Tradition

Argues that archaeologists have been wary of tradition, and that they have tended to employ it in either an empty or an abusive sense. Suggests that tradition should be used to describe agents' conscious engagement of current actions with past actions.

Seeks to build on efforts to apply social learning theory to interpret patterns of continuity and change in the archaeological record. Argues that the importance of pedagogy has been overlooked in the theoretical and empirical literature on craft learning. Uses ethnographic data to characterise pedagogy in the context of craft apprenticeships as involving the gradual scaffolding of skill in a novice through demonstration, intervention and collaboration. Suggests that, although these processes cannot be directly observed in the archaeological record, they can sometimes be inferred through the detailed reconstruction of operational chains in past technologies.

Argues that recent claims that the history of Roman Britain has been discussed in terms of 'Romanization' since the beginning of the seventeenth century are an oversimplification. Suggests that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was a focus on the bringing of 'civility' to England, with a minimal consciousness of material culture, and a focus on military identity. Argues that only in the later nineteenth century did an idea of cultural 'Romanization' become prominent in scholarly discussions, and that scholarly understandings of the history of Roman Britain have been continually rewritten to reflect the nature of the relationship between the English and their empire.