Objects and Their Glassy Essence: Semiotics of Self in the Early Bronze Age Black Sea

Abstract

Abstract This article draws upon two concepts deployed by the American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce in his semiotic writings that have so far received little attention in studies of materiality and agency in archaeology, those of the “Interpretant” and “habit.” The emphasis of both of these concepts on the interpretive side of semiotic functioning suggests that some of the problems with current theories of material agency may be due to their focus on the production of meaning rather than the recursive nature of meaning-making that requires consideration of the consumption side of meaningful communication acts as well. Using an example of pottery-making practices from the Early Bronze Age Black Sea region, this article argues that we should instead rethink agency as an “archaeology of self” in which identity and meaning of signs—whether words, people, or things—are distributed across and emergent from social networks and communities of interpreters.

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