Textuality, Orality, and Materiality: Thoughts on Hermeneutics and Archaeology

Abstract

To what extent Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics contributes to archaeology? Such a question, ap- parently marginal and of less relevance, as it results from its application in another field of knowledge, touches – in our view – the main spheres of the execution of linguisticality (textuality, writing, orality, embodiment, and art), as it leads to a reflection about the statute of vestige, a subject that suggests some limitations in his philosophy. An analysis of the Gadamerian approach of vestige (or trace) shows that such a concept depends on textuality, which implicates that the productivity of meaning that emerges from materiality has a secondary character. Considering this, the article proposes the hypothesis that the Gadamerian thesis about linguisticality does not immediately fit into the type of archaeology that adopts material culture principles e concludes suggesting that vestiges have a pre-reflexive character that surpasses the boundaries of textuality.