Jie Shen
“I Was Born With a Reading List I Will Never Finish.“
My personal qualifying exam reading list. I’ve picked things I’ve read and liked, and things I haven’t read but think look good. The highlighted ones are recommended starting points.
Almost all have digital versions. If your university library doesn’t have them, Sci-Hub and Anna’s Archive definitely will.
Agency and Materiality
Bauer, Alexander A. “Itinerant Objects.” Annual Review of Anthropology 48, no. 1 (2019): 335–52. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102218-011111.
———. “Objects and Their Glassy Essence: Semiotics of Self in the Early Bronze Age Black Sea.” Signs and Society 1, no. 1 (March 2013): 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1086/670166.
Bauer, Andrew M, and Steve Kosiba. “How Things Act: An Archaeology of Materials in Political Life.” Journal of Social Archaeology 16, no. 2 (June 1, 2016): 115–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605316641244.
Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter:A Political Ecology of Things. A John Hope Franklin Center Book. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.
Birch, Suzanne Pilaar, ed. Multispecies Archaeology. 1st edition. Routledge, 2020.
Chazin, Hannah. “Animal Work before Capitalism: Sheep’s Reproductive Labor in the Ancient South Caucasus.” American Anthropologist 125, no. 4 (2023): 809–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13916.
Coole, Diana. “New Materialism: The Ontology and Politics of Materialisation.” In Power of Material/Politics of Materiality, edited by Susanne Witzgall and Kerstin Stakemeier. Switzerland: diaphanes, 2018.
Dobres, Marcia-Anne. Technology and Social Agency: Outlining a Practice Framework for Archaeology. 1st edition. Oxford, UK ; Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell, 1991.
Dobres, Marcia-Anne, and John Robb, eds. Agency in Archaeology. London ; New York: Routledge, 2000.
Gardner, Andrew, ed. Agency Uncovered: Archaeological Perspectives on Social Agency, Power, and Being Human. 1st edition. Routledge, 2017.
Harman, Graham. Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. UK: Pelican, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2018.
Hauser, Mark W. “Materiality as Problem Space.” In Practicing Materiality, 119–32. Routledge, 2015. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003084679-7.
Hill, Erica. “Animals as Agents: Hunting Ritual and Relational Ontologies in Prehistoric Alaska and Chukotka.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 21, no. 3 (October 2011): 407–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774311000448.
Hodder, Ian. “The Asymmetries of Symmetrical Archaeology.” Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1 (February 3, 2015): 228–30. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i2.26674.
Ingold, Tim. “Materials against Materiality.” Archaeological Dialogues 14, no. 1 (June 2007): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203807002127.
———. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge, 2000. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203466025.
———. “When ANT Meets SPIDER: Social Theory for Arthropods.” In Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach, edited by Carl Knappett and Lambros Malafouris, 209–15. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74711-8_11.
Knappett, Carl. “Materials with Materiality?” Archaeological Dialogues 14, no. 1 (June 2007): 20–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203807002140.
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. First Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Meskell, Lynn. “The Intersections of Identity and Politics in Archaeology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31, no. 1 (2002): 279–301. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085457.
Miller, Daniel. “Materiality: An Introduction.” In Materiality, 1–50. New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822386711-001.
Pauketat, Timothy R. “Practice and History in Archaeology: An Emerging Paradigm.” Anthropological Theory 1, no. 1 (March 2001): 73–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/146349960100100105.
———. “The Tragedy of the Commoners.” In Agency in Archaeology, edited by Marcia-Anne Dobres and John E. Robb, 113–29. Routledge, 2000.
Pauketat, Timothy R., and Susan M. Alt. “Agency in a Postmold? Physicality and the Archaeology of Culture-Making.” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory12, no. 3 (September 2005): 213–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-005-6929-9.
Robb, John. “Beyond Agency.” World Archaeology 42, no. 4 (December 2010): 493–520. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2010.520856.
Russell, Nerissa. Social Zooarchaeology: Humans and Animals in Prehistory. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Tilley, Christopher. “Materiality in Materials.” Archaeological Dialogues 14, no. 1 (June 2007): 16–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203807002139.
Van Dyke, Ruth M., ed. Practicing Materiality. University of Arizona Press, 2015. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183gxhm.
Witzgall, Susanne, and Kerstin Stakemeier. “Power of Material/Politics of Materiality – an Introduction.” In Power of Material/Politics of Materiality. Switzerland: diaphanes, 2018.
Craft Production
Costin, Cathy Lynne. “Craft Production.” In Handbook of Archaeological Methods, 2005. https://www.academia.edu/2158157/2005_Craft_Production_Handbook_of_Archaeological_Methods_.
———. “Craft Production Systems.” In Archaeology at the Millennium: A Sourcebook, edited by Gary M. Feinman and T. Douglas Price, 273–327. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-72611-3_8.
———. “Craft Specialization.” In The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality, 1–5. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs106.
———. “Craft Specialization: Issues in Defining, Documenting, and Explaining the Organization of Production.” Archaeological Method and Theory 3 (1991): 1–56.
———. “Introduction: Craft and Social Identity.” Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 8, no. 1 (1998): 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1525/ap3a.1998.8.1.3.
Dobres, M.-A. “Archaeologies of Technology.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 34, no. 1 (January 1, 2010): 103–14. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bep014.
Dobres, Marcia-Anne, and Christopher R. Hoffman. The Social Dynamics of Technology: Practice, Politics, and World Views. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999.
Helms, Mary W. Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, Trade, and Power. University of Texas Press, 1993. https://doi.org/10.7560/730748.
Hochscheid, Helle, Ben Russell, and International Association for Classical Archaeology, eds. The Value of Making: Theory and Practice in Ancient Craft Production. Studies in Classical Archaeology, volume 13. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2021.
Lemonnier, Pierre. Elements for an Anthropology of Technology. Anthropological Papers / Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, no. 88. Ann Arbor, Mich: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1992.
———, ed. Technological Choices: Transformation in Material Cultures Since the Neolithic. 1st edition. London: Routledge, 1993.
———. “The Study of Material Culture Today: Toward an Anthropology of Technical Systems.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5, no. 2 (June 1, 1986): 147–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-4165(86)90012-7.
Longo, Laura, and Natalia Skakun. “Prehistoric Technology” 40 Years Later: Functional Studies and the Russian Legacy. Archaeopress, 2008.
Mahias, Marie-Claude. “POTTERY TECHNIQUES IN INDIA Technical Variants and Social Choice Marie-Claude Mahias.” In Technological Choices, edited by Pierre Lemonnier. Routledge, 1993.
Pfaffenberger, Bryan. “Social Anthropology of Technology.” Annual Review of Anthropology21 (1992): 491–516.
Porqueddu, Marie-Elise, Claudia Sciuto, and Anaïs Lamesa.“Reconsidering the Chaîne Opératoire: At the Crossroad Between People and Materials.” Open Archaeology 9, no. 1 (January 1, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2022-0296.
Rice, Prudence M. “Specialization, Standardization, and Diversity: A Retrospective.” In The Ceramic Legacy of Anna O. Shepard, edited by Ronald L. Bishop and Frederick W. Lange, First Edition. Niwot, Colo: Univ Pr of Colorado, 1991.
Schiffer, Michael B., ed. Anthropological Perspectives on Technology. 1st ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
Wendrich, Edited Willeke. “Archaeology and Apprenticeship: Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice.” In Archaeology and Apprenticeship: Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice, 19. University of Arizona Press, 2012.
Zhou, Yuduan 周玉端, and Yinghua 李英华 Li. “技术本体论视角下的旧石器技术研究.” 考古, no. 2 (2024): 66–77.
Choyke, Alice Mathea, and Laszlo Bartosiewicz, eds. Crafting Bone: Skeletal Technologies through Time and Space : Proceedings of the 2nd Meeting of the (ICAZ) Worked Bone Research Group,Budapest, 31 August-5 September 1999. BAR International Series 937. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2001.
Gates St. Pierre, Christian, Renee Beauchamp Walker, and Society for American Archaeology, eds. Bones as Tools: Current Methods and Interpretations in Worked Bone Studies. BAR International Series 1622. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007.
International Council for Archaeozoology, Sharyn Jones, W. van Neer, and A. Ervynck, eds. Behaviour behind Bones: The Zooarchaeology of Ritual, Religion, Status, and Identity. Oxford : Oakville, CT: Oxbow ; David Brown Book Co, 2004.
Lang, Felix. “The” Sound of Bones: Proceedings of the 8th Meeting of the ICAZ Worked Bone Reserarch Group in Salzburg, 2011, [August 29 – September 3]. Eigenverl. Univ. Salzburg, Fachbereich Altertumswissenschaften, 2013.
Luik, Heidi, Alice M. Choyke, Colleen E. Batey, and Lembi Lougas, eds. From Hooves to Horns, from Mollusc to Mammoth: Manufacture and Use of Bone Artefacts from Prehistoric Times to the Present. Tallinn, 2005.
Ma, Shuwen, and Luc Doyon. “Animals for Tools: The Origin and Development of Bone Technologies in China.” Frontiers in Earth Science (Lausanne) 9 (2021): 784313-. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2021.784313.
Seetah, Krish. Humans, Animals, and the Craft of Slaughter in Archaeo-Historic Societies. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Vitezović, Selena. Close to the Bone: Current Studies in Bone Technologies, 2016.
Wild, Edited by Markus, Beverly A. Thurber, and Stephen Rhodes & Christian Gates St-Pierre. Bones at a Crossroads. Integrating Worked Bone Research with Archaeometry and Social Zooarchaeology, 2021. https://www.sidestone.com/books/bones-at-a-crossroads.