THE NARRATIVE AND RHETORIC OF MATERIAL CULTURE SEQUENCES

Archaeological periodization constructs narratives with beginnings, mi ddles and ends. But the material culture on which such narratives are built is also involved in narratives according to which past agents li ved their lives. According to Ricoeur, such lived narratives are also related to agents' practical experience of time. As archaeologists we have to 'read' past narratives through the rhetoric by which they were expressed. While Hayden White's scheme for temporal cycles of rhetori c is rejected, the sequence of material culture at Sitagroi is examine d in order to explore the relationships between the plots written by a rchaeologists and those lived by past agents at the site. Past and pre sent concepts of time are embedded in different narratives and express ed through different rhetorics, but some interaction between the two i s possible.