Is what you see all you get?

Archaeologists wishing to interpret the meanings of artifacts, both symbolic and functional, have increasingly drawn from Saussure-inspired linguistic models as a way to ‘read’ the archaeological record. Such models, however, may not be appropriate for a number of reasons, and should be discarded in favor of a discourse-centered approach, which investigates meaning through practice, currently gaining popularity among American linguistic anthropologists. Using the semiotic theory developed by Charles Sanders Peirce, this article focuses on how people use and interpret material signs such as the artifacts we excavate and analyze to produce knowledge, and how those meanings shift across contexts. Specifically, the semiotic mediation of artifacts is examined in the present context of museum displays to illustrate how the interpretation of artifacts crucially depends on their recognition as meaningful signs by knowing agents.

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