Assessing Methodologies in Archaeological Ethnography: A Case for Incorporating Ethnographic Training in Graduate Archaeology Curricula

Abstract

Archaeologists have increasingly turned to ethnography as a tool for understanding the contemporary social context of material culture, archaeological practice, and ‘de-colonizing’ archaeology. Furthermore, ethnographers have turned their analysis to the practice of archaeology, providing insights into key ethical dilemmas. This work has produced signi?cant dialogue, demonstrating the potential for research and collaboration at the interface of two sub-disciplines. However, much of the research to date has relied on a limited range of ethnographic methods. We suggest that archaeologists working in this area would bene?t from using a wider repertoire of ethnographic data collection tools and ethics training opportunities. We advocate for greater collaboration between archaeologists and ethnographers and provide suggestions on methods that are well-suited for use in archaeological practice. In the long term, the most effective and far-reaching solution may be to incorporate ethnographic methods training as fundamental to graduate programmes in archaeology.     

Advisory Commissions for Archaeology — Sense or Nonsense? The Case of Belgium

Abstract

Belgium has a long tradition of consultative commissions, responsible for the preservation of heritage. In the 1940s and 1950s, Belgian archaeologists expressed a need for such an institute, specifically competent for archaeology and the supervision of excavations. Only in 1965, the first members of a National Commission for Excavations were appointed. They had modest powers, but were able to advocate the value of archaeological heritage and, to a limited extent, supervise fieldwork performed by amateurs. The Commission was also asked to prepare a legal text that would protect archaeological heritage. However, ratified laws were not accomplished and, despite much regret of Belgian archaeologists, the Commission was abolished in 1979.

During the 1980s, Belgium underwent several state reforms which ultimately resulted in the complete regionalization of archaeology (1988–89). Throughout this period, a shift in opinion occurred between Walloon (French-speaking) and Flemish (Dutch-speaking) archaeologists. This resulted in different arrangements of governmental agencies responsible for immovable heritage and archaeology. Nonetheless, as UNESCO had recommended in 1968, all three Belgian regions (including the Brussels-Capital Region) installed advisory commissions that were involved in the preservation in situ of archaeological remains. However, these consultative bodies had little influence on politics and policy. Especially in Flanders, the Archaeological Council achieved very little. Probably, the lack of continuity retained the Council from building up a reputation and authority. Nevertheless, advisory commissions for archaeology do make sense in Belgium. They provide a necessary ‘forum’ to discuss problems and to express undivided opinions; they form a ‘channel’ to communicate with policy makers; and they present an ‘instrument’ for advocating the preservation of archaeological heritage.     

Cultural Imperialism and Heritage Politics in the Event of Armed Conflict: Prospects for an ‘Activist Archaeology’

The production of archaeological knowledge is embedded in a long-standing tradition of colonial encounters. This paper asks how political-economic interests impinge on archaeological work, specifically in the event of armed conflict. To answer this question I discuss commodification of cultural heritage and analyze it as a form of structural violence. I argue that the attitude that allows treatment of archaeological artifacts as saleable items with international owners is part of a strategy of global cultural imperialism. Exemplified by the case of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, this paper shows how the clash of global ‘heritage’ politics with local practices of memorializing the past results in a tension: because capitalist governments consider the locales whose glorious pasts are studied by archaeologists to be culturally inferior, the nexus between (trans-)national actors and local communities is an asymmetrical one. In order to overcome the hegemonic role of archaeology within these dynamics, I propose an ‘activist archaeology’ that enables a political activism grounded in recursivity.     

Archaeological Ethnography,Heritage Management,and Community Archaeology: A Pragmatic Approach from Crete

This article examines the introduction of archaeological ethnography as an approach to establish positioned research and bring context-specific and reflexive considerations into community archaeology projects. It considers recent critiques of heritage management in archaeology and the role of archaeologists as experts in it, contending that smaller and less prominent sites exist in different contexts and pose different problems than large-scale projects usually addressed in the literature. We describe how the ‘Three Peak Sanctuaries of Central Crete’ project, investigating prehistoric Minoan ritual sites, involves communities and stakeholders and what demands the latter pose on experts in the field. Archaeological work is always already implicated in local development projects which create and reproduce power hierarchies. It is therefore important that archaeologists maintain their critical distance from official heritage discourses, as they are materialized in development programmes, while at the same time engaging with local expectations and power struggles; they also have to critically address and position their own assumptions. We use examples from our community archaeology project to propose that these goals can be reached through archaeological ethnographic fieldwork that should precede any archaeological project to inform its methodological decisions, engage stakeholders, and collaboratively shape heritage management strategies.     

