All theory must ultimately be grounded in bodily action and perceptual experience. The purpose of this thesis is to sketch out the ontological ground of archaeological knowledge. Based mainly on an ethnography of an excavation, the thesis focuses on
the act of discovery - the (temporal) relation between an (embodied) subject and an (emerging) object, mediated through (the use of) tools. The cultural agency of the archaeologist, in giving form to material patterns, is taken into account. But so too is the 'resistance' of material evidence. It is in this subject-object transaction that knowledge of the past is ultimately produced and reproduced. However, we also have to consider why the act of discovery has remained hidden within conventional theoretical discourse, and how it is that - in bringing the ethno-archaeological perspective back to bear upon archaeology itself - it becomes possible to 're-discover the act of discovery'.
(original abstract at front of 1991 thesis)
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