ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Does archaeological theory exist in Brazil? The answer depends, of course, on the definition of the term ‘theory’. Embree (1989:37) considered that ‘historical archaeology in the broad signification includes meta-archaeology and how substantive research includes methodologies of data collection and analysis as well as the theorising of explanatory models’. The absence of explicit theoretical and/or methodological archaeological posts in Brazilian institutions (Faria 1989: 35) would suggest that there is a lack of theory in Brazilian archaeology, as in the archaeologies of other countries (Kotsakis 1991:69; Thomas 1995). Besides, it is still very common to dismiss interpretative papers as ‘too theoretical’ (MacDonald 1991:830; and see Cooney 1995). Theory is sometimes considered as:
esoteric, subversive, anarchistic-something one should avoid as a matter of intellectual hygiene.
