This book is an introductory essay on archaeological theory. It tries to explain something of what “theory” is, its relationship to archaeological practice, how it has developed within archaeology over the past few decades, and how archaeological thought relates to theory in the human sciences and the intellectual world generally.

To many, “theory” is a dirty word both within and outside archaeology. Prince Charles earned almost universal approbation when he condemned “trendy theorists” in education; nobody however, including the Prince himself, seemed to be very clear precisely who he meant. When visiting an archaeological site a few years ago a suggestion of mine met with laughter and the response “that's a typical suggestion of a theorist.” I don't recall anyone telling me exactly why my suggestion was so absurd, and when I visited the site the following year the strategy had been adopted. For the meat‐and‐potatoes Anglo‐Saxon world in particular, theory is an object of profound suspicion. It is a popular saying that for the English, to be called an intellectual is to be suspected of wanting to steal someone's wife (sexism in the original). Theory, “political correctness,” and being “foreign” stand together in the dock as traits to be regarded with hostility in the English‐speaking world – and beyond; there is even a word for hostility to theory in German – Theoriefeindlichkeit. I shall look at some of the reasons why this is so in Chapter 1.

At the same time, however, theory is increasingly popular, and seen as increasingly important, both within and outside archaeology. Valentine Cunningham commented in The Times Higher Education Supplement that theorists in academia are “a surging band, cocky, confident in academic credentials, job security and intellectual prestige,” inspiring the columnist Laurie Taylor to write a memorable account of a bunch of theorists intellectually roughing up a more empirical colleague at a seminar before departing to the local bar. His account was fictitious but contained much truth.

There are various indices of the “success” of an explicitly defined archaeological theory; one might cite the frequency of “theoretical” symposia at major conferences such as the Society for American Archaeology or the European Association of Archaeology, or the incidence of “theory” articles in the major journals. One particularly telling index is the rise and rise of the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference (TAG). This was formed as a small talking‐shop for British archaeological theorists in the late 1970s, but since then has become the largest annual archaeological conference in Britain, with substantial participation from North America and Europe. There are now parallel organizations in North America, Scandinavia (Nordic‐TAG), and Germany (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Theorie).

It is true that a lot of papers delivered at TAG scarcely merit the term “theoretical,” and even more true that many only come for the infamous TAG party in any case. It must also be conceded that the degree of impact of TAG's and “theory's” influence on the “real world” of archaeological practice, and the cultural and legislative framework of archaeology, is debatable. The theorist often feels like Cassandra, constantly giving what he or she sees as profound predictions and insight and constantly being ignored by the decision‐makers.

This book is written to give the student an introduction to a few of the strands of current thinking in archaeological theory. It is deliberately written as an introduction, in as clear and jargon‐free a fashion as the author can manage (though as we shall see, criteria of clarity and of what constitutes jargon are riddled with problems).

It is intended as a “route map” for the student. That is, it seeks to point out prominent landmarks on the terrain of theory, to comment on relationships between different bodies of thought, and to clarify the intellectual underpinnings of certain views. As such, it is anything but an encyclopedia; it is hardly one‐tenth of a comprehensive guide to the field, if such a guide could be written. The text should be read with reference to the Further Reading and Glossary sections and overgeneralization, oversimplification, and caricatures of viewpoints are necessary evils.

Above all, I remind all readers of the fourth word in the title of this book. I have tried to write an Introduction. The book and its different chapters are meant to be a starting‐point for the student on a range of issues, which the student can then explore in greater depth through the Further Reading sections. Many of the comments and criticisms made of earlier editions of this book focused on an alleged over‐ or under‐emphasis of a particular theoretical viewpoint, or perceived lack of coverage. Many of these criticisms were valid, and I have tried to deal with them in later editions; but many evaluated the text as a position statement with which they happened to agree or disagree, rather than on its pedagogical intention, that is as an introductory route map to the issues. Additionally, students need to be reminded that this book should be the start, not the end, of their reading and thinking, a point I will return to in the Conclusion. A route map is not an encyclopedia.

To pursue the route map analogy, the route followed here is one of several that could be taken through the terrain of archaeological theory. I could have devoted a chapter each to different thematic areas: Landscape, The Household, Trade and Exchange, Cultures and Style, Agency, and so on. In each case, a variety of approaches to that theme could be given to show how different theories contradict or complement each other and produce different sorts of explanation of the archaeological record. Alternatively, a tour could be taken through different “isms”: positivism, functionalism, Marxism, structuralism, poststructuralism, feminism, materialism. These would be reasonable paths, and ones moreover that have been taken by other authors.