The Freedom of Archaeological Research: Archaeological Heritage Protection and Civil Rights in Austria (and Beyond)

Archaeologists like to think that heritage protection laws serve the purpose of protecting all archaeology from damage. Thus, provisions like that of §11 (1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz or Art. 3 i-ii of the Valletta Convention are interpreted as a blanket ban on archaeological fieldwork ‘unauthorized’ by national heritage agencies, and a general prohibition against archaeological field research by non-professionals. The Austrian National Heritage Agency, the Bundesdenkmalamt, interprets the Austrian law in this way. Using the Austrian example as a case study, this paper demonstrates that this interpretation must be wrong, since, if it were true, it would revoke a fundamental civil right enshrined both in the Austrian constitution and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: the unconditional freedom of research, which applies to archaeological field research as to any other kind of academic research, and extends equally to every citizen.     

Artefacts,archaeologists and American Indians

Abstract

Archaeologists traditionally have observed the style and technology of artefacts and used this to classify archaeological assemblages, describing the repeated association of artefact groups as a ‘Culture’. We continue to place overwhelming reliance on our ability to derive meaningful information about past culture from artefacts, yet the importance these objects had for the members of the cultural group (past and present) is not adequately considered. The typological approach sidelines the creative role of the artisans, we find out a little about their economy, gain momentary glimpses of their religion, but learn almost nothing about their humanity. Archaeologists tend to focus on the physical, technological or esoteric attributes of an artefact, while indigenous populations tend to focus on the object's ritual or social importance. This is most apparent in the treatment of funerary artefacts. Until recently, many American Indian tribal groups have seen no distinction between ‘grave robbing’ and ‘archaeological excavation’ it made no difference to them whether the dead were disturbed by looters or by qualified archaeologists. By involving indigenous populations in the design, practice and dissemination of archaeological research, we can add humanity to our study of the human past, and take a step toward a truly worldwide archaeology.     

Education in Maritime Archaeology: The Egyptian Case Study

The investigation of archaeological sites of maritime nature started in Egypt more than a century ago, with the discovery of the Dahshur boats (Haldane 1998) and the ancient harbour of Pharos (Jondet 1912); however, education in maritime and underwater archaeology in Egypt is still in its infancy. This paper will look at the development of maritime archaeology in Egypt as a scientific discipline and the progress achieved to date in providing Egyptian archaeologists with education and training in aspects of maritime archaeology and underwater cultural heritage.     

Postcolonial Archaeologies in Africa: Breaking the Silence

Postcolonial archaeologies in Africa are engaged in a variety of agendas including the decolonization of everyday practices in the field and in the classroom. Postcolonial theory, concerned with issues of power and the Other, is increasingly being invoked to examine how archaeologists conduct their field research and how archaeology is used to dismantle essentialized histories—the metanarratives that arose in the colonial as well as the postcolonial era. Easily misunderstood, however, is the passion expressed by some African archaeologists who are voicing their own views while simultaneously trying to free themselves from dominating “expert” voices. These occurrences create tensions in archaeological discourse that are a natural part of decolonizing archaeology, joining other forms of disenchantment, particularly the disenchantments arising in contemporary African communities about social services, civil society, and human rights. Archaeologists are also implicated in disenchantments as they conduct investigations in the midst of people who may be without water or are suffering from HIV/AIDS—conditions that starkly contrast with their own comfortable lives. We may also need to reconsider how to deal with states that see archaeological research as contrary to nation building. This essay responds to some current misunderstandings that have arisen over these and related issues.     

On Taking from Others: History and Sensibility in Archaeologists’ Arguments for Treasure Trove Legislations

The Indian Treasure Trove Act of 1878 is understood as a landmark legislative victory in the preservation of South Asian material pasts. This paper presents a detailed archival history recounting how archaeologists themselves were crucial to the promulgation of the Act and the authors of its specific provisions. It demonstrates how arguments for the reform of royal prerogative into an instrument for the discipline were born in mid-nineteenth-century British debates, where archaeologists’ attempts for a similar statutory change in property laws had been frustrated. Centuries-long tensions in common law definitions and their governance of treasure are demonstrated to be crucial to how we may better understand the new ‘policy’ of the colonial law and its operation. To do so, the paper reviews select cases and presents an evaluation of the archaeological justice of the rule of this law. It asks why our critical historiography has remained insensible to the victims of this law — archaeology’s counter-publics — who have been routinely incarcerated and punished in the name of the greater archaeological common good. Through these examinations, the paper reflects upon the enduring sensibilities and commitments that are involved in continuing to take treasures from others.     

