.1), se

plantea una reflexión sobre las posibilidades de definir un método de comprobación de

hipótesis interpretativas y de producción de sentido a partir de ellas, que permita disciplinar el

proceso hermenéutico en Arqueología y generar un conocimiento cuya validez no dependa

sólo de instancias subjetivas. Este planteamiento intenta desarrollar una vía alternativa entre

las epistemologías subjevistas y objetivistas, entre la hermenéutica y el positivismo. En este

texto se analizan las condiciones, límites y posibilidades de las Humanidades (2.1) y de la

interpretación en Arqueología (2.2), y se arguye la necesidad de controlar la interpretación. En

vez de estimular una espiral interpretativa libre y sin‐fin, se propone contextualizar la

interpretación a través de un método que permita desarrollar la Arqueología (y algunas otras

disciplinas de las Humanidades) como Ciencia Humana. Así, a partir de una síntesis de los

problemas filosóficos implicados en el conocimiento social (ap. 3.1) y de una revisión

esquemática del concepto de Interpretación y los modelos de práctica interpretativa (ap. 3.2),

se propone una reinterpretación de la interpretación que conduce a definir un método

interpretativo (ap. 3.3) de naturaleza distinto al hermenéutico y de genealogía más bien

estructural‐formalista. Se incorpora en el texto con un ejemplo práctico de este Método.

Abstract

In the light of the crisis in Archaeology provoked by post‐processual ascientifism, theoretical

underdevelopment (section 1.2) and the exhaustion of Commercial Archaeology (section 1.1),

we propose reflecting on the possibilities of defining a method for contrasting interpretive

hypotheses and producting meaning based on them, which makes it possible to discipline the

hermeneutic process in Archaeology and generate knowledge whose validation does not only

depend on subjective agents. This proposal is aimed at developing an alternative path

between subjectivist and objectivist epistemologies, and between hermeneutics and

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positivism. In this text we analyse the conditions, limits and possibilities of the Humanities

(2.1) and interpretation in Archaeology (2.2), arguing the need to control the process of

interpretation. Instead of stimulating a free and endless interpretive spiral, we propose

contextualising interpretation through a method that makes it possible to develop

Archaeology (and certain other disciplines in the field of Humanities) as a Human Science.

Therefore, based on an account of the philosophical problems involved in social knowledge

(3.1) and a schematic review of the concept of Interpretation and the models of interpretive

practices (3.2), a “reinterpretation of interpretation” is proposed, which leads towards defining

an interpretive model (3.3) that is not hermeneutic, and with a genealogy that is structuralist‐

formalist in nature. The text includes a practical example of this Method.

Palabras Clave

Arqueología. Teoría Arqueológica. Método y Práctica Arqueológica. Arqueología Interpretativa.

Hermenéutica. Sentido. Postestructuralismo. Patrimonio Cultural. Humanidades.

Keywords

Archaeology. Archaeological Theory. Archaeological Method and Practice. Interpretive

Archaeology. Hermeneutics. Meaning. Postestructuralism. Cultural Heritage. Humanities.

1. Archaeology,betweentheory,businessandmeaningEven though it would be possible to agree that the actual stage of Modern Age is the III C

[Stage I would be Modernism – from the birth of this rationality to the period flanked by both

great wars, that represents the crisis created by the contradictions of this modernization ‐,

Period II would be technocratic maximization of Modern Age – which pays off the previous

crisis with the techno‐functional development and with the World Order of the cold war – and

stage III which would be the final period that starts in 1968 and is divided in phase A upto the

petroleum crisis – from 1972 to 1978 ‐, phase B from the end of this economic‐ecological crisis,

ended thanks to the promotion of consumption from 1985 onwards, which was called Post

Modern Age, mostly due to voluntarism more than good reasons‐ and C is the current phase

starting with the financial crisis], actually the nomenclature IIIC (such an archaeological term)

is a way of saying that now we are on the border of the end of Modern Age as how we know it.

This Modern Age IIIC is characterized by being established as the age of significance, as well as

with an economic crisis and a correlative crisis of the scale of values; we are actually living the

age of social significance, the age of sense: plurality, decentralization, multivocality, web 2.0,

semantic web, social network, Wikipedia, economy of knowledge, information society,

complemented with multivocality and multiculturalism. This is also the era of noise, excess of

information, communication conflicts and even lack of information. The real conditions are no

longer established by a preferential speech or by a central authority. The political and

leadership crisis are also related to this. The problem of the sense of Modern Age IIIC is: who

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creates it and how? Even, what sense is valid when everyone is talking? We can not be more

than multivocal, but multivocality does not organize the world. For this reason it is more

urgent than ever to have a method to produce and manage sense, avoiding unnecessary and

subjectivist noise. This is the subject of this text.

It is also one of the essential problems of scientific knowledge which nowadays lives

transformations that derivate from three possible movements: the deconstruction of the

scientific linear model caused by post‐positivist critics, the centrality of a public that becomes

the protagonist instead of the passive spectator of scientific practise, and the recognition of

ethno‐knowledge as alternative ways of knowledge valid in their context (see Criado et al.

2010). In the way in which, and in addition, these social traditions are represented in Cultural

Heritage, the study of them allows us to discover in its complex form the multicultural reality

of nowadays society, the diversity that establishes tradition and the values on which multivocal

performance is based, hermeneutic is decentralized, identities are negotiated and their

rationality are supported. This identity plurality produces a high social action in which

dialogue, incomprehension and conflicts occur depending on the capacity or incapacity to

establish a line of common intelligence. The evaluation of the systems that produce knowledge

allows us to control the way in which the production and the results of these systems, the

actual innovation, are coherent and compatible with the multivocal magma, and in what form

they permit from this point, a positive and transformative change of the existing conditions of

the reality that must be altered. The construction of Public Science must not be separated from

vicissitudes of comprehension; scientific construction of objectiveness and inter‐subjectivity

develops in dialogical interaction with other forms of construction of knowledge, in an

instrument to create intelligibility overcoming the solipsism of absolute subjectivity that only

leads us to a lack of communication or hegemony. In this social and cognitive context, it is

urgent to reach a consensus on methods of production of knowledge that achieve balance

between different intentions and rationality contexts that legitimately are at stake; we need

an inter‐translation of alternative methods, often opposite, of knowledge and assessment

regarding their positive capability: this would be a different method of knowledge compared

to the unilineal positivist model and the phenomenological‐subjective multivocal noise model.

The construction is a complex project; here we only care to introduce the matter.

How is this implicated with our discipline, with Archaeology? How will Archaeology adapt to

the Final phase of Late Modern Age, considering it is also present in the crisis that is shaking

the economic order and current values?

In the last 35 years, Archaeology, History or Humanity crisis have been mentioned many times;

it is understandable as with these terms the never ending process of constant questioning of

the standard and mainstream of an academic discipline is also mentioned. If the discipline, as

in the case of archaeology, never stops being updated and the traditional past which out of

inertia determines the dominant image and also creates a traditional way of doing and

thinking in most of the practitioners, it is logical to believe this discipline is in an unresolved

crisis situation.

But the “IIIC” crisis that threatens us is worse and even more serious. It is the result of the

completion of the economic crisis (property and building) with the excessive un‐scientism post

modernism, which has produced (rightly) a relativization of the credit of the scientific‐

objectivist speech and a proliferation of individual, local, subjective and contextual values

(each have their “own” reasons)

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1.1 BetweenthecrisisofCommercialArchaeological…The economic crisis is perceived in the decline of Commercial Archaeology, which first

surrenders to the property and building crisis (followed by a withdrawal of all commercially

natured archaeological activity in Europe), and after to the initial requests to relive the control

and cost of the protection of Heritage measures on the private investment as a way to

promote recovery (an important tendency in other countries, even governed by progressives,

to reduce the scope of the legislation regarding Heritage, and indicates that the solution to a

crisis created by the excesses of neo‐con is being negotiated by the crypto‐neo‐con).

We also have to admit that the creation of Commercial Archaeology has been a failure: it was

not this. Although academic sectors have been criticising Commercial Archaeology for the last

20 years, my denunciation has nothing to do with them. The criticisms Academic sectors have

of Commercial Archaeology, about the bubbling activity that surrounds Heritage and about the

actual concept of Heritage, have to do with the attempt of preserving the academic profile and

power in Archaeology, threatened by the setting up of a labour market not reliant on

traditional academic institutions (university, museums and investigation organizations); These

criticisms have partly created a favourable atmosphere for the failure of Commercial

Archaeology because they have not followed or supported its development.

The academic reaction was even more genuine, as for Archaeology being the only discipline of

Humanities able to create its own professional sector. A later update of these criticisms (J.C.

Bermejo Barrera 2007a and Bermejo et al. 2007) gives an example of the incomprehension

that many History professionals have had of the concept of Heritage, of its investigation and

management, and even Archaeology itself; they do not understand the specificity of

Archaeology and while they defend that it is a History method (an argument that no upright

specialist has defended for the last 30 years), they show an ancient and elitist academism,

incapable of generously recognizing the archaeological practise that is riskily transferred to the

historical speech society, and make it work socially. Bermejo is determined to reduce the

value of our proposals, making them intrinsically suspicious because they collaborate with the

market, accusing them of defending a self‐interested knowledge and appealing to a conspiracy

theory that is neither proved nor proves anything and, when it slips in a scientific argument

line, it simply becomes “academic rubbish” (Bermejo Barrera 2007b). On the other hand, if we

head to the essence of his argument, Bermejo mistakes the unquestionable fact which is, to

make sense, archaeological speech has to be situated in a Historical Theory (…or a social or

anthropologic theory or critic), in which Archaeology is in a subsidiary position; he does not

understand the specific nature of Archaeology derived from the use of a different source

rather than Historical Document, and has a characteristic regime of existence. It would be too

simple to say that, as this author does not know the subtlety of stratigraphical analysis, or the

process of formation of archaeological registers or of its conditions of representation, he can

not talk about Archaeology. As we are in favour of a continuous discipline discussion, we shall

not say such a thing. But so the debate can be reflexive and not just simply a shuffle of ideas

between regular commentators (as in show business society), a self demanded basis is

necessary (a general criticism of this type of approach can be seen in Barriero Martinez 2006a

and 2006b).

