ABSTRACT
While assembling the closing remarks for this volume, I found myself returning to my first thoughts on its subject matter. Some years ago now, Don Thieme and I crafted a joint paper for the Society for American Archaeology Meetings entitled ‘Post-processual trends and the changing role of geoarchaeology’ (Owoc and Thieme 1997). In it, we attempted to highlight the historical, metaphorical nature of earth science descriptions, and urged the discipline of geoarchaeology to augment and revisit its descriptive practices in light of the plurality of conceptions of the mineral world past and present. The somewhat less than enthusiastic response our paper received was unsurprising, not merely in light of the historical context of our remarks, but also because of the epistemological difficulties proposed by our suggestions. The challenges raised in that paper have recently begun to be met by a variety of scholars, and this volume was intended to provide an inspirational forum for work along similar lines. What is at risk in this general endeavour, however, is the unity of the anthropological/archaeological project for making the mineral world meaningful. For example, it might be perceived by some readers of this volume that intellectual advancement is being sought largely through a rejection of past paradigms and methodological achievements, leading inevitably to a fragmented discourse about the mineral world. This would be an incorrect reading of this volume. It might be worthwhile, given our subject matter, to recall the remarks of Brothwell and Higgs (1970: 32) of some 30 years ago regarding the proliferation of separate and independent enquiries arising from restricted practices in environmental archaeology. Describing this as ‘a horrid porridge with little meaning’, they urged the development of an integrated and critical discipline of archaeological science. We could do worse than follow their suggestions as we seek to further develop our archaeological and anthropological conceptions of the mineral world.
