The Materiality of Signs: Enchainment and Animacy in Woodland Southeastern North American Pottery
The Materiality of Signs: Enchainment and Animacy in Woodland Southeastern North American Pottery
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符号的物质性：北美东南部林地陶器中的束缚和生命力
作者：
Neill J. Wallis
索绪尔认为符号是预先存在的意义的编码信息，因此对符号意义的考古研究常常受到阻碍。根据索绪尔的说法，在物质文化中表现意义的武断和不精确的方式往往会阻碍对象征主义的考古研究。作为另一种选择，考古学家最近利用皮尔斯的符号学来研究物质性是如何通过意义的过程与意义的创造联系在一起的。本研究探讨了美国东南部中部林地时期的陶器，斯威夫特溪复杂印章和威登岛雕像容器中所表达的象征主义，如何更好地解释为具有特定社会影响的图标和索引。检查这些对象的符号学潜力有助于解释它们的明显用途和相同主题的替代表征的意义。
Abstract Archaeological examinations of symbolic meaning often have been hampered by the Saussurean concept of signs as coded messages of preexisting meanings. The arbitrary and imprecise manner by which meaning is represented in material culture according to Saussure tends to stymie archaeological investigations of symbolism. As an alternative, archaeologists recently have drawn on Peirce’s semiotic to investigate how materiality is bound to the creation of meanings through the process of signification. This study examines how the symbolism expressed in pottery of the Middle Woodland period southeastern United States, Swift Creek Complicated Stamped and Weeden Island effigy vessels, might be better explained as icons and indexes that were enlisted to have particular social effects. Examining the semiotic potentials of these objects helps explain their apparent uses and the significance of alternative representations of the same subjects.