Apart from this type of self‐interested criticisms, those of us who have been committed to

supporting Commercial Archaeology in the past can say that this project has failed.

In this failure several conditions converge, which now are described and determined: First of

all the crisis of the property market causes the retraction of demand and, above all, produces

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different game rules that have to be followed which call for simplifying and reducing

archaeological and heritage expenses. Although this is serious (as in Europe thousands of

people depend on archaeological labour market) it really is conjectural.

However we have to consider as structural the incapacity to produce value of Commercial

Archaeology, and general Archaeology: in the end, what have decades of work and dozens of

millions of expenditure in Commercial Archaeology provided? At the most, it has produced

value for the promoters, who have made viable their projects thanks to archaeological work

and have generated profitable capital gain. They have always undertaken archaeological work

as a legal imperative, like an official requirement, without ever including it in its own

methodology of production of value, they have not, for instance, analysed the cost and

benefits of archaeological expenses, nor have they incorporated Archaeology in the business

plan of their company. If we look at the value that Commercial Archaeology has contributed to

archaeological investigation, to the discipline, to humanistic knowledge or even to society, the

situation is even more dramatic: there are serious doubts whether commercial activity has

contributed to progress in all of the fronts, as we should not mistake potential contributions

with effective contributions. The only tangible benefit (and not less) of preventive Archaeology

is the intrinsic protection of Heritage. But a dynamic notion of Heritage, that values its use and

socialization can not be satisfied by fanatical conservation of heritage elements or with just the

documentation of affected heritage, if this information is not disseminated and used.

Preventive work that has produced thesis, investigation papers, knowledge production, an

increase in self‐consciousness, pride in local community, cultural resource or public goods, is

scarce compared to all the invested effort. The difficultly to create public reports of the work

done in Commercial Archaeology is an example of the entire issue, it is so generic and common

that you have to suspect it is determined by reasons situated beyond the will of the implicated

agents, and further away than the truthful fact that the price of archaeological work never

covers the cost of after processing of the information.

This incapacity has part to do with the theoretical emptying and the methodical and

technological deficit of Commercial Archaeology. At the end of the day, it has not particularly

contributed to theoretical development in Archaeology, even though it was obliged to do so

and in a splendid position to do it, because after all, professional Archaeology caused with its

appearance a total reorganization of a discipline that was traditionally academic and

dilettante.

But this incapacity also has to do with the bankruptcy of a business model, of business in

Commercial Archaeology. Here exists a structural contradiction that was never outstanding,

partly because us archaeologists are not innovation management experts: Archaeology

Company is a genuine example of knowledge economy; Commercial Archaeology establishes

an authentic social innovation, innovation that totally comes from changes in heritage law and

protection of Heritage laid down by the Administration, it gives a rise to a new “industry” or

work group that did not exist before (this thesis is mainly due to the work of Eva Parga Dans

2007 and 2009, who does sociological study of the archaeological labour market). In fact

Commercial Archaeology is a good example of the capacity that Humanities has of enterprising

and transferring knowledge to a social‐economic environment, a possibility denied by the main

stream of hard science and by the specialists of transferring technology, although forms a huge

reserve of opportunities to start functioning innovating projects of appreciation of knowledge

(specially useful in times of crisis) and that can totally change the character and profile of

Humanities discipline, making them applicable and useful in social terms, (in fact, more and

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more there are many transfer specialists that realise that “humanities” can be a great deposit

for these type of things: see. Castro Martinez et. al. 2008).

In spite of this, archaeological Business has not incorporated an innovating technological

business model. The model that Commercial Archaeology should have followed is the one used

in Business of Knowledge, that uses information intensively, the know‐how and technology,

the highly qualified work force and advanced organization and managerial systems, and in

exchange produces contents, values and resources with high capital gain. On the other hand, a

new world of opportunities has been negotiated with old ideas, with classical organization

formulas, without authentic company projects, without innovating projects prepared to extend

and amplify innovation, without enough technology and without a specialised training to

develop the innovating company and its management. Archaeological Business has been

established following the example of building business. Once again the University has a certain

amount of responsibility as in not one Faculty were they able to anticipate this frame of mind,

teaching the adequate education to meet this lack. The professional archaeologist has been an

entrepreneur who has not known what he was. Probably in many cases he did not even want

to be one as his idea of example to be followed was still the academic investigator, and his

companies reference and business plan was actually an academic archaeological project under

a contract philosophy; a paradoxical situation. Part of the problem of Commercial Archaeology

is its failure to adapt to innovation.

1.2 …andtheoreticalvacuityIn spite of the precarious structure of Commercial Archaeology and the crisis that affects it, its

development has been the principal innovation in Archaeology in the last 25 years.

Because as it was starting and moving on to a new range in archaeology practise, the actual

theory came to a halt, the academic world did not help much, and in general, Archaeology still

was dominated by a traditional practise in which, except some cases, the normal way of

thinking is still historical‐cultural, empiricist and pre‐theoretical. Although obviously 40 years

of Archaeological development have introduced new concepts, arguments, methods and

perspectives, the traditional way of thinking and acting still predominates and for that reason

it receives the connotation of “boring” when other specialists or general public take a look at

archaeology and its results.

The last years of Archaeology have not precisely been remarkable nor of great innovating

development: in the end Archaeology was worn out between Commercial Archaeology and

post processualism. Now there exists a theoretical emptying of Archaeology which has not

produced theoretical innovations for a long time, it has been incapable of updating the agenda

of an archaeological practise that (in spite of the use of new terms, approximations and

multipurpose words) is still essentially “traditionalist”, it has not committed itself to producing

value and sense, and it has renounced to establishing production conditions of hermeneutic

and narrative knowledge. Being situated in middle of the era of sense, this produces either a

scientism silence or an unscientific noise.

So if Commercial Archaeology, which has been the great development of the last years, is in

crisis, now what do we have left?

What is new appears on the margin of Archaeology: Post colonial Archaeology, Ethno‐

archaeology, Symmetric Archaeology, Present ArchaeologyAyan Vila 2008, González Ruibal

2007a, 2007b and 2008, González Ruibal et al. 2009) interacting in some important actual

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debates: active individualism, Post colonialism, Memory, empowerment of archaeological

process by communities that claim access to the speech about the past and to the control of

production and valuation of their own Cultural Heritage… (Hernando 2012, González Ruibal et

al. 2011, González Ruibal 2012, Olsen 2010). They are all ideas that contribute with new values

to archaeological practise. They provide new sources of sense, of signification. And they make

us go back to the obligation of introducing methodical procedures in practise.

The incapacity of producing value as well as the shortage of theoretical values shows us that

the crisis is also a crisis of values. The crisis of the system of values would be, deep down, the

modern incapacity of adapting to the era of significance. This “modern incapacity” is the

impossibility of the Modern Age knowledge‐power system to produce sense without a method

and, therefore, without falling into a dualization that post positive knowledge can not accept:

or a false objectiveness or excessive subjectivity.

The problem then still continues to be how to produce sense en the Era of Sense, how to

validate certainness in narrative knowledge, how to do it in a postpositive context, in a off‐

centred way, public, multivocal, without self explanatory Great Accounts and signification

creators, without risking the subjectivity from which sense starts with, to avoid keeping a

modern philosophy of consciousness as it is no longer useful for the new millennium. It is a

problem of symmetrical balance.

2. FromHumanitiestoHumanScience

2.1 ResearchonHumanities:horizons,problems,potentialitiesTo be able to define the context of this problem, we have to proceed to revise the situation of

Humanities and the humanistic knowledge at present.

In general, the function of scientific investigation is the production and Management of new

knowledge. In a more specific way, it is to promote, develop and spread scientific investigation

and technology, of a multidisciplinary character, with the aim to contribute to advance in

knowledge and economic, social and cultural devolvement.

This implies developing in scientific practise the concept of Chain of Value of Science, which

establishes three essential and consecutive functions: production of new knowledge, transfer

to environment to make it useful, and diffusion or public spreading of it.

This conception of science is completed nowadays with the concept of Techno‐science, with

this term we refer to a type of cognitive access to the World that is not limited to analyzing

reality and generating self sufficient knowledge (as science is in its traditional way) but also

builds and transforms reality by its full insertion in the production system. In this way, it would

be a techno‐scientific practise the discipline that is not satisfied with generating knowledge of

the subject it is studying, but also expects to play a part in the dynamics of construction and

transformation of reality at the present, by fully inserting itself in management politics in the

range it is in, (these definitions are from David Barreiro). Specifically, Humanities can act on

Cultural Heritage, Environment (the part it belongs to), Spatial Planning and Social

Development.