考古发掘与考古发现

考古发现和考古学理论方法是考古学赖以进步的两条腿。考古发现不断刷新考古学家的视野并为考古学研究的深入提供新的资料,考古学理论方法使考古学的眼睛更加明亮,分析和思考更具有科学的力量。理论方法让考古学家对考古发现有更深入的认识,考古发现同时也推动综合研究和理论方法的进步。此外,考古发现往往会引起社会的关注,考古发现和考古学知识的普及可以为考古学的进步提供良好的社会环境,从而对考古学的发展产生强大的推动力量。考古学的持续发展要求考古学家必须正确处理考古发现、考古学自身理论方法的完善以及考古学与化遗产保护、公众知识状况和社会需求的关系。     

Global Application of Indigenous Archaeology: Community Based Participatory Research in Turkey

What does Indigenous archaeology offer archaeologists who do not work on Native land, at Indigenous sites, or with Indigenous people? This article demonstrates the broad applicability of Indigenous archaeology and the way it can be utilized by archaeologists working in any locale. Through recent fieldwork in south central Turkey working with a non-indigenous community of local residents near the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük, I demonstrate ways that the theories and methodology of Indigenous archaeology are a useful and relevant part of practice for archaeologists working in areas that are neither on Native land nor involve sites related to indigenous heritage. It also points to the need for further investigation into collaborative methods for the development of a set of best practices within archaeological and heritage management settings.     

Caesar: a life in Western culture

Abstract

Professional associations of archaeologists and anthropologists have produced numerous codes of ethics in recent years. Their compilation is motivated as much by the desire to promote standardized professional practice as a wish to enshrine correct ethical responses. The precise wording of these is often minutely scrutinized (although not minutely enough, I argue), but their overall purpose, status or value is rarely considered. This paper considers that the formulation of ethical codes is of limited value and may even be counter-productive. The ambiguities and problems in interpreting concepts such as ‘respect’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘compromise’ are never explored or even acknowledged. Instead, the complexities of genuine ethical dilemmas, when contradictory or incompatible values collide, are circumvented or ignored. Codes of ethics fail to provide a clear guide to practice in cases of profound and complex conflicts of interest. Instead, it is argued here that ethics are historical and contextual; appropriate responses to ethical dilemmas should be developed on a case-by-case basis and require thought, debate and discussion, rather than the application of a rule. Codes of ethics promote conservatism and conformity, reinforce the power of hegemonic institutions and pre-empt ethical debate. Moreover, because they pretend to supra-contextual applicability, several of the principles enshrined in ethical codes could easily be used to support racist or otherwise politically objectionable movements.     

Archaeology and the Irish rediscovery of the Celtic past

This article examines the place of archaeology in the second wave of Irish cultural nationalism, and how archaeological findings were appropriated by rival ethno‐religious communities in Ireland. In particular, it focuses on George Petrie, who was the founder of ‘scientific’ archaeology and was also one of the leading figures in the nineteenth‐century Celtic revival that sought a moral regeneration of the Irish nation In Ireland, as elsewhere, archaeology was important in reconstructing an early history of the nation where few written records existed and in making this visible through material artefacts. However, archaeology was only significant as part of a wider cultural revival that presented artefacts and sites as national symbols to an island undergoing rapid social change. This article will explore the relationship between archaeology and this national revival, and how the material objects recovered by archaeologists extended and transformed the existing repertoires of how the nation was imagined and felt. It will assess the different reception of these images in the rival Catholic and Protestant communities. Finally, it will comment on the capacity of a medieval ‘Celtic’ repertoire to provide the basis of a dynamic modern Irish national culture.     

现代中国环境考古研究模式的分析

本文将1987年以来的中国环境考古研究称为"现代中国环境考古研究",并将之归纳为"考古地理的环境考古研究模式"、"文化历史环境考古研究模式"和"资源环境考古研究模式"。本文对这三种研究模式的合理性进行了分析。接下来,从考古学的基本理论假设出发,指出环境考古学、文化历史考古学之间并没有严格的继承关系,中国环境考古研究的最大问题是核心概念的不匹配。最后,通过考察西方环境考古研究和考古学史,本文提出应该用文化适应,即"考古学中的文化"取代考古学文化而将之作为核心概念进行环境考古研究,让中国环境考古摆脱文化历史考古学概念体系的束缚。     