This book, however, tries above all to bring out the relationship between archaeological thought and wider strands of theory in intellectual and cultural life as a whole. It seeks to show how specific theoretical positions taken by individual archaeologists “make sense” within a wider context, cultural, social, and political as well as academic. This book also seeks to bring out the relationship between archaeological theory and archaeological practice more clearly than has been done in the past. The structure adopted here, of an historical approach focusing initially on the New Archaeology and reactions to it before moving on to current debates, fitted this purpose best.

I have written above that this book is a guide for “the student”; I mean the student in the broadest sense. Many practicing archaeologists employed outside the academic world have told me that they are interested in current theoretical debates, and see such debates as of potential relevance to their work. Nevertheless, many feel alienated by what they see as the unnecessary obscurity and pretentiousness that is central to the theoretical scene. I don't subscribe to such an analysis, but I have to acknowledge that it is widespread. Right or wrong, I hope that they may find that what follows is of some help.

In trying to survey many different theoretical strands, I have been torn between trying to write a “neutral,” “objective” survey of different currents of thought on the one hand, and a committed polemic advancing my own views on the other. The end product lies, perhaps a little unhappily, somewhere between these extremes. On the one hand, the construction of a completely objective survey simply isn't intellectually possible; the most biased and partial views on any academic subject consistently come from those who overtly proclaim that their own position is neutral, detached, and value‐free. In addition, it would be disingenuous to claim that the book is written from a disinterested viewpoint – that it is a guide pure and simple. Obviously an interest in theory goes hand‐in‐hand with a passionate belief in its importance, and an attachment to certain more or less controversial views within the field.

On the other hand, if we want to understand why theory is where it is today, any account of a wide diversity of intellectual positions must endeavor to be reasonably sympathetic to all parties. A survey can never be neutral, but it can make some attempt to be fair. As R.G. Collingwood pointed out in relation to the history of philosophy, most theoretical positions arise out of the perceived importance of certain contexts or issues; that is, philosophical beliefs are in part responses to particular sets of problems, and have to be understood as such rather than given an intellectual mugging. One's intellectual opponents are never all morons or charlatans to the last man and woman and one's bedfellows are rarely all exciting, first‐rate scholars. Before we get carried away with such piety it must be remembered that this does not mean that certain positions are not therefore immune from criticism. A shallow intellectual relativism in which “all viewpoints are equally valid” or in which “every theory is possible” is not a rigorous or tenable position. We can see historically that some theoretical positions have been abandoned as dead ends, for example the extreme logical positivism of the 1970s.

I have also been torn between writing an historical account of the development of theory, and giving a “snapshot” of theory in the present. On the one hand, it might be held that my retelling of the origins of the New Archaeology of the 1960s, and more arguably the processual/postprocessual “wars” of the 1980s and 1990s, is now out of date, or more properly belongs to the history of archaeology rather than an account of contemporary theory. On the other hand, I feel that in order for the student to understand where theory is today, it is necessary to look at its development over the past few decades, and indeed to look at the deeper intellectual roots of many views and positions in the more remote past, for example in the thinking of nineteenth‐century figures like Charles Darwin and Karl Marx. Much of traditional cultural evolutionary theory, and much of the early postprocessual critique, may appear to be passé to some; but I do not think that the modern student can understand current thinking without reference back to this literature. Archaeology would be a strange field of study if it asserted that it could understand the way the discipline thinks in the present, without reference back to the way it thought in the past.

For later editions of the book, I have made a number of changes. I give a more extended account of these and reflection on them in the Further Reading section, but three stand out. First, there has been a rise in archaeological discussion of Darwinian evolution, and I have therefore divided the chapter on “Evolution” into two. Second, the first edition concentrated on theory in the Anglo‐American world, in part reflecting my own background and limitations. This concentration was rightly criticized by many non‐Anglo scholars. I have tried in the second and third editions to write a more inclusive text, giving more attention to Indigenous and postcolonial perspectives as well as drawing more attention to theoretical contributions from across the world. I have nevertheless retained the original structure of the book, and have run the risk of “fitting in” material around this organizing structure; but the alternatives, for example of having a separate chapter on non‐Anglo theory, or of a country‐by‐country survey, seemed to me to be greater evils and to do greater violence to the very subtle texture of theoretical debate. Finally, in this third edition, I have added a chapter on “materiality,” object agency, and the ontological turn, again reflecting the increased discussion (to the point of dominance) of these and related perspectives in some theoretical circles.

