ABSTRACT
Theoretical issues concerning the conjunction of texts and archaeological material in social reconstructions have been the focus of attention in recent research in American historical archaeology and in Mesoamerican archaeology (e.g. Carmack and Weeks 1981; Beaudry 1988; Leone and Potter 1988; Little 1992; Marcus 1992). The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the issue of the use of texts and archaeology in social reconstruction to the field of classical archaeology, a field which has had little attention in the theoretical literature of historical archaeology in general (but see Small 1995). My argument is that the current relationship between archaeological and textual evidence in classical archaeology limits understanding of the classical past, and has, in a specific case, resulted in the neglect of evidence for important social strategies. Classical archaeology needs an approach to social modelling which holds both the textual and archaeological record as independent sources of evidence. Such an approach both highlights avenues for productive research into the classical past and illustrates how issues brought forth in the use of texts and the archaeological record in classical archaeology can add to the investigation of this question in the wider archaeological community.
