When can we say that a Bantu smith knows the ‘meaning’ of iron smelting - only when he explicitly recognizes the underlying sexual structure of it or simply when he knows how to go on smithing? Is structuralist theory, which considers meaning as codic and diacritical, really incommensurable with a phenomenological view of meaning as something primarily experiential? In this posthumous paper, Stefan Bekaert argues that the differences between both perspectives are gradual rather than fundamental. Drawing on the sexual metaphors in Sakata iron technology, he presents a tentative scale of meaning levels: the level of typified experience, the level of pragmatic motive, the level of (meta)physical intervention, the level of experiential gestalt, the level of explicit metaphor, and the level of codic oppositions. Rejecting the ‘one-world-ism’ predominant in many social sciences, he argues that humans inhabit and draw on many worlds at once. (DVR)

In their jointly authored paper ‘Relativism, objectivity and the politics of the past’ which was published in Archaeological Dialogues 4.2 (1997, 164–184), the ‘Lampeter Archaeology Workshop’ argued that there has been an increasing tendency for authors to characterise ‘post-processualists’ as proponents of relativism, understood as the inability to evaluate different versions of the past or present. This naive view of relativism as ‘anything goes’ (known philosophically as judgemental relativism) was rejected in favour of a more nuanced understanding of different forms of relativism and the criteria which archaeologists can and do use to evaluate versions of the past. They also discussed the relationships between epistemologies, ethics and politics in this context, and suggested that there are implications for the ways we might engage in archaeological debates. This paper was commented on by the philosopher Diederick Raven and the archaeologists Ulrich Veit and Ian Hodder in Archaeological Dialogues 4.2 (1997, 185–194). Below, more comments are provided by the archaeologists Philip Kohl, Reinhard Bernbeck, Susan Pollock and John Bintliff. Finally, the Lampeter Ar

We welcome the Lampeter Archaeology Workshop's (LAW) attempt to clarify the ways in which they understand relativism in post-processual archaeology and especially their distinctions among several kinds of relativism. We would like to comment on links between epistemological relativism and a particular view of history (or, more generally, the past) that the LAW's discussion raises. In particular, we draw attention to several implications of their positions, including the relative emphasis placed on the past and/or the present in archaeological interpretations, different ways of linking past and present, and the political implications of such links

Reading the ‘Lampeter Manifesto’ did rather conjure up a picture of a small huddle of Post-Processualists (I don't know the collective term, but ‘in the trade’ adherents of the wider movement to which their approaches belong - Postmodernists - are known as ‘Pomos’), gathered in a seminar room in the remote fastness of Lampeter University, nervously eyeing the horizon for rabid positivists and other Neanderthals on the intellectual rampage, while engaged in a process of mutual encouragement (‘consciousness-raising’?) for their chosen position within Archaeological Theory.

Firstly, we would like to extend our thanks to the editors of Archaeological Dialogues and those authors who took the trouble to consider our article and write their responses to it. This discussion is a welcome extension to the workshop we had in Lampeter, and represents the open debate and pluralism which we believe is vital for an active and self-critical discipline. In this reply we would like to concentrate mainly on substantive issues raised by the respondents, rather than engage in point-scoring against individual participants. Nonetheless, there are a number of what we feel are mis-readings or mis-representations of our original article, which in themselves may be symptomatic of the type of ‘debate’ which has unfortunately characterised much of the discussion of recent theoretical and political issues, particularly within Anglo-American archaeology. In particular, it is regrettable that several commentators discussed our paper very much in the context of the old dichotomy of processual and postprocessual archaeologies. While Veit (p. 192), Bintliff, Kohl and, to some extent, Raven considered the paper as an attempt to moderate a single, established postprocessual position which may go some way towards a ‘convergence’ of both camps, Veit also viewed it in terms of a ‘counter-attack against processual archaeology’ (p. 189). We would like to emphasise that our multivocal discussion should not be seen as being written by, or on behalf of a certain ‘camp’ within current debates in our discipline, but by a diverse mix of theoretically interested archaeologists with a wide range of opinions, some of which conflict with one another. Other issues of polemic, rhetoric and form are dealt with at the end of this reply. At this point, however, it may be helpful to reiterate the origins and aims of our article.

This paper is a review of recent academic debate dealing with the relationship between perception and landscape. It is suggested that there are two ways in which the perception of landscape is considered: the explicit and the inherent approach. The explicit approach isolates perception within the landscape as something between the observed and the cognitised. While an inherent approach does not isolate perception because it is embedded within ways of living - or being. The discussion is illustrated with archaeological examples.

The British Ordnance Survey mapping of Ireland in the nineteenth-century was an official systematic survey which created a picture document of the landscape and the past. While the maps influenced the institutionalization of archaeology, the documenting of an archaeological record on the maps shaped their look and language. Within a setting of the political contest between British colonialism and Irish nationalism, both the Ordnance Survey maps and the archaeological past they recorded became powerful tools that helped to construct Irish identity and a sense of place and heritage.