The adoption of an informal tone and omission of detailed referencing from the text is deliberate. It is to help, I hope, the clarity of its arguments and the ease with which it can be read. Many “academic” writers have often been taught to forsake the use of the “I” word, to attempt to render our writing neutral and distant, to avoid a conversational or informal tone, all in the name of scientific or scholarly detachment. This may or may not be a valid project. The aim here, however, is educational rather than scholarly in the narrow sense.

One of my central points, particularly in the first chapter, is that all practicing archaeologists use theory whether they like it or not. To make this point clear and to furnish examples I have often quoted passages from avowedly “atheoretical” writers and commented upon them, to draw out the theories and assumptions that lie implicit within those passages. In most cases the passages come from the first suitable book to hand. I want to stress that critiques of these examples are not personal attacks on the writers concerned. Here, the need to use practical examples to make a theoretical point clear clashes with the desire to avoid a perception of unfair, personalized criticism.

The text is based in part on lecture notes for various undergraduate courses I have taught at Sheffield, Lampeter, Durham, and Southampton in the United Kingdom, and Northwestern University in the United States. The students at all five institutions are thanked for their constructive and helpful responses. Some students may recognize themselves in the dialogues in some of the chapters, and I ask their forgiveness for this. The first edition of the book was partly conceived while I was a Research Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley in the spring of 1995. I would like to thank Meg Conkey, Christine Hastorf, Marcia Ann Dobres, Margot Winer, and many others too numerous to mention for their hospitality during that time and for making my stay so enjoyable and profitable. I also thank Durham University for giving me study leave for that term. A number of reviewers, some anonymous, made a string of invaluable comments without which the book would have been much more opinionated and parochial and much less comprehensible. These include especially Randy McGuire, Jim Hill, Chris Tilley, and Elizabeth Brumfiel. Bob Preucel and Ian Hodder reviewed the final draft extensively. Tim Earle, Clive Gamble, and Cynthia Robin kindly corrected my misconceptions for the second edition. Dominic McNamara drew my attention to the Foucault quotation in Chapter 6. Within the Department of Archaeology at Durham, Helena Hamerow, Colin Haselgrove, Anthony Harding, Simon James, Sam Lucy, and Martin Millett read and made invaluable comments on the first draft. Brian Boyd, Zoe Crossland, Jim Brown, Francis Wenban‐Smith, and John McNabb helped with illustrations. Collaboration with staff of the History, Classics and Archaeology Subject Centre, particularly Annie Grant, Tom Dowson, and Anthony Sinclair, influenced my thinking on the pedagogical framing and impact of the second and third editions. Conversations on the philosophy of science with my late father C. David Johnson clarified many points.

I moved to Southampton in 2004; I thank an outstanding group of colleagues and students there for their advice and support. I prepared revisions for the second edition while a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania in the autumn of 2008. I thank Bob Preucel and Richard Hodges for making that visit possible, and the students of Bob's theory class for their input and hospitality. I also thank Claire Smith, Heather Burke, and Matt Spriggs for organizing a stimulating visit to Australia in 2003/4, and Prof Joseph Maran, Ulrich Thaler, and the staff and students of Heidelberg University for four wonderful months discussing theory and practice in spring 2005.

My move to Northwestern University in 2011 has given me a fresh perspective on archaeology, particularly in terms of its articulation as a sub‐field within the discipline of anthropology, the importance of political economy and ecology, and the rapidly changing political and cultural context of academic practice. I thank all my Northwestern colleagues and students, particularly the participants in a spring 2016 “bag lunch” who freely offered their thoughts and opinions on the framing of the third edition. Mary Weismantel kindly read and made comments on Chapter 8, and generously shared the reading list from her Materialities course; Bill Leonard commented on Chapter 11 and Patty Loew on Chapter 13; conversations with Mark Hauser, Cynthia Robin, Amanda Logan, and Jessica Winegar clarified many points. Dil Singh Basanti assisted with the bibliographic research for this third edition. Conversations with the Bodiam research team informed the discussion of Bodiam in Chapter 12, though errors and misconceptions in this discussion remain my responsibility.

More broadly, can I thank everyone who has taken the time to speak or write to me over the last 20 years to express their appreciation for this book. Students, teachers, and practicing archaeologists have given me some very kind compliments, for which I am flattered and grateful, from the Berkeley feminist who said that I wrote like a woman to the Flinders student who sent me a picture of her Matthew Johnson Theory Action Doll.

The editorial staff at Blackwell were always patient, encouraging, and ready with practical help when needed. My wife Becky made comments on successive drafts, proofread the final manuscript, and most importantly, provided an emotional and intellectual partnership without which this book would never have been written. In return, I hope this book explains to her why archaeologists are such a peculiar bunch of human beings, though I know she has her own theories in this respect. My thanks to everybody.