The visibility and interpretation of the archaeological record

Abstract

Items belonging to the archaeological record may be defined by their conditions of visibility. From the point of view of this paper, these conditions are determined by the spatial conceptualization embeded in the social processes that produce those items. So, the description and analysis of the strategies of visibilization existing within social actions could be used as a resource to interpret the archaeological record and reconstruct the cultural rationalities what produced it. This paper reviews the concepts of Material Culture and Archaeological Record. At the same time it deals with the major problems of interpreting the archaeological record and suggests the use of anthropological models of cultural rationality as a way to overcome the limits of interpretation in Archaeology. These proposals are adopted as a theoretical basis for the reconstruction of past social landscape.