Overview

Inconstant Companions explores the tension between aboriginal oral traditions and the practice of archaeology in North America. That exploration is necessarily interdisciplinary and set in a global context. Indeed, the issues at stake are universal in the current era of intellectual 'decolonization' and multiculturalism. Unless committed to writing, even the most esteemed utterances are inevitably forgotten with the passing of generations, however much the succeeding ones try to reproduce what they think they had heard. Writing shares with archaeological remains a greater, if unequal, durability. Through copious examples across academic and ethnographic spectra and over millennia, Mason examines the disparate functions of traditional 'ways of knowing' in contrast to the paradigm of science and critical historiography.

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9780817355333

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"Inconstant Companions is a necessary read for all archaeologists. Many readers will invest their energy in engaging Mason in dialogue about his reading of the facticity of one or more oral traditions - and the book invites that kind of response. However, more important, Inconstant Companions is about the integrity of our discipline, and that is where we should concentrate our attention. - Illinois Archaeology """"Mason writes clearly, with an ostensible effort at balancing his observations and judgments. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, professionals."""" - CHOICE"

Inconstant Companions is a necessary read for all archaeologists. Many readers will invest their energy in engaging Mason in dialogue about his reading of the facticity of one or more oral traditions - and the book invites that kind of response. However, more important, Inconstant Companions is about the integrity of our discipline, and that is where we should concentrate our attention. - Illinois Archaeology Mason writes clearly, with an ostensible effort at balancing his observations and judgments. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, professionals. - CHOICE

Inconstant Companions is a necessary read for all archaeologists. Many readers will invest their energy in engaging Mason in dialogue about his reading of the facticity of one or more oral traditions - and the book invites that kind of response. However, more important, Inconstant Companions is about the integrity of our discipline, and that is where we should concentrate our attention. - Illinois Archaeology Mason writes clearly, with an ostensible effort at balancing his observations and judgments. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, professionals. - CHOICE

Author Information

Ronald J. Mason is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and the Henry M. Wriston Emeritus Professor of Social Science at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and author of Great Lakes Archaeology.

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