Is archaeology a science, an art or a collection of individual experiments …?

Abstract

‘Has theoretical archaeology ever developed into archaeological theory?’ That was the question posed by Michael Dietler and Liv Nilsson Stutz, which the British Matthew Johnson has courageously agreed to answer. Before commenting on his answer and trying, in turn, to answer this question, I strongly recommend the non-British reader to look at the brief synthesis on British phenomenological archaeology written by Joanna Brück (2005). Coming from the innermost postprocessual circle of the Department of Archaeology of Cambridge University, Brück clarifies the issues and places them in perspective.