Taking these references as a starting point, we can define an advanced model of scientific

activity in the sphere of Humanities, and postulate the practise of Human Science should be

based on carrying out rigorous empiric studies informed by solid theoretic models. Its social

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function lies in the contribution it makes to concrete processes that produce value, being (in

our case) either Heritage goods (for instance, to discover its original sense in the society that

created them), or redefining in the present (for instance, the current sense in the societies that

incorporated the goods later on) or transforming them into cultural resources (for example its

functional value in social‐economic terms). This provokes, likewise, a model of Chain of value

in Investigation of Humanities and, particularly, to Heritage and Archaeology studies (which we

have defined in other occasions)

The challenge of current investigation in Humanities is to change its usual work culture and

adapt it coherently to the great change that science is experimenting, to the R&D system and

to actual society. This consists in advocating its normalization: to make comparable Humanity

investigation to the principal current of science, redefine Humanities and Social Science as

Social Sciences and its mission would be to produce scientific knowledge about human and

social environment. The necessary modernization of Humanities goes through incorporating it

to the mission of science (produce and transfer the results of investigation to be able to create

a society based on knowledge and innovation), promoting transversely so to stimulate

cooperation, interdisciplinary and the establishment of synergy between them, increasing the

critical mass and making the most of the existing resources to be able to increase the scientific

production and social importance.

In this advanced and ambitious context, typical of the beginning of the new millennium, the

mission of Social Sciences would be to produce through scientific investigation, rigorous

knowledge about social reality with the aim to explain its mechanisms of production and

reproduction, and contribute this way to the transformation of society and to the rise of social

welfare by increasing self‐consciousness and reflexivity, by the creation of contents, critics and

values and by defining concrete horizons for application and revaluation of our knowledge

about human condition and society.

This mission establishes a desirable horizon. Nevertheless, Humanities is plagued by important

problems that inhibit the satisfaction of these objectives: the first is the lack of a method,

which is also lack of rigour, of Discipline; In fact, this problem makes clearer an even more

difficult one: the impossibility of a method, something that is marked by the inherent

subjectivity of social knowledge, aroused from the likewise subjectivity of social life, which

would make impossible a explanatory knowledge of itself. However, being aware of this

problem has produced a subjective‐narcissistic frenzy instead of a solution based on a nihilistic

limitation of subjectivity, which is, in large extent, responsible of the characteristic

individualism of investigation in Humanities. On the other hand, the lack of a method has been

solved many times, almost from Escolastic, adopting tradition as a method, which is a problem

as it limits intrinsically innovation and the process of change. It is also difficult to apply, as

nowadays it is impossible that just one individual can dominate all the traditional discipline.

This has ended up finally in entrenchment of relativism in Humanities; it is not strange to find

knowledge change into just mere opinions and valuations; there is a fusion of knowledge and

values, science and ideology, and it often has lead to a vulgar confusion between science and

ideology without being able to separate clearly one from the other.

This classification is possibly quite exaggerated. It can be clarified but this is truly the normal

vision, almost a topic that other scientific disciplines have of Humanities. The problem is that

humanists seem to stress on proving the topic right by insisting that they are special and are

not useful. This way their traditional standard of investigation is maintained in Humanities,

specifying the fact that only one third of the total amount of professors of Humanities and

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Social Science of the Spanish University system are active at the same time in scientific

investigation. In 2003 there were 11.694 professors of Humanities in Spanish Universities and

26.266 in Social Science; in total 37.960 out of the 86.105 professors of all the university

system. At the same time, the number of active investigators in the National plan of R&D that

year was 3.851 of Humanities and 7.397 in Social Science; in total 11.248; 29,5% of the total

number (FECYT 2006:66 and successive)

This way we come to the principal problem which is connected with the issue of this “text”;

the problems of canonical and traditional humanistic knowledge lies in the social, historical

and philosophical origin of Modern age. In particular, it is rooted to the original sins of

philosophic Modernisms, this is the dualization between the subject and the object of

knowledge and, consequently of the human being facing the world, that at the same time sets

on one hand the establishment of the positivist‐functionalist‐empiricist complex as a positive

action on the world system and authentication of the techniques, and on the other hand, on

the humanistic paradigm as system of references for culture. In this historical‐social context,

Objectivism established the type of relation for Modernism with the world, and Subjectivism

established the philosophy of conciseness, the model of subjectivity, which Modern Age

needed. Therefore, even though both epistemologies have skilfully presented themselves as

contraries, they are both the same side of the modern coin; one can not exist without the

other, there can not be an action on the world without an historical subject, nor a significant

subject without transformation of reality. This position is a radical criticism, nihilist and

“situationist” of Modern Age, but crudely shows the limits of knowledge and modern practice

(see R. Kurz 2002).

Despite all these limitations, Humanities still has an important group of potentialities. Out of

these we can point out:

(i) the proximity between Investigation and its application, which traditionally has been called

“basic investigation” and “applied investigation” and that nowadays (overcame this dualizing

and excluding model of each one of these poles, each one to the other, something that

management and theoreticians know well that must be eliminated), is preferable to

conceptualize as proximity between knowledge and practise;

(ii) The importance of the transfer of knowledge in Humanities and Social Science, derivative

partially from the previous part;

(iii) The fact that, in the middle of the Era of Sense and Semantic Web, Humanities are net

producers of contents, significance and also shows how sense is produced, negotiated and

reached consensus;

(iv) Corresponding with this, Humanities can reconcile Cultural System and Technical System;

and although it is true that this “ability” has been useful many times to introduce an

ideological component in humanistic knowledge, it is not less true that the whole society, all

materialisation of the Man‐in‐the‐world, has always combined a system of values with a

technique for life, so this way it is true that humanistic investigation is capable of restoring this

bond, appealing to secular speeches and values, neither holy nor ideological, capable of

becoming emancipated from the Great Stories that produce sense.

(v) Humanities are half way between investigation and culture, between scientific politics and

cultural politics, science and art: for all practical purposes of Humanities, cultural politics (and

the subsidies and grants that derivate from it) are scientific politics and vice versa (the grants

and the projects that start as cultural initiatives‐ cultural management, foundations, public and

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private initiative, cultural cooperation projects, etc. that end up generating impacts and

scientific results). This last part makes easy formation, divulgation and scientific culture

activities to be important not only for Humanities but also as a genuine source of mistakes and

misinterpretations because in humanistic curriculums these actions are often confused with

pure scientific actions and results.

2.2 HumanitiesasInterpretiveHumanSciencesTo be able to make the most of the previous potential, Humanities has to reconfigure its

practise, in particular it has to adapt it as much as it can to the main stream of science that is if

it wants to act in the scientific system. Other systems are also possible for Humanities from

what they say: test discipline, speculative, rhetoric, poetical, creative…but each concrete

project has to decide in which field it is playing.

In this sense, and only in this case, I propose it is useful to difference between Humanities and

Human Science. It is not a case of making a superficial or a substantive differentiation, or of

establishing demarcation elitist criteria. It is a distinction strategy, based on the type of

knowledge we produce and the way in which we produce it. This can be done in Humanities in

two essential ways: by speculative procedures, and by procedures that assimilate the ideal

model of scientific investigation, or at least a faint scientific model. The faint and minor

scientific model which we can recognize as scientific knowledge is knowledge based on

rigorous empiric evidence and informed by solid theoretical models. Humanistic knowledge

can build many types of knowledge that follow each other in different grades in the Objective

Knowledge scale‐ Objectiveness‐ Inter‐subjectivity‐ Subjectivity‐ Subjectivism‐ Solipsism.

Speculative thinking produces knowledge situated on the right of this sequence, and the faint

scientific model lays on the left.

As I said, it is not a matter of graduating the different forms of knowledge so as to say some

are more valid than others. The effect of postpositive criticism of scientific epistemology, as

well as the impact of Ethno‐knowledge, is too obvious at present to not be able to recognize

that all the coherent knowledge system is valid at least in its context. The lagging behind

positivists and staunch scientivists are not able to accept this. But that is their problem

because they fit in the post positivist model but the rest of us do not fit in the late‐positivist

model or in their derivations (that also exist), that have a subjective and narrative character.

It is a case of establishing order and avoiding confusions between forms and strategies of

knowledge that actually do not compete between each other, and due to this should not play

together. My father is a painter (Felipe Criado); when he prepares an new art exhibition he

always says “I am investigating” such a thing (a chromatic range, material, a shape…); but my

father does not even begin to believe himself a scientist, or apply to the National Plan of

Investigation for a project so as to finance his exhibition or even present his artistic merits to

Investigation acknowledgements. But many humanists do do this; sometimes intentionally,

sometimes involuntary. This confusion is partly due to the organization of the Humanities

system in University academic system. At the end of the day, the easiest way, but biggest

mistake, is to impose on the Humanity system the general scientific‐university logic. But the

negative effects of this confusion are bad for everyone.

Although for us it is enough by creating criteria of strategic demarcation, even tactic, to be

able to establish the character (not absolute value) of the type of knowledge that we produce

in Humanities. If we support “scientific humanities” we should be able to not only answer the

essential questions about knowledge (i) what knowledge do we want? (ii) For what society do

11

we want it? But also we should be able to answer the questions that found scientific

companies (iii) what scientific problem are we aiming at? And above all, (iv) How do we know

that what we are speaking of?

This is the first dilemma of the reconstituted Humanities in Human Science, not as Trial,

Speculation, Rhetoric, Poetics or Creation. But there are more dilemmas.