21世纪中国考古学的若干特点及发展趋势:从“中华文明探源工程”说起——王巍所长专访

21世纪以来,中国考古学呈现出新的学科特点和发展趋势。中国社会科学院考古研究所王巍所长认为,中国考古学随着自身的发展特别是在以"中华文明探源工程"及其各项阶段性成果的推进与影响下,形成了中国气派和中国特色,正朝着科学化、国际化、社会化、大众化的趋势和方向发展;中国考古学需要与国际考古界加强交流,博采众长,走向世界;作为一级学科的考古学的学科建设应是从文物管理机构到文物考古研究机构所共同担负的责任,需要形成一整套既符合中国实际,又顺应中国考古学发展的二级学科的设置,同时培养能够满足考古学发展需要的人才;公众考古是目前考古学新的发展走向,考古界需要转换意识和机制,培养专业人才,坚持考古的纯洁性和道德规范,以更好地服务社会与遗产保护事业。     

We Were Sitting Around the Table…

Alejandro comments on the sense of indeterminacy that pervaded our discussions, notably over what “archaeology” even consists of and over the dilemmas created when the principle of respect for the local community contradicts ethical principles that the archaeologist feels are universal in scale. He tells the story of Carlos Bruch, an early archaeologist in the Catamarca Region, recounting how Bruch portrayed local people and discounted their conceptions of the past, then constructed his own version, contributing to the official version in archaeological discourse. This continues to have ramifications today in the disenfranchisement of local voices in global colonialist projects. Alejandro saw our indeterminancy and quandaries over dilemmas faced by archaeologists as a positive development—a symptom of archaeology changing its pre-theoretical pre-understandings. He emphasizes the importance of local people enacting their own techniques of social memory and their own vocality.     

State Archaeology and the Private Museum: An Integrated Approach to Archaeological Site Management for Local People in China

During the emergence of Chinese archaeology, the legislative system of cultural heritage in China included archaeological excavations and investigations as being the ‘exclusive right of state’. This mode of state archaeology has proved its worth by increasing the authority and quality of archaeological research and excavations, as well as enhancing the social values and benefits at the state level. The local communities, however, have hardly been embedded into the archaeological projects, nor have the archaeological projects been employed to improve local and regional economic development. This paper considers private museums as embodying regional values and beneficial to projects under the mode of state archaeology. With a case study outlining collaborations between archaeologists and local agents under the excavation and conservation of ancient kiln sites at the town of Zichuan, I argue that private museums could be relatively prominent platforms for public engagement in activities of state archaeology. It might contribute to a reconsideration of the following: indirect archaeological concerns, local economic benefits, identities and alternative interpretations of locality.     

“Poor White” Recollections and Artifact Reuse in Barbados: Considerations for Archaeologies of Poverty

Archaeologists regularly confront the material realities of economic inequality. This article contributes to a growing body of literature on the archaeology of poverty but challenges archaeologists to consider how such approaches are politically weighted and directly come to bear on how communities experience economic hardship in the present. Additionally, through a case study of a “poor white” tenantry in Barbados, this article suggests that material culture from sites associated with people of limited economic means necessitates alternative interpretive methods that combine archaeological, historical, and oral sources.     

Units of Archaeological Stratification

The excavating archaeologists’ methodological set ‐ excavation, recording, analysis and publication ‐ rests on the notions and principles of the stratigraphic succession of archaeological deposits. Since 1954 when Sir Mortimer Wheeler published Archaeology From the Earth, there has been a dearth of published discussion on the stratigraphie theory in archaeology. This paper examines some of the background of the stratigraphie notion in archaeology and a revised model for archaeological stratigraphy based on ‘units of stratification’ is presented. Re‐evaluations of stratigraphie configurations in archaeology arc perhaps long overdue and this article is an attempt to engender discussion on this fundamental archaeological tenet.     

Control of Indigenous Archaeological Heritage in Ontario,Canada

Few Indigenous peoples have control over their heritage, despite international recognition of this right in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007. In Ontario, Canada, the Ontario Heritage Act, R.S.O. 1990 regulates archaeology and grants licences to archaeologists to investigate archaeological heritage. Indigenous people want more control of their archaeological heritage in Ontario. To uphold Indigenous rights to archaeological heritage in Ontario, heritage legislation and policy needs to be revised and site protection increased. This paper recommends that Indigenous archaeological heritage in Ontario would be best protected by strengthening Ontario government land development policy and legislation to require the free, prior, and informed consent from affected Indigenous communities before removal of significant archaeological sites and remains from their ancestral territories.