ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for the central importance of agency to archaeological interpretation. It underscores an important but neglected point in recent studies: that agency itself only exists in a dialectical relationship to structure. In other words, different social structures produce, and are reproduced or transformed by, different forms of agency. Forms of agency, then, must be seen as historically particular, specific and changing: what constitutes 'agency' will vary from society to society and from historical context to context. Pots are made by people, but the people are created by society, and re-create society in their turn. The chapter elaborates on the theoretical underpinnings of this argument, and then explores it empirically by looking at an historical period that is generally supposed to be a critical moment in the definition of the self and the individual: the Renaissance. The theoretical relationship between the individual, the social collective, and agency will vary according to context.