The dilemma is solved, in a practical way, coordinating the investigation as Research

Programmes that allow us to define reflexive and effective strategies to solve investigation

and/ or precise theoretic problems. The ideal Investigation Programme model should combine:

1‐ A Critic of Culture, 2‐ An Epistemology (theory of knowledge) centred on the interpretation

of Social Reality (after the postpositive critic and in middle of the Era of Sense, we can not do

anything except “interpret”), 3‐ The purpose of discovering our Rationality and the rationality

of the Others in History, 4‐ A bet on the Method (to secure an ideal objectiveness and

thoroughness that should be based on interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity) 5‐ the

methodical development (that should look for a wide variety of techniques, standard

procedures, practical consensus agreements and to boost innovation), 6‐ the combination of

scientific practise and necessity (combining committed basic investigation – we are going to

use once again this obsolete concept‐ with the fulfilment of demands and applied

investigation), 7‐ the creation of resources that stimulate economic devolvement, and 8‐ social

and community commitment to produce important value.

This means that an Investigation Programme should cover a Ontology, an Epistemology, a

Theory (including in it both a theoretic‐ collection of terms and rules to manage knowledge‐,

an Anthropologic Theory‐ to create, as we will see in section 3, meaning for it‐ and a Social

Theory‐ to establish the relation between the process of investigation and concrete social

practise), a Method, a cohort of Methodologies (all the possible ones) and a Critic (both

internalist and externalist)

But to build this “scientific” knowledge about social‐cultural Reality, we still have to answer

other dilemmas. In particular, it is especially important to burry humanism, re‐think the

epistemological position of Humanities and, above all, develop methods of postpositive

knowledge (that can not be more than interpretative, but are at least methods). Let us review.

Humanism was a knowledge defined by taking man as the measure of all things, as the

paradigm of knowledge was locked within the limits of self‐referencing (this is to find in the

object of the study what is already found in the subject that is being studied) and

consequently, in the surrounding of total sujectification (which establishes that what can be

known is always and somehow a repeat of what the subject already knows). This type of

knowledge is what we now have to overcome.

To re‐think Humanities as Human Science means to solve somehow some of these questions:

How can Human Science contribute to creating a positive knowledge in a postpositive context?

– We say postpositive because at this height of the new millennium, positivism criticisms do

not allow us many doubts about the necessity of overcoming the objectivist model. How can it

contribute to recreating a value system in a post heroic context? – we say post heroic because

in post modern humanities, great emancipation stories have no place,…although this is still an

objective to be accomplished. Is it possible to find from subjectivity a method to represent the

world that we can apply objectively to be able to act positively on the world? ‐ this is the key

question as knowledge can only be built from subjectivity, but we want knowledge that heads

12

towards objectivity and permits positive actions, which means it is transformative. What is the

relation between this Human Science and the rest of the scientific disciplines? What practical

and theoretical range will it have to contribute actively towards the increase of knowledge, the

production of innovation and the transformation of society?

And these questions have to be asked also in a context where the main question should be

another: Where were we to not see the great ideological fight that has happened in the last 30

years? This is, the positivist point of view has debated with the post‐positivists, the post‐

processualists with the processualists, the post‐structualists with the critics, the Marxists with

everybody…, meanwhile, the ideological agenda has been determined by the neo‐con thinking;

this is the winner of the intellectual war at the beginning of XXI century.

On the other hand, a post‐positivist knowledge method would be the one that resolves

simultaneously the dilemma of Knowledge and the dilemma of Interpretation. This means it

allows a positive knowledge to be formulated (capable as we said before, to act on the world)

in a post positive horizon (that knows it can not be based on objectivist methods), and permits

building a subjective reason without the temptation of believing that subjectivity builds

reason. In section 3.2 we will talk again about both dilemmas.

In the way fanatical Objectivity is not possible any more and instead it has got lost in the twists

and turns of subjectivists, is stated in the following quote, found in a article in a newspaper: “If

the most staunch defenders of ethics in objectivity – interpretations are free, but facts are

sacred‐ like us, have a hard time each time votes are counted so truth can make its way out

into daylight fighting off adversaries in these Vasque beginnings (referring to April 2005), those

who have claimed victory have not just been one, nor two, nor three, but up to six different

parties”. It is not as clear as we wish: a qualified defender of “ethic in objectivity” would never

had said that facts are sacred but interpretations are free, the defender would have said

(according to Umberto Eco in “limits of Interpretation” Eco 1992) that interpretations are not

free, the freeness starts when the freedom of the facts ends, because there are facts that do

not allow just any interpretation. All this can be understood better if we reveal who is the

author of this quote: P.J. Ramírez, in one of his “Sunday lectures” in El Mundo, published the

24th of April 2005. The fact that this author appeals to objectivity and free interpretation says a

lot about the limits and problems in a post positive and post modern context.

So, how is archaeological sense produced in the Era of Sense, and how can it be produced

without producing the subjectivist limits or the objectivist illusions of knowledge and

interpretation? What archaeological interpretation is possible? What method can direct the

archaeological interpretation?

There are a few solutions with a theoretical character: Intersubjectivity (Gadamer), which

contributes with a way to create a common horizon of understanding, based on language,

tradition and/or the shared context; Nihilism, which is a way to limit our subjectivity and the

aspirations of our knowledge and is also precautionary auto critic; Communicative Action

(Habermas); Pragmatism (Rorty); Reflexivity (Giddens). In our case we are inclined towards an

alternative that implements the anthropologic structuralism program (see Criado Boado 2000),

accepting that Structural Anthropology is a successful scientific strategy (probably the only

one) to discover rationality and the thought of anthropologic Otherness. But also, the

structural method has inspired in our case a Structural‐formalism fortune that is based first on

Structural‐comparativism and ends after in interpretative Structuralism.

13

Although we speak of Archaeology, this interpretative method can be used in other practise or

needs. It can be used to arbitrate post positivist bustle. It can be used to link science and public

and include different social agents in scientific processes. It is useful in the study of Ethno‐

knowledge as it offers a management system of interpretative hypothesis and signification

that can also discipline Ethno‐knowledge logics under a different way compared to its own

logic and discipline; basically because it does not disregard it. It also can be used particularly in

the field of Cultural Heritage, in which its original meaning and later reinterpretations can be

interpreted with a base with this method.

3. BetweenObjectivismandSubjectivity

3.1 TheproblemsofHermeneuticsDuring the last 25 years, the positive ‐ functionalist dogma has fallen to pieces. At the same

time post processualism has generated a discussion about the function of interpretation for

valuating and revaluating archaeological registers. In spite of all, neo‐empiricist Archaeology

and a renovated New Archaeology (including cognitive reorientation) that still dominates the

largest part of the discipline territory (in USA, Mediterranean and east Europe, Latin‐American

and Asia) deny the hermeneutic character of our practise. But reality only can be interpreted,

our relation with institutions that represent it (Archaeological records or registers, culture

material, historical documents, subtracts from the past, popular traditions, artistic works,

Heritage…) can only be interpretative. When at the end of the XIX century, Dilthey, Husserl and

Phenomenology suggested that Science of the Spirit (different from Natural Science) should be

orientated towards interpretation, a century later we know that the actions and products of

spirit (this is: the breath that human being extends over the world as it thinks and talks about

it, when it applies on it a rationality pattern) only can be represented by an intellectual

operation that involves comprehension.

Although interpretation is still a problem: What is it to interpret an archaeological register?

How, when and why is it interpreted? Who interprets it? And above all, how can we distinguish

between all the possible interpretations?

Faced with this problem there are, to start with, two options (fig.1): an innovating and post

positivist (better tan postmodern, that gives examples partly of Post Processual Archaeology)

option that postulates that interpretation impregnates all the related practises with

archaeological registers, from the study of it to its diffusion and use; the other option,

traditional and late positivist (that in great part still is the dominating paradigm in historical

disciplines) that accepts in a implicit way that the study of the archaeological register is

scientific and therefore belongs to the dominion of explanation, and meanwhile public access

of this Heritage is a subjective operation and belongs to the dominion of interpretation.

Logically what this text is interested in is abandoning the second line, due to futileness, and at

looking in greater detail at the first, avoiding excesses of the phenomenological‐idealist

alternative, which makes us analyze deeper the conditions, limits and possibilities of

interpretation, and, the implications in evaluating the archaeological register (and we should

add, to manage Cultural Heritage). Our approach, situated in‐between both dominant

epistemological alternatives in modern knowledge, trying to be the “third way”, term that

sounds pretentious and has nothing to do with the (unsuccessful) third way in politics. This is

an approach what roots in what now is properly named “symmetrical archaeology” (González

14

Ruibal 2007b). The subject is difficult in itsefl but we will focus on positive proposals. For this,

we will start bringing out two circumstances:

The theoretical debate of the eighties (that extended on to the nineties) against the

explanation of interpretation, finished falsely (the archaeological post processualism is a good

example of it): too much emphasis was put on interpretation and not enough critically

necessary tools were used to control its possible and predicable negative effects.

This false finish has produced an authentic implosion of hermeneutics (that has formed a full

linguistic turn, a type of ‘interpretative koiné’): protected by the principle, everything is

interpretation; hermeneutics has degenerated in hipper‐hermeneutics. Eco said in 1990 that

the nineties would be the limit of interpretation. Finally, in reality, this was not true. The

reason has a lot to do with the social history of these last years, power transformations and

Late Modern knowledge and the emphasis of individuals to build social spheres.

If at the beginning of this report we started with a proposal of periods of Modern Age, it was

not just irony. It also had a practical meaning: to remember that the evolution of the theory of

knowledge corresponds with a concrete social history that allows us to see that the inflections

of the knowledge System correspond with the logics of the Power System. This way, Period I is

Classic Positivism; Period II is Neo‐Positivism; and Period III is Post‐ Positivism and hegemony

of Hermeneutics. But half way through this period, theoretical reflection came to a halt in

interpretation and hermeneutic practice became generalized up to the point of turning into a

vulgar sacralisation of opinions.

ONTOLOGÍA Realidad = Mundo Empírico Realidad = R Transitiva + R Iintransitiva

EPISTEMOLOGÍA Positivismo Semántica referencial Representación como

reproducción de una presencia real

Post-positivismo Semántica no referencial Representación como producción a partir de

una excusa

TEORÍA Funcionalismo Hermenéutica

MÉTODO Explicación Método Hipotético-deductivo

Comprensión Círculo Hermenéutico

METODOLOGÍA Procedimientos científicos Ciencias Naturales

“Todo vale” Retórica, descripción, saberes narrativos...

CRÍTICA Internalista Externalista

CONTEXTO MODERNIDAD PLENA MODERNIDAD FINAL

POSITIVISMO POST-POSITIVISMO

Fig. 1: Situation and contradictions in the actual epistemological debate: main comparison between two dominant

paradigms of knowledge in Modern Age. Post Modern intelligence needs to get over this dualism and present a

third option.

3.2 InterpretationinArchaeologyNext we shall revise the cognitive fundamentals of Archaeology by revising, even if it is only in

a schematic way, epistemology, and theory and interpretation method.

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Thebasis

To back up the debate of archaeological interpretation, it is necessary to start with two

theoretical reflections that derivate from philosophic criticism of Modern Age. It might seem

excessively abstract, but these reflections are really the basics of practical action. We can

formulate these principles as dilemmas, calling them Present dilemma and Reason dilemma

(understanding “reason” in a Hegelian way: the conscience of itself taking an absolute spirit

and this forms the rational pattern that will guide the phenomenal events of a period)

Present dilemma: we need to form methods of positive action in the present, in a social and

theoretical context that is post positive.

Reason dilemma: we must admit that Reason is formed in a subjective way but subjectivity is

not reason.

Logically, one paradox falls on the other, and one principle can be applied to the other. The

post positive context is built by admitting that reality is produced in a subjective way and that,

precisely due to this, our knowledge of the world is limited. But in spite of this, reason is still

named as the possibility of operating in a positive way on reality.

Both principles, on the other hand, are applied to all the interpretative practices and mainly in

archaeological interpretation: Interpretation is a subjective construction and as it is, it can not

form positivist knowledge nor can it establish rational fundament, but it can be aimed towards

positive action. Actually here appear two new dilemmas, they are part of the consequence,

partly cause and partly a reflection of the two previous ones, knowledge dilemma and

Interpretation dilemma.

Knowledge dilemma: against what positivist thinking postulated, nowadays we know that

knowledge of reality can not be based on explanatory objectivism, it should be based on

interpretative practice; but against phenomenal tradition we also know that hermeneutic

subjectivity does not form alternatives because it does not permit supporting positive action

forms (this is: homogeneous judgment, correspondence between reality and its

representation, authentication of knowledge).

Interpretation dilemma: The question in a post positivist context is to find a subjective

method of representation of the world that can be applied objectively so it can act positively on

the world. At the beginning of this millennium, the question is: how to change the world with

interpretation without just changing or transforming (or even worse) reification of the

individual subjective condition.

What does this all have to do with Archaeology? A lot, it seems that there is no archaeological

register without interpretation, and this is totally, not only related to the public but also with

its production and representation, pure interpretative practice.

In our case, the previous dilemmas take the following morphology: archaeological knowledge

is built by interpretations; these have, more or less, a subjective origin and nature; so they are

conjectural and contingent; so they do not allow to act in a positive way; so, is a type of

hermeneutic liberalism (“freedom of interpretation, freedom of consumption”) the only

practical alternative to connect with archaeological register? Do we have to accept an

explosion of free subjectivities? Do we also have to give in to the freedom to manipulate

Heritage that this implies? and also of prehistory and history as well?

Or is there a possibility to reach a type of interpretation that controls excess subjectivity and

has the capacity of positive action? In this case, what conditions should this interpretation

16

have? How is it backed up (investigation programs, interventions, cultural projects, Heritage

management programs, Interpretation centres…)? How can these programs be adapted to this

purpose?

Concepts,modelsandpoliciesofinterpretation

The most common definition of “interpretation” is the one that compares interpretation with

discovering the intention of the author or subject when it did something. In this way, Post

Processual Archaeology understands archaeological knowledge as an interpretative action in

which the recent subject reads a “text” created by other subjects in an active way.

But even this simple definition comes across unavoidable problems: who does the intention

that we should discover belong to? To the author, and is it a given intention then? To the work,

and is it a self governing intention then? To the interpreter, then is it a free intention?

Interpretation can be a search for intentio auctoris, for intentio operis and for intentio lectoris.

Although it is obvious, we often forget that authentic interpretation should move between

these three signification levels at the same time: nowadays it should not even be doubted that

there is no interpretation without a reproductive practice from an current reader who is

related to a work that has significant capacities that are independent from its original context,

and however, was produced in a context and with a mould of concrete values. The

philosophical problem of interpretation consists in, as Eco (1992; 18) says, establishing the

conditions we interact in and something that is already determined (the interpreted work) and

whose construction follows certain constrictions (the original production context), and adds:

“And so is the Peirce philosophy problem, the phenomenology of Merleau‐Ponty, the

psychology of Piaget, of cognitive science,…of Kant, of epistemology from Popper to Kuhn”.

And when the philosophical caution is not enough, it is convenient to be pragmatic and to

apply, as Eco suggests (1992: 21), media economy criteria in interpretation. Also as a last

option, the maximum Stop making sense (title of a song of Talking Heads from the mid

eighties) is a good practical principle: it is about stopping an interpreting drive or a frenzy that

does not contribute at all to the interpreted phenomenon and only has a narcissi satisfaction

for those who interpret it.

Once again, Archaeology offers a great metaphor of plurality and complexity of interpretative

practice, because the real interpretation of the archaeological register involves (depending on

the definition of register that we gave in section 1): the archaeologist, the original production

context of the register and, in between, the post depositional history (that includes from the

natural processes that affected it to the different cultural traditions that reinterpreted it see.

Criado Boado 1993). One of these dimensions can be given priority, but it would be due to: (i)

adapting to specific circumstances (for example: not enough information) (ii) a concrete option

(in this case it should be justified), (iii) a manipulation or (iv) an absurdity.

When we talk about “interpretation” we often forget its “genealogy” before romanticism

(Schleirmacher 1768‐1834) and German idealism (Dilthey 1833‐1911) rescued it to explain the

products of human spirit: the hermeneutiké tékhne was born in Greece to be able to

understand myths, it is applied in Rome to give sense to legal texts, it is consolidated in

primitive Christianity to interpret Scriptures, confessors Works and council texts, and it is

consolidated by the debate between Reformation and Counter‐reformation about who (the

individual reader or the Church) and how the Scriptures should be interpreted (Dominguez

1993, Ferraris 2000). The origin of interpretation is not at all innocent. Without revising too

17

deeply this story, we can observe that the principal models used to conceive interpretative

practice are three:

In first place is Interpretation as late Enlightenment (Gadamer, Giddens…), that emphasizes

interpretation as a circle or interaction between the individual and totality, the horizons of

subjectivity, intercommunication between subjective horizons, communicative reason and,

finally, to produce consensus.

In second place, Interpretation by North American de‐constructivists (the eighties) that

emphasize interpretation as an instrument to constitute and reassert individuality, unleashed

rhetoric, free aesthetics, creative reason, and therefore, individualism and closed social

comprehension (as Anderson noted in 2000: 29‐36). This model is the one that rises in the

theory of interpretation of Heritage and, partly in most rhetoric and poetical section of Post

processualism.

And finally interpretation by post structural thinking (Derrida, Bordieu, Augé…), that

emphasizes the impossibility of all interpretative reductionism, the de‐subjectification of

interpretations, its inter contexts and at the same time autonomy, the reason of language and

consequently, the illusion of consensus and individualism.

Conditions,limitsandpossibilitiesofinterpretation

It may seem provoking to point out “Reading initiative is totally on the side of the subject who

interprets”, but it can not be took to the point of giving it total priority, especially in things and

acts that have their own logic: “to admit in these cases that the only decision belongs to the

interpreter is magical idealism” Eco (1992:17). So, it is necessary and possible to define the

limits of interpretation. Interpretation always means subjectivity; because of this it usually

ends up as a reconstruction of subjectivity, entrenchment or culmination of the subjective.

But there are ways of controlling the risk of subjective reification inherit in all interpretative

practice: take into consideration the relation subjectivity‐event‐context‐rationality; to know

that if every interpretation needs a subject (that is an “I”) to be formed, it also needed one in

the past (in the original context of the interpretation) to exist. In this way, interpretation is not

only subjective, but it is also (although sometimes we forget) a context and rationality.

Without rationality (cultural model as a basis) there is no interpretation. Without a context, in

which subjectivity interacts with others and with a social process, there is none either.

This is what forms the horizon of intelligibility of interpretation, this is: the basis on which this

can be understood. This horizon is not only the “I” and the individual intention, in which case

interpretation would not be understood socially, it would not have any validity or social

function. As Eco says: “the proper performance of a text (also non verbal) can be explained

taking into consideration, also or instead of the generating moment, the role lead by the

subjects in its comprehension, actualization and interpretation, as well as the way in which the

text anticipates this participation” Eco (1992:22)

We have certain basis to define interpretation possibilities. First: interpretation always needs

a context or horizon of subjectivity or rationality. Second: this horizon is double, it is recent

and belongs to the subject that interprets it, and it is past and original of the subject‐object

that is interpreted. Third: this double horizon is the one that really forms the effective horizon

of interpretation, this is, the basis on which this exists.

In reality, interpretation is an intellectual operation with a triadic base. Interpretation is

constructed when knowledge is produced (a statement is made) from a determined object

18

(being this for example, part of an archaeological register) by the interaction of this with a

horizon of recent subjectivity (the interpreter) and its calibration or comparison with the

original horizon of subjectivity (or a close model) of the mentioned object. This second horizon

fulfils the double function of contextualizing interpretation and weighing up or compensating

the subjective load of the interpreter. This triadic model of conceiving interpretation is

different from other models and has important implications for interpretative practice.

However, if the Explanation is not possible and Interpretation is not enough, we should and we

can build a third interpretation route. We will call it “third way” because from an

epistemological point of view, it is a third option, situated between the explicative, positive

and objective option and the hermeneutic, phenomenological and subjective option.

Compared with the first, we should argue that the Explanation is not possible and the desire of

fanatical objectivity is an illusion. But compared with the second, we can argue that

Interpretation is not enough and that marginal subjectivity is not an alternative. In

Archaeology there is a certain consensus in demanding this type of “third way” situated

between processualism and radical post processualism (for instance Djindjian 1996) “going

further away from objectivism and relativism” (as Wylie demands 1993:25). And general

knowledge U. Eco (1992) or G. Vattimo (1995) propose the necessity of limiting interpretation,

the same as Fabris (2001:52)

What should we do then? The ideal alternative would be produce objective or explanatory

interpretations. But: Is it possible? Does the third way exist as an authentic symmetrical way?

We believe so. Other authors too (for instance, Wylie 1993 finds out how to distinguish

between different interpretations). But this alternative has nothing to do with the right wing

post modern alternative. In a “political” opposition to this, our proposal criticises the excessive

hermeneutic (doomed to entropy) of the present. We accept the agreement with the

“linguistic twist” of post modernity being hermeneutic. But it takes from illustration the

necessity of finding inter‐subjective horizons as a reference for interpretation and of

conferring the real social dimension to interpretative practice. Late positivism recovers the

demand of contrasting up to where interpretations are possible. And Post structural thinking

returns so as to look for interpretation references, methodologies and guarantees. Following

for example Vattimo (1995), whose work seems to us basic with Eco 1992 (despite both

authors have started at some point of their careers, probably as “juveniles”, a “hermeneutic

frenzy”) to analyze deeply an overcoming reflection of the tremendous hermeneutic.

And this way, situating ourselves between the two classical epistemological alternatives of

Modern Age, we opt to producing a knowledge that in one way is narrative (as it can only be

produced as a narration, as it is built in a narrative way and is expressed as some type of story),

but instead of getting stuck in a hermeneutic pulse with no end in which the interpretations

simply take us to the next interpretations, and these are not any more valid than the previous

ones, we choose to control interpretation and produce sense through objectification,

contextualization and verification. This “intelligence of sense” needs a method.

4. AmethodforinterpretationBefore we introduce the “method” in a theoretical way, we are going to try it out in with

practical example.

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Example

To enlighten in a better way the methodological dimension, I have chosen a heterodox

example that shows a formal analysis from which spatial and organizational regularities are

clarified. The example illustrates an interpretative method that consists in, essentially,

accepting as credible a formal hypothesis based on the study of a particular phenomenon

when the recurrence of a prototype is discovered in different phenomena. The interpretative

hypothesis would be then, authentic and provisionally true.

The example comes from heterodox Historical Archaeology as it analyses the transformations

in material culture in the last 30 years, creating a crossed lecture between cars, objects and

architectures. It is a genuine archaeological example, as it refers to formal objects and material

culture, it shows the correspondence between them and the social context, and it shows the

possibilities of an archaeological study beyond Prehistory.

The analysis of this field of phenomena shows a gradual movement in the last years, from

edges to curves. In all the orders of material culture (from personal propriety and consumable

goods, to real property and monuments, passing through mobile and including both effective

material culture and also the “imagined”) the movement is confirmed, from justified lineal

forms and right angles, to others based on curves and sinuosity, up to others consisting in

circles and roundness.

Fig. 2: The evolution in the design of cars in the last fifteen years. Observing the successive designs of the same car

models we can see a gradual change from straight edges and acute angles, typically from the eighties, to a round off

of edges, round shapes and finally organic or animalistic shapes. See this tendency in the “evolution” of Renault Clio

and WV Golf.

20

Fig. 3: The evolution of Seat Ibiza, WV Polo y other recent cars. See the same tendency in the Ibiza, Polo and other

cars. The reestablishment (for example the Beetle) accompanies the final hegemony of the curving. The rounding

off can be seen in small details, like the ‘aggiornamento’ the Terrano 2 compared to the first Terrano, which was

reduced outside when the headlights where changed from rectangular to round ones (in 1996).

The fact that these changes appear in things that are so different like the design of cars,

contemporary architecture or the space crafts in SF films, shows that this occurrence

represents a trend and the observation that has noted it forms a licit formal hypothesis. We

have collected various examples of this “trend” in figures 2 to 5.

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Fig. 4: Formal analysis of the evolution of architecture: the evolution of skyscrapers in La Defense (Paris). The

evolution of the skyscrapers in La Defense is summarized in this diagram, showing next to it the dates, the essential

purpose for each era and the basic principles of the design. The parallelism in evolution of the design in cars is

obvious, not only the formal tendency but also the chronologic sequence.

22

Fig. 5: Correspondence appears where you least expect it: the intergalactic spaceships in the last third of the 20th

century. The design in space aircrafts in Science Fiction films also repeats the same formal patron mentioned in the

previous figures. [Another example would be to compare the shape of the Enterprise in the series Star trek, noticing

how it gradually has rounder lines]

We could increase the number of examples as almost any object we choose (from fax

machines or cameras, lavatories or the design of interiors) is affected by the same evolution.

There is a supine example of this that also proves that this formal transformation does not

depend on the function: the two invisible airplanes of the USAF have the same differences in

their shapes as in their years: the F‐117 Nighthawk, tried out for the Gulf War, has a faceted

and angular figure that becomes rounder and turns into a wave in the B‐2 Spirit, tested in the

Yugoslav wars ten years later. The change in a war aircraft ends up being the best metaphor of

the evolution of shapes and forms in Final Modern Age, the most graphic and synthetic, but

also the most appropriate because it testifies with brutal sincerity the folding of society and

the knowledge of power.

23

However, what does this formal transformation mean? We still have not interpreted the

formal hypothesis. To continue the history following the chronology of our examples could

give us some clues. These examples end ten years ago: the hyper wavy shapes of the

Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Renault Aventis, that ends up in a new sharpness, are not

included. The history that comes after our examples shows a maximization of the tendency of

the design in the last years, which has produced organic shapes that have turned into

animalistic figures. The shapes of machines have come close to the shapes of animals. SF series

have once again become an example: if Babylon V ships are first round, and then towards the

end of the series become organic, the ship in series Lexx is already an almost alive organism.

But also the architecture: after the paroxysm of Guggenheim, the climax was still to be

reached…in the shape of a potato; the most recent projects draw buildings that from outside

look like tubercles and inside they look like intestines. The new model is organic. Radical

modernity is animal. When the prototypes that have been drawn turn into cars it will be

frightening to even go outside.

There is a technological reason behind this evolution; in reality it is a conceptual reason,

symbolic, rooted in the knowledge system although it is fixed technologically. The full

development of digital technologies and virtual reality is allowed for the first time to design

things (buildings, cars, ships, objects…) leaving the drawing board, the paper, the lines and the

set square. Now more than ever, design can be first an idea before anything, and pass from the

imaginative phase to the designed phase without interruption. New software tools allow

anybody to imagine impossible shapes and to draw them, turning them into constructive

drawings; and the new building technologies allow them to be built. Before, you had to be a

genius to push to the limit the possibilities of technical drawing, designing principles and

building processes. We can find here something archaeologists know well: the carrying out of

new works and products depends on the possibility of modifying the technical‐operative chain.

This represents both the social complexity as well as the system of forming ideas this society

has.

The Guggenheim once again is a perfect example. It was the first architecture that was not

designed on a drawing table. It was shaped before being drawn. This formal complexity could

only be conceived three‐dimensional and sculpturally. Afterwards it was scanned. And a

program used by the NASA to design spatial parts turned this shape into drawings (v.

Architecture Viva 55, 1997). Since then, the use of this new designing system has spread. What

it represents is that at last digital technologies have started to be used not just to do the same

job but quicker, but also to do it in a new way and, above all, in a different way. We will have

to see how far we go because at the moment the New Economy has evaporated due to the

crisis of the all time economy. Or is it that the actual production crisis is due to the fact that

the new digital means have only been used to do the same up to now, and to do the same

twice? It is the paradox that illustrates how computer science, that should have ended with all

the paper works, has duplicated the consumption, or how daily administrations have to be

done electronically but also…with a physical signature on paper, like always.

All this puts us on the track of the reason of these transformations. Somehow we perceive it

has to do with the change of knowledge and the individual in Final Modern Age. But, why

change straight to curvy and round? The final reason slips out of our grasp. Is it possible that

there is no reason? Is it possible for us to only find it in a metaphorical way? At the end it is

possible that round spaces correspond to dumb times and that is all. But in archaeo‐logy we

24

are obliged to continue exploring the way of sense, even if it is to discover it does not exist as a

final essence.

GeneralModel

The method that emerges here is not totally an original invention. In reality the way I have

shown to proceed is not much more than the systemization of the method used in Structural

Anthropology and was advanced in Formalist strategies. The trouble is that usually it is not

explained clearly. What is more, this model is implicitly included in the comparative method,

carried out by Mythology, History of Religions and other disciplines (see. Segal 2001, Delpech

et al. 2009, García Quintela 2009). If any positive result or merit produced comparativism, it

was surely because in its applications a beginning of a method was underlined (that was both

in the studier and the studied) linked to the more organized and methodical formulation that

we now set out. This gives us the clue to how it is possible to formalize an interpretative

method from a systematic comparing procedure.

This method has to de‐subjectivize all the interpretative, overcome the gaps of a excessive

subjectivism in which subjectivity has got lost; to achieve this we have to contextualize the

narrative and domesticate interpretation by the combination of a method to check the validity

of interpretative hypothesis completed afterwards by a method to interpret these

interpretations in which this hypothesis is decoded, translated or expressed, its meaning is

discovered, in short, sense is produced. It might seem a paradox to interpret an interpretation,

but it really is an operation in which an interpretation can be objective: the interpretative

postulates are valid only in relation to a subjective context in which they are announced, but

this does not mean that external subjects from this context can not understand and participate

in its meaning.

The first part (check the validity of the interpretative hypothesis) can be done by examining if

the regularity or structure described in the interpretative hypothesis appears in other scales,

scopes, phenomena or codes of the same cultural formation already analyzed; this is how it

should be by the theoretical principle (structural‐materialist rooted) that advocates the

structural compatibility in‐between the codes of the same culture and in sake of the fact that

the expressive codes of a culture are, by force, limited, in the way that if one has to order their

surroundings they will probably do it by the transferred categories of a close surrounding, and

surely applying a unique and same concept of space, which is the one the knowledge system in

which it is absorbed has given to them. This structural recurrence works as the engine of the

hypothesis and the mechanism to check it. This verification is not explicative as it does not

account for rationality, principles or laws the phenomenon answers to. We could say it is a

weak verification as the only thing it contrasts is if the hypothesis is correct by observing if the

regularity has been documented in other cases. The hypothesis itself is not explicative, it has a

marked formal nature; it proposes something is in a certain way, that a certain organization of

a phenomenon is in the same way as the organization of other phenomena, or that certain

objects have the same formal structure.

The second part (to produce sense) can be done by introducing different horizons of

subjectivity where archaeological interpretation can be contextualized and by this, replace the

lost rationality that underlie the studied phenomenon. Although archaeological knowledge is

so limited that sometimes to check something that answers to the same structure as

something similar o apparently different, is to contribute greatly to archaeological intelligence,

25

in reality the weakness and formality of the previous methodical phase make it imperative to

go through this second phase (when it is possible). This phase it is about trying to produce

comprehension, authentic Archaeo‐logical intelligence. The meaning is introduced not only

from our subjectivity, but also from a contextual model that has good reasons (theoretical and

empirical) o even just common sense that encourages us to think it is right to put it in practise.

The review of interpretation that we have expressed here, drives us to adopt as an

interpretative reference (as the horizon of intelligibility of interpretation, as we said before) a

rational model which is the original context of what has been interpreted or, due to the

impossibility in Prehistoric Archaeology to get access to that lost horizon (the same does not

happen in Historical Archaeology, Ethno‐archaeology or in other human sciences like

Anthropology or even often in History), to get close to it. This model will work as an external

subjective application (metasubjective) to form interpretation. The opposite would be to de‐

contextualize interpretation, manipulating the original object and forming a subjective

interpretative practise.

The first part comes from a heterodox application of the method and of the structuralism

methodology. But it also comes from an attempt of critical emulation of the hypothetical‐

deductive method and reflexive overcoming of the hermeneutic method. The first gives us the

format or organization method of our proposal; the methodical and particular will. From the

second part the holistic and circular projection; the interpretative and inductive will.

The second part derivates directly from the epistemological‐theoretical base that we have

chosen en section 2 of this text and, particularly from the critics that allowed us to define the

limits and possibilities of interpretation.

The first procedure allows announcing interpretative hypothesis and to check afterwards the

validity and congruence of them, but it does not allow the interpretation of these hypothesis.

Strictly speaking (only then!), it represents a method of management of hypothesis that

permits us to know if they are allowed, logical, authentic and credible, understanding this way

if they correspond to the empiric observed truth. In any case, if the operation of constructing

and checking interpretations is successful, in reality only a weak interpretation is generated; it

is weak in two ways, it does not go far (and it does not mean to) and it does not imply a large

subjective part from the interpreter.

As we will see further on, the analysis should put here in practise the formal and almost logical

procedures and methodologies. Formal analysis in particular, in its different forms and uses, is

especially worthwhile. In short, it is about “managing knowledge” with the least inference

possible by the agent (us) that manages it. It is about describing without being described,

categorizing without nominalising, classifying from the bottom not from the top.

The second procedure allows us consecutively to interpret the hypothetical statements that

have an interpretative nature, in short: interpret hypothesis. To talk accurately (not less than

that!) it is a method to recover lost reason, of pristine reason or logic, from which the studied

reality we have previously reduced to announced hypothesis, could be understood, (we say

“understand” in a profound way of sense in a hermeneutic community, a group that shares the

same cultural or linguistic horizon, as Gadamer suggested). In any case, it implies a strong

interpretation, and this double meaning goes further than the previous one (it has more

interpretative pretensions) and at the same time a greater subjective burden.

In this way we can introduce a new type of explanation. The explanation can be of many

different types: nomothetic, deductive, by chance, statistic (probabilistic), descriptive…, and

26

not all of them adjust precisely to the hempelian explanatory model. The proposed model

generates (this is what we defend) a type of explanation that is not accidental‐statistic, but it

moves away from the mere narrative knowledge, built‐funded‐legitimized in a subjective way.

It is based on an “objective interpretation” (objectified or checked) that is made in a subjective

horizon that belongs to the phenomenon being interpreted instead of being based on the

mere subjectivity of the interpreter. The interpretation will be done from the horizon of

subjectivity belonging to the interpreted occurrence.

This operation is the one that in our case is complied activating alternative cultural rationality

models, using mainly anthropologic knowledge but also historic and sociologic knowledge.

These models have a theoretical nature, which means we can not expect to find them “exactly

the same” in the empiric world, although they should correspond with them. History,

Archaeology, Ethnology (as disciplines) and, even more in general, historical documents,

archaeological register and ethnographic register (for instance, Cultural Heritage as a summary

of what these empiric groups gather together) need different horizons of subjectivity from

which to contextualize interpretation. These horizons will not always be available, basically

because the linguistic subjects that spoke of them, produced them and reproduced them, have

already been dead for some time. This obvious circumstance is often kept secret. However, it

is possible to build substitute models of the lost reason based on the theory of history,

Ethnology, structural anthropology…which has been in our particular case the essential source

of the origin of these models (Criado Boado 2000). But there are other models and theoretical

sources that have also been used to fund the interpretative work. Historical or proto‐historical

contexts that are more or less close to the studied archaeological situation can be used (for

instance, this would be the potentiality of “going back to” the Indo‐European to understand

the European proto‐history which is up to where we can see is mostly Indo‐European or based

on social theories)(for example, the theory of way of production, above all incorporating things

that in original Marxist formulations were not developed, such as domestic production, the

Germanic or heroic or tributary, is still valid to understand historical processes)

If our strategy was to be successful we would have achieved something that, being situated

away from objectivist explanation as well as subjective hermeneutic, we would name

interpretative explanation, or also contrasted interpretation. By an essentially interpretative

practice we could understand in an objective way, the scope of the analysed reality, or even

establish predictions or structural hypothesis about it or other scopes in the same context.

Exploring this possibility constitutes one of the fundamental objectives of our investigation.

Nothing forces these two described methods to always go together nor in this order. One can

be used without the other. Also they can appear in reverse order. The normal procedure (and

the strictest) is to first use the formal analysis to observe a material regularity, announce an

interpretative hypothesis, contrast its validity by examining to see if it appears in other ranges,

and then afterwards use the interpretative models to discover its sense. But it is possible to

work in the opposite direction: start with a certain theoretical‐interpretative model, announce

a hypothesis then examine by formal analysis if it is appropriate and if it adjusts or not to

empiric regularities.

This approach is especially useful in Archaeology if we take into consideration that this

discipline is focused on the study of Material Culture, just as it appears in the Archaeological

Register. We understand the Archaeological Register as an archive of forms that corresponds

with specific orientations of social practise towards the world. A certain concept of Register

involves at the same time a formation model of the archaeological register and, also, a model

27

of what the archaeological register represents. These concepts imply that Archaeology is

resolved by the study of materialisation processes and strategies, that is, by the practises that

made objective the Social Being converting it into forms, shaping it. To be able to do this,

Archaeology must admit and rebuilt Formal Regularities, the basic form under all concrete

form. Taking into consideration that the Archaeological Register is predetermined by the

correspondence between the concept of Space of Social entireness of what proceeds and the

visual characteristics (or dimensions) of this register, it is worth while postulating an

interpretative method that first is orientated as an analysis to look for formal regularities and

then afterwards to look for the sense of these regularities. This is our theoretical‐

methodological proposal for Archaeological Interpretation.

