“Making Us Uneasy”: Clarke, Wobst, and Their Critique of Archaeology Put into Practice

Both David Clarke and Martin Wobst have had a significant impact on archaeological theory and practice through their critical insights into the nature of archaeological inquiry and their respective challenges to assumptions about what we know and how we know it. This paper examines the development and historical context of some of their ideas, and highlights how their notions of responsibility, self-awareness, and relevance influence or intersect with contemporary archaeological practice.     

Ontologies of the Future and Interfaces for All: Archaeological Databases for the Twenty-First Century

Archaeological database management systems serve the basic and important functions of ordering, archiving, and disseminating archaeological data. The increased availability of computers and data storage over the past two decades has enabled the exponential growth of archaeological databases and data models. Despite their importance and ubiquity, archaeological database systems are rarely the subject of theoretical analysis within the discipline due to their “black box” nature and the perceived objectivity of computerized systems. Inspired by H. Martin Wobst’s meditations on materiality and disciplinary ethics, in this paper I explore how archaeological database systems structure archaeological interpretation and disciplinary practice. In turn, I offer suggestions for how archaeological database systems can better support pressing anthropological research topics of the 21st century including multivocality, participatory research and ethics, social memory, and social complexity studies.     

If It Were Not for the Dean, I Would Have Done More: Reflections on the Contributions of Martin Wobst

This brief paper offers several observations on the contributions of Martin Wobst to the practice of anthropological archaeology as framed by personal perspective and with reference to some of the other articles in this issue.     

Materiality and Autonomy in the Pocumtuck Homeland

The Indigenous people of New England’s middle Connecticut River Valley are often imagined as having been subservient to powerful tribal nations elsewhere. Yet, archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence suggests Pocumtuck independence and autonomy in relations with neighboring Native groups and with Dutch, English, and French colonizers during the seventeenth century. We employ a decolonizing framework, drawing on H.M. Wobst’s critique of the preoccupation with dominance and geopolitical “centers” to analyze this evidence. By framing artifacts, colonial texts, and cultural interactions as both past and present “material interventions,” we can generate better understandings of Pocumtuck political autonomy, agency and identity.     

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。     

关于早期夏文化──从夏商周王朝更迭与考古学文化变迁的关系谈起

商、周王朝的建立是通过大规模的族际战争行为实现的,在考古学文化上产生突变是正常现象。夏王朝的建立是本部落联盟内社会历史自然发展的结果,不可能在考古学文化上出现中断。认为夏王朝的建立必然伴随着一个新的考古学文化诞生的观点,从理论和实践上都是不能成立的。     

Personal,Political, Pedagogic: Challenging the Binary Bind in Archaeological Teaching,Learning and Fieldwork

In this paper, we consider how we can undercut the various binaries of gender and sexuality in archaeological practice and particularly in our teaching. We argue that taking an assemblage theory approach enables us to look at the multiplicity of identities of those practicing archaeology as different and intersecting assemblages that bring one another into being through their connections at different scales. In particular, we examine how this approach can be applied to archaeological pedagogy and how this in turn enables us to move away from modern binary distinctions about sex and gender identities from the ‘bottom up’, fostering an approach in our students that will then go on to be developed in professional practice.     

A historical review of ethnological and archaeological analyses of mortuary practice

For over a century, anthropologists have analyzed death-related phenomena to acquire knowledge concerning religion, social organization, and economic cooperation. There have been notable epistemological shifts in this inquiry by socioculturalanthropologists, with a “time lag” prior to concomitant archaeological shifts in explanation of similar phenomena. This article reviews many sociocultural and archaeological contributions to the development of a theory of mortuary practice. It is felt that although many advances in method have been made by modern archaeologists in terms of mortuary practice, they have been restricted by an exclusive British functionalist approach. Finally, it is suggested that incorporation of structuralist theory and examinations of the entire trajectory of death-related behavior may be an aid to archaeologists.     

考古学的中国深度:张忠培先生的文化演进论

张忠培先生始终深入田野考古,坚持"让材料牵着鼻子走",在系统构建考古学文化谱系的基础上,提出了既符合中国具体实际又体现人类共同规律的文化演进论。张忠培先生在坚实而高水准的实践起点上,不断开拓学术生长点,构建起了宏大的学术体系,创造性地开展和领导了田野考古实践工作,为中国考古学奠定了坚实的基础,科学地发现和表述了蕴含着中国文化基因的谱系结构,展现出考古学的中国深度。     

?Doing Archaeology?: cultural heritage management and its role in identifying the link between archaeological practice and theory

Using a case study of the recent history of archaeology in Australia, the paper details how Cultural Heritage Management, in addition to protecting the archaeological data base, actually protects archaeological access to it. In offering this protection, archaeologists involved in Cultural Heritage Management become the regulators of archaeological practice and theory. Here archaeology comes into direct contact and conflict with governments and a range of interest groups, notably the Aboriginal community, with a stake in material culture. In effect 'doing' Cultural Heritage Management is 'doing' archaeology.     

Snapshots of History and the Nature of the Archaeological Image

By its very definition, archaeology is situated at the intersection of the material and the temporal worlds. Photography is similarly positioned, and yet it can be manipulated to produce constructed contexts according a photographer’s agenda. In order to explore how the abilities and limitations of archaeology and photography are entwined I examine the representational power of the photograph and the phenomenon of Japanese tourist photography. I then discuss the construction of archaeological photographs, both in practice and in the prescribed theory contained archaeological methods textbooks, as well as how photographs are used to represent the embodied, physical performance of archaeology.     

