Editing Post-processual archaeology (section)

=== Structuralism ===
Many, although not all post-processualists have adhered to the theory of [[structuralism]] in understanding historical societies. Structuralism itself was a theory developed by the French anthropologist [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] (1908–2009), and held to the idea that "cultural patterns need not be caused by anything outside themselves… [and that] underlying every culture was a deep structure, or essence, governed by its own laws, that people were unaware of but which ensured regularities in the cultural productions that emanate from it." At the centre of his structuralist theory, Lévi-Strauss held that "all human thought was governed by conceptual dichotomies, or bilateral oppositions, such as culture/nature, male/female, day/night, and life/death. He believed that the principle of oppositions was a universal characteristic inherent in the human brain, but that each culture was based on a unique selection of oppositions".{{sfn|Trigger|2007|p=463}} This structuralist approach was first taken from anthropology and applied into forms of archaeology by the French archaeologist [[André Leroi-Gourhan]] (1911–1986), who used it to interpret prehistoric symbols in his 1964 work, {{lang|fr|Les Religions de la Préhistoire}}.{{sfn|Leroi-Gourhan|1964}}

Within the post-processual movement, Ian Hodder became "the leading exponent of a structuralist approach".{{sfn|Trigger|2007|p=464}} In a 1984 article, he looked at the similarities between the houses and the tombs of [[Neolithic Europe]], and used a structuralist approach as a basis for his ideas on their symbolism.{{sfn|Hodder|1984b}} He then went on, in his seminal book ''The Domestication of Europe'' (1990), to use structuralist ideas to come up with his theory that within Neolithic Europe, there was a dichotomy between field (''agrios'') and house (''domus''), with this duality being mediated by a boundary (''foris'').{{sfn|Hodder|1990}}