Transcending the “Obnoxious Spectator”: a case for processual pluralism in ethnoarchaeology

Several commentators have argued that ethnoarchaeology will only become a productive part of archaeological research once both archaeology and ethnoarchaeology are unified by the axioms of a single theory of behavior. Through an examination of the different roles that ethnoarchaeological research has adopted, I demonstrate that ethnoarchaeology is already theoretically unified by a general concern with analogy. I argue that the problems that many commentators have recognized with ethnoarchaeology’s apparent eclecticism arise from an over-reliance on “core universals” by both processual and postprocessual researchers. Instead of implementing a single unified theory of behavior, I suggest that ethnoarchaeologists should adopt a pluralistic orientation that is sensitive to the contextual applicability of specific causal processes.     

Archaeologist as anthropologist: Much ado about something after all?

It has been said that “archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing.” And so archaeologists have become conversant in and contributors to cultural theory. Other archaeologists have undertaken ethnoarchaeological studies on material culture when ethnographers have not supplied the data needed. Yet archaeologists might undertake more traditional participant-observation fieldwork to help nuance the cultural questions we ask and to render our tales of the past more convincing, in particular, when we purport to speak of the sensuous and meaningful experience of the “prehistoric other.” This article discusses the venturing of one archaeologist in Madagascar tracking aspects of the classic problem of state origins across archaeology, oral history, ethnoarchaeology, and ethnography. This process of joining objective analysis to lived experience is perhaps the most proper task of anthropology, the one that distinguishes it from other social science…     

An ethnoarchaeological inductive model for predicting archaeological site location: A case-study of pastoral settlement patterns in the Val di Fiemme and Val di Sole (Trentino,Italian Alps)

In this paper I propose a novel integration of inductive predictive modelling and ethnoarchaeology. The case study concerns seasonal upland pastoral settlement patterns in the eastern Italian Alps. A sample of modern pastoral sites has been selected, and their relationships with environmental variables have been analyzed in order to create a model to predict the location of archaeological upland pastoral sites. The model has been tested with modern and archