Offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the theory of material entanglement and entrapment, enriched with vivid examples from everyday life Entangled explores how archaeological evidence can help provide a better understanding of the direction of human social and technological change, demonstrating how the interrelationship of humans and things is a defining characteristic of human history and culture. Using examples drawn from both the early farming settlements of the Middle East and daily life in the modern world, Ian Hodder highlights the complex co-dependencies of humans and things arguing that the maintenance and sustaining of material worlds are the unseen drivers of human development. Updated and expanded, Entangled offers new perspectives on the study of the relationality between things and humans. In this edition, the author reframes relationality in terms of various forms of dependence to better explore inequality, injustice, and the ways people get entrapped in detrimental social and economic situations. An entirely new chapter focuses on human dependence on other humans, such as between colonial powers and colonized people. Increased focus is placed on object-oriented ontologies and assemblages, symmetrical archaeology, and indigenous and radical approaches in archaeology that critique relationality and posthumanism. A wide range of new examples, references, and literature are presented throughout the book. Argues that dependence on things forces humans down particular evolutionary pathways and social trends Demonstrates how long-standing entanglements can be irreversible and increase in scale and complexity over time Integrates archaeology, natural and biological sciences, and the social sciences Presents a critical review of key contemporary perspectives, including material culture studies, phenomenology, evolutionary theory, cognitive archaeology, human ecology, and complexity theory Entangled: A New Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things, Second Edition is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students, lecturers, researchers, and scholars in the fields of archeology, anthropology, material culture studies, and related fields across the social sciences and humanities.

Offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the theory of material entanglement and entrapment, enriched with vivid examples from everyday lifeEntangled explores how archaeological evidence can help provide a better understanding of the direction of human social and technological change, demonstrating how the interrelationship of humans and things is a defining characteristic of human history and culture. Using examples drawn from both the early farming settlements of the Middle East and daily life in the modern world, Ian Hodder highlights the complex co-dependencies of humans and things--arguing that the maintenance and sustaining of material worlds are the unseen drivers of human development.Updated and expanded, Entangled offers new perspectives on the study of the relationality between things and humans. In this edition, the author reframes relationality in terms of various forms of dependence to better explore inequality, injustice, and the ways people get entrapped in detrimental social and economic situations. An entirely new chapter focuses on human dependence on other humans, such as between colonial powers and colonized people. Increased focus is placed on object-oriented ontologies and assemblages, symmetrical archaeology, and indigenous and radical approaches in archaeology that critique relationality and posthumanism. A wide range of new examples, references, and literature are presented throughout the book.* Argues that dependence on things forces humans down particular evolutionary pathways and social trends* Demonstrates how long-standing entanglements can be irreversible and increase in scale and complexity over time* Integrates archaeology, natural and biological sciences, and the social sciences* Presents a critical review of key contemporary perspectives, including material culture studies, phenomenology, evolutionary theory, cognitive archaeology, human ecology, and complexity theoryEntangled: A New Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things, Second Edition is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students, lecturers, researchers, and scholars in the fields of archeology, anthropology, material culture studies, and related fields across the social sciences and humanities.

ContentsEpigraph viiiList of Figures ixPreface and Acknowledgements for First Edition xiiPreface and Acknowledgements for Second Edition xiii1Thinking About Things Differently (from Things to Flows) 1What Is a Thing? 1Things-in-Themselves? 3Changing Definitions of Entanglement 8From Things to Strings 12Weaker and Stronger Entanglements 14Conclusion - (a) Why Process Matters 15Conclusion - (b) Are We at One with Things? 162 Humans Depend on Things 19Dependence: Some Introductory Concepts 20Forms of Dependence 21Reflective and Non-reflective Relationships with Things 22Going Toward and Away from Things 24Identification and Ownership 26Some Previous Accounts of the Human Dependence on Things 29Being There with Things 29Material Culture and Materiality 32Cognition and the Extended Mind 36Conclusion: Things R Us 393 Things Depend on Other Things 41Forms of Connection Between Things 43Production and Reproduction 43Exchange 43Use 44Consumption 44Discard 44Post-deposition 44Affordances 49From Affordance to Dependence 51The French School - Operational Chains 52Behavioral Chains 54Things Depend on Past Things and on Future Things 58Entangled Ideas 58Conclusion 594 Things Depend on Humans 65Things Fall Apart 68Behavioral Archaeology and Material Behavior 70Behavioral Ecology 74Human Behavioral Ecology 79The Temporalities of Things 83Conclusion: The Unruliness of Things 845 Human-Human Entanglement 86Inequality, Power and Entanglement 87Poverty Traps 90Emotional Bonds 92Conclusion 936 Exploring Entanglement 95The Physical Processes of Things 95Temporalities 98Forgetness 101The Tautness of Entanglements and Path Dependency 103Types and Degrees of Entanglement 105Cores and Peripheries of Entanglements 108Contingency 109Conclusion 1117 Entangled Abstractions and Bodily Engagements 113Abstraction, Metaphor and Mimesis 114From Granola to Beethoven 117Abstract Entanglements at Çatalhöyük 123Conclusion 1268 Two Examples Regarding the Onset of Domestication and Sedentary Village Life: China and the Middle East 128China 128Middle East 130Conclusion 1389 Method 139Tanglegrams 140Formal Network Approaches 144Sequencing Entanglements 147Diachronic Entanglements 152Interpretation 156Conclusion 15910 Toward an Entangled String Theory and Comparison with Other Approaches 160Things Do Not Have Agency 161There Is No Present, Only a Flow from Past to Future 163Toward an Entangled String Theory 164Other Contemporary Approaches 171Latour and Actor Network Theory 172Assemblage Theory 175Containment and Enchainment 176Ontologies 177Material Engagement Theory 178Agential Realism 179Conclusion 18011 Conclusion: From Things to Flows 182Aquatic Culture? 182Some Final Examples 183Some Loose Ends 186Bibliography 189Index 209