ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at four subsets of the ideas that are usually grouped under postprocessualism: aspects of identity; approaches to meaning based on a discipline known as semiotics; phenomenological ways of looking at human experiences; and what is called the new materiality. Some aspects of group identity may hinge on the same ones out of which individual identities are created: age, for example, or occupation. Instrumentalist perspectives on this form of group identity, as the name implies, view ethnicity as a tool that is deployed as a means to achieve a goal that the group agrees is valuable. A common focus became the ethnic group; in fact, some cultural anthropologists suggested that the term "ethnicity" should replace the ever-problematic term and concept of culture. Both culture and ethnicity are used in archaeology, with ethnicity considered more specific and associated with smaller units that are usually parts of larger groups, such as civilizations, complex societies, or culture areas and regions.
