ABSTRACT
I would like to argue that the debate on material culture within archaeology is presently characterised by a number of dichotomies which need to be overcome. Prime amongst these is the separation between the symbolic significance of objects and their materiality. This is predicated upon the different theoretical approaches which concern themselves with these two aspects of the material world. However, another related problem lies in the way that we have kept our discussions of time and of material culture separate: in different chapters of books, or in different sessions of a conference like the present one. We have rich descriptions of the way in which material culture is ordered and employed in the negotiation of social position, yet when we turn to a consideration of time, ‘history’ is invariably seen as something which happens to human beings and social relations, not to things. When we start to think about change through time, material culture tends to be relegated to the status of the type fossil: the record of past social processes.
