Phenomenological Archaeology

The entry deals with phenomenology and its introduction into archaeology from the 1990s onward. It argues that the phenomenology that initially was enthusiastically embraced represented a very modified version heavily affected by post- processualist thinking. A main reason for this was that the idealist basis of this thinking, and the wider sociopolitical concern with individualism and human agency, made it difficult to fully take on the radical consequences of a philosophical project precisely challenging the modern idealist legacy. The entry further explores some crucial aspects of phenomenological thinking that remained marginal in its archaeological version and how these may enrich archaeological reasoning about things and things’ being. Finally, it provides some reflections on why the attempt to build a genuine phenomenological archaeology failed but also, and paradoxically, why phenomenological thinking regardless of this is more present than ever in archaeological reasoning.