About the elephant and other wonders of reality: the Archaeologies of Solipsism and Archaeology as Social Science.

Abstract

This essay, discusses different theoretical approaches of contemporary archaeology. It refers to the understanding of the new theoretical proposals in archaeology, and what they offer us. The author works from his previous experience, from an archaeology that understands it self as Social Science. The individual interests and the socio-economical conditions of our days, promote an archaeology of the solipsism without social conscience, lacking clarity about the social function it must accomplish. The present debate, is, in fact, an old polemic we should consider exhausted, that of idealism versus materialism in the scientific method. The solipsism we are discussing, makes reference to the fact that, in the environment of anarchism and relativism, in which the new theoretical currents of archaeology are framed, the individual interests and incapacitates are being promoted over scientific archaeology.