Places in Interaction: The National Archaeological Park Project as an Integrated Approach to Public Archaeology in China

The aim of this paper is to re-examine how concepts of public archaeology have been established and developed in varying social and political contexts in China, and how the recent national archaeological park project is structured as an important approach for improving public-archaeology relationships and promoting the public uses of archaeology. Since all archaeological activities in China are exclusively regulated by the state, all archaeological resources are administered for the benefit of the public. As such, concepts of public archaeology demonstrate the efforts of Chinese archaeologists to re-evaluate public-archaeology relationships and uses of archaeology through public engagement as well as archaeological communications with the public. The national archaeological park project was launched in 2006 to expand the practice of archaeology with the creation of archaeological communications, public space, and community-driven programmes. The project facilitates multiple perspectives on public archaeology practice through public education, community cohesion, re-creation of public space, and local economic development.     

Transdisciplinary Archaeology and the Future of Archaeological Practice: Citizen Science,Portable Science,Ethical Science

This paper presents a vision and a pathway for the future of archaeological practice, in which several fields that are currently considered distinct, including community-based collaborative archaeology, indigenous archaeology, and applied archaeology, could become the norm. Inspired by personal encounters with some exceptionally open and collaborative archaeology projects, as well as by recent advances in archaeological science, which are starting to make it more portable, this paper sets out an agenda for a more open approach to archaeological practice. It advocates a method of producing knowledge about the past that does not privilege one investigator over another, but gives everyone who is interested and wants to participate an opportunity to do. Specific methodological challenges that are discussed include the need to ‘flip’ the public outreach element of research designs, to embed open participation from the outset by nurturing relationships of mutual respect and trust, and to take advantage of, and improve, the portability of archaeological science, so that it can be done in and by local communities. It is argued here that the opening of archaeological research, including the archaeological sciences, to a wider range of participants, is the most ethical approach to archaeological practice in a pan-disciplinary research environment.     

Bridging the Gap: Classification,Theory and Practice in Public Archaeology

Models and classifications have been a part of thinking about public archaeology since at least the early 2000s, but how are these ideas translated into practice? By looking into the development of such classifications and models and by examining archaeologists’ attitudes to an archaeological education outreach project for schoolchildren in Oslo, Norway, this paper looks at the relationship between classification, theory, and practice in public archaeology.     

Archaeology’s quest for a seat at the high table of anthropology

Between 1900 and 1970, American archaeologists perceived themselves as second-class anthropologists because the archaeological record suggested little not already known ethnographically, archaeology served anthropology by testing ethnologically derived models of cultural evolution, the archaeological record was ethnologically incomplete as a result of poor preservation, and archaeologists used but did not write anthropological theory. Ethnologists of the period agreed with these points and regularly reminded archaeologists of their limited role in anthropology. A few archaeologists claimed in the 1950s that archaeology could contribute to anthropological theory but they were ignored. The claim was reiterated by new archaeologists of the 1960s, and by the 1970s worries about the poor preservation of the archaeological record had softened. However, most archaeologists after 1970 (and before 1990) used anthropological theory and did not write new theory on the basis of archaeological data. The root cause of American archaeology’s ninety-year absence from anthropology’s high table of theory seems to be the discipline-wide retention of the ninety-year old belief that archaeology is prehistoric ethnology and the (unnecessary and constraining) corollary that archaeologists must use anthropological theory to explain the archaeological record.     

Seven Interventions with the Flatlands: Archaeology and its Modes of Engagement Contributions from the WAC-6 Session, “Experience, Modes of Engagement, Archaeology”

This volume is the product of the WAC-6 session, “Experience, Modes of Engagement, Archaeology”, which was part of the conference theme, “Archaeological Theory? Legacies, Burdens, and Futures.” The following contributions embrace emergent, analog, and paper-based media and move on from the worn observation that these media can be important tools towards active interventions that demonstrate how they affect practice and theory when employed critically and reflexively. This introduction orients the focus of the volume through a discussion and case study that place theoretical emphasis on experiences documented through multimedia. Important questions are raised throughout concerning: archaeology and digital representation, the creation and destruction of archaeological information, authenticity in representations, the construction of archaeologists’ identities, and the non-linearity of archaeological practice. The studies in this volume approach archaeology through the lens of experience and multimedia engagement. In doing so they blend or altogether question the traditionally divided realms of theory and practice. Consequently, these contributions work with the interrelated agendas of the present between media ecologies and archaeology, and the changing pace and character of archaeology in the 21st century.     

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。     

Everything Old Is New Again: Recent Approaches to Research on the Archaic Period in the Western United States

There are regional differences in how archaeologists conduct their research on the Archaic period. The rich array of techniques and approaches used to examine this period in the West include human behavioral ecology and other evolutionary perspectives, technological style and aspects of practice theory, neuropsychological theory, and more. Recent research in the Great Basin, Southwest, Great Plains, Columbia-Fraser Plateau, and coastal California is surveyed to highlight commonalities and differences in the questions asked of the archaeological data and in the techniques that are used.     

?Theorising a Realm of Practice?: introducing archaeological heritage management as a research field

The paper introduces the field of archaeological heritage management, and the four papers on this subject here presented. Comparisons are made with Cultural Resource Management, Cultural Heritage Management and Archaeological Heritage Management. The research discussed here examines the management of archaeology in practical situations, including those involving indigeneity, to develop a body of theory that will help to illuminate such practice in terms of our own contemporary culture.