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oapen-20.500.12657-606072024-03-27T14:15:03Z Chapter 3 Mortar and Pestle or Cooking Vessel? When Archaeology Makes Progress Through Failed Analogies Nyrup, Rune analogies, optimism; mortaria; romanization debate; comparative understanding; value of understanding thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NK Archaeology Most optimistic accounts of analogies in archaeology focus on cases where analogies lead to accurate or well-supported interpretations of the past. This chapter offers a complementary argument: analogies can also provide a valuable form of understanding of cultural and social phenomena when they fail, in the sense of either being shown inaccurate or the evidence being insufficient to determine their accuracy. This type of situation is illustrated through a case study involving the mortarium, a characteristic type of Roman pottery, and its relation to the so-called Romanization debate in Romano-British archaeology. I develop an account of comparative understanding, based on the idea that humans have a natural desire to understand ourselves comparatively, i.e., in terms of how we resemble and differ from societies at other times and places. Pursuing analogies can provide this type of understanding regardless of whether they turn out to be accurate. Furthermore, analogies can provide a similar form of understanding even when the evidence turns out to be insufficient to determine their accuracy. 2023-01-11T13:03:39Z 2023-01-11T13:03:39Z 2021 chapter 9783030610517 9783050610548 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/60607 eng application/pdf Attribution 4.0 International Bookshelf_NBK578419.pdf Springer Nature Explorations in Archaeology and Philosophy 10.1007/978-3-030-61052-4_3 10.1007/978-3-030-61052-4_3 6c6992af-b843-4f46-859c-f6e9998e40d5 887b4125-2e5d-41b9-9bd5-46c044da13d4 d859fbd3-d884-4090-a0ec-baf821c9abfd 9783030610517 9783050610548 Wellcome 22 Cham 213660/Z/18/Z Wellcome Trust Wellcome open access
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Most optimistic accounts of analogies in archaeology focus on cases
where analogies lead to accurate or well-supported interpretations of the past. This
chapter offers a complementary argument: analogies can also provide a valuable
form of understanding of cultural and social phenomena when they fail, in the sense
of either being shown inaccurate or the evidence being insufficient to determine
their accuracy. This type of situation is illustrated through a case study involving the
mortarium, a characteristic type of Roman pottery, and its relation to the so-called
Romanization debate in Romano-British archaeology. I develop an account of comparative
understanding, based on the idea that humans have a natural desire to
understand ourselves comparatively, i.e., in terms of how we resemble and differ
from societies at other times and places. Pursuing analogies can provide this type of
understanding regardless of whether they turn out to be accurate. Furthermore, analogies
can provide a similar form of understanding even when the evidence turns out
to be insufficient to determine their accuracy.
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