Development

We will now go back to our practical example explained above, so as to formalize in detail the

first part of the method, the procedure to manage and check hypothesis that have an

interpretative character. Our proposal is based on comparing the formal models of organizing

material culture, archaeological space (or whatever) that come from the study of different

archaeological codes.

The analysis can be applied on the same cultural horizon as well as different contexts. The first

way is a synchronous study and the second a diachronic study; both can be combined. In both

cases the work method that is followed can be schematized (using a formulation that J.L.

García 1988 already anticipated) in the following way. (This model is represented in a Graphic

in figure 6 so as to make easier the comprehension of the text).

28

Fig. 6: A method for archaeological interpretation: development of the procedure of announcement and

Management of interpretative hypothesis; at the end of this reasoning and investigation chain, the hypothetic

resulting model would be interpreted by Redding it in a contextualized rational patron. In some way, the method

takes us from archaeology to Archaeo‐logy, from archaeological investigation to Archaeo‐logical intelligence.

The first phase of the analysis is centred on the study of a specific field of happenings, taken

from the scale of a certain level of articulation or aspect, for example: architecture of domestic

units, the situation of funeral monuments o ceramic decoration. If we use a foucaltian analogy

we can say that the objective of our study is based on concrete discussions. The objective of

this phase is, (first) establish the basic form or the unchanging formal patron that this

discursive range answers to and, (after) define a Concrete Hypothetical Model (MCH) of the

organization of this range of a concrete phenomenon.

The phase corresponds to the formal analysis stage that offers the adequate procedure to

recognize the common form (we could also call the structural form) under the plurality of

empiric forms.

29

The second phase is centred on the study of other levels and phenomenal aspects in the same

considered range, for instance: architecture of settlement and the use of domestic space,

tumulus architecture and the distribution of paintings on murals on a megalithic monument,

the obtaining of ceramic raw materials or the functions of ceramic products. This way, once

the MCH of the initially considered subject has been announced, it is compared with formal

schemes that derivate from the analysis of these other levels with the aim of evaluating the

degree in which one and another correspond.

If we maintain the foucaltian analogy, we can say that the object of the analysis is now the

field of knowledge, a discursive practise or formation and it forms discursive regularity. The

object of the study is to establish the organizational structure or structural model which

different empiric formalizations depend on in this field of knowledge, which in fact makes an

Ideal Concrete Model (MCI) for coordination or strictly named code.

The third phase is centred on the revision of phenomenal scopes, different to the ones

considered up to now, aiming to compare them; for example: the comparative analysis of

architecture, the situation of monuments and ceramic decoration. It is about contrasting the

coherence of the previous model deeply considering different scopes of social action (other

practises and effects and‐ if we can‐ other knowledge and discussions) to check if they

reappear in the same ideal model or, in any case, transformations of it. If due to empiric

limitations, it is not possible to study different scopes, at least different areas can be analysed

(for instance, to go from Galician Hill fort architecture to the type in the north of Portugal) to

see if the MCI reappears in it. This means finally to observe if in different scopes (or areas) of

the same societies (or nearby societies) the same organization codes that appear in the first

one are shown.

The objective of this phase is to define a Generic Hypothetic Model (MGH) of the organization

of the phenomenal scopes, its value and sense will be determined in the following phases in

the investigation. This model, in reality, is a generalization of the previous ideal model that is

established by the analysis and comparison of phenomena that belongs to the same cultural

context.

The fourth phase is centred on analysis of the correspondence between the codes discovered

in each area (or zone) and that allow defining the Ideal Generic Model (MGI) and discover

what, in fact, makes up the structural model of a determined organizational regularity,

understanding this as the generic code on which different but linked empiric phenomena are

based (for instance the correlation between the different shapes and dimensions of cultural

landscape).

If we keep the foucaltian analogy that we have suggested, the object of analysis would be now

the knowledge and knowledge system in general. This way, the object of our analysis would be

to define the structural code of the scope (or various scopes) of the considered phenomenon,

understanding it as the collection of principles, concepts and rules that regulate the spatial

dimensions of social practise in this context, and so even if it is to maintain the position,

transform itself or refuse, it emerges one way or another in different phenomenal displays and

in material products of this social‐economic formation. This code constitutes the Generic Ideal

Model. At this point, the interpretation of its sense or rationality is an auto‐content operation.

Specifically, this model can be checked by observing if it allows understanding the

characteristics and configuration of other scopes in the same social‐cultural context initially

less known.

30

Finally the fifth phase, that has a very different character, can be accomplished, in this phase

the analysis comes apart from the only cultural context that up to the moment was considered

(the megalitism, the Bronze Age…). It moves to other different and distant cultural contexts

(chronological and/ or spatial), which allows us to compare the obtained results with situations

that depend on different, similar or even identical rational patrons. As they are distant

contexts, there is no risk that the similarities and differences being related to conservation

processes o investment in a determined cultural tradition. There is no risk of analogy becoming

identity. On the other hand, the concordances and discordances between the compared

situations will point out principles and rules that work in all cases.

This way, once the generic models of each period or spatial regularity have been removed

(MGI), they are compared with the contexts, areas o cultural periods that are far away from

them or have nothing to do with each other, with the aim to examine the most notorious

conjunctions and disjunctions between them. The correspondence found in the different codes

are due, if not to the identity or cultural continuity (for instance, Romanesque architecture

throughout Europe participates with some, although not all, cultural identity), to similar

organization principles, some of which are predetermined by social‐economic formation,

others by the symbolic system, others, if we were to take note of Levi‐Strauss hypothesis, of

the unchangeable nature of human reason, and others, finally, due to coexistence where the

sense must be discovered in rationality patrons from which they derivate. This phase of the

analysis is easy to tackle if a diachronic study is prepared, basically because in that case the

study will give us very different comparison framework, far away from the “ghost of identity”.

This should be enough to tranquilise those who suspect of using resources like, for instance,

download Indo‐European analogies to interpret the proto‐historic register. The interpretation

of original sense is benefitted by the comparative violence between different contexts.

This interpretative operation then adopts the figure of a reading of a group of phenomena

from a different horizon of intelligibility (or interpretative), a reading that should be in reality a

confrontation between the description of these phenomena and this horizon, forcing a

“comparative violence” that allows to emphasize the most significant elements; this reading

makes up really a translation. The horizon of intelligibility on which the models derivated from

the previous phases are opposed, will be made from either weak analogies or from different

patrons of anthropological rationality, taken in all cases as if they are weakened analogies (it is

what Hernando 1997 calls “conscience modelling”)

If the first phase corresponds to a formal analysis, the second phase we have described

corresponds to a deconstructive stage in which the considered empiric register is taken apart

to have access to its irregularities; The third one corresponds to a descriptive stage in which

these irregularities are rebuilt and their hypothetical sense is expressed by an internal

description or by self content. The fourth part is an interpretative stage, based mostly on the

establishment of analogous correspondence between phenomena orders that, without being

identical, can be referred one to the other, to shape this way the sense of one or the other; the

fifth part is a synthetic phase in which signification is constructed by historical processes.

However, this sequence is partly simplistic. These actions really are joined together in the

process of study. All the same, it is licit to understand them as five consecutive phases of

analysis, which would correspond with each of the principle phases and are named depending

on the action that dominates in them. In fact, the previous formulation (like every method

exhibition) is more inflexible than a practise can or should be. This inflexibility is related to

concrete subjects and we have put in practise on them this proposal, all of them are “spatial”

31

natured: prehistoric architecture, archaeological landscape and ceramic (see as in example

Criado Boado 1999). García (2000) contributes with this type of example of interpretative

correspondence, correlating historical sources, archaeological sources and Indo‐European

figures.

On the other hand, the results that derivate from this analysis could be classified as weak or

strong interpretations depending on how “close” they are to the formal material of the

interpreted phenomenon. To discover that this phenomenon has a order principle and to

discover it even follows rules can be a weak interpretation but of great objective importance;

to understand the sense, the origin and the functionality of this code would be almost always a

strong interpretation and, in consequence, of more subjective consistence.

I can not add much more. Borges used to say he had accomplished his meaning in life by

having created two or three new metaphors, and by resolving the problem of existence. I

suppose it was irony because if creating new metaphors is not precisely trivial (Bachelard said

that a new image was more difficult to achieve in Humanities that a new character for a

flower), to resolve the problem of existence is even more chimerical, something that maybe is

only solved by Death. To resolve the problem of production of sense and interpretation is to

resolve the problem of existence because, as interpretation depends on the relation between

the subject of knowledge and the world; in that relation, the subject and the object are

configured and re‐configured in the cognitive process. As I am not Borges and I have not

resolved the problem of existence, I do not think I have resolved the problem of interpretation

either. My intention was more modest; I simply hoped to discipline the interpretative process

with a few procedural rules and methods so in this way, contribute to the process of creation

and negotiation of sense in multivocal contexts.

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Arqueología del Paisaje and Laboratory of Archaeology); en particular it has been encouraged

by the experiences and conversations with Xurxo Ayán Vila, David Barreiro, Marco García

Quintela, Camila Gianotti, César González Pérez, Alfredo González Ruibal, César Parcero

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32

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