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Points and Lines
Author(s) -
Kehoe Alice B.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
archeological papers of the american anthropological association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1551-8248
pISSN - 1551-823X
DOI - 10.1525/ap3a.1990.2.1.23
Subject(s) - terminology , convention , ethnography , point (geometry) , term (time) , epistemology , sociology , linguistics , anthropology , philosophy , social science , mathematics , physics , geometry , quantum mechanics
“Social convention,” the application of standard terminology to phenomena, is highly influential in science, including archeology. I examine the application of the term “point” to stone and bone objects recovered from archeological sites. I show how “established social convention” has overridden other foundations for signification. Conventional terminology hid the presence of functional classes of artifacts and the activities they evidence. Expectations derived from strong ethnographic analogies have been systematically excluded from examination by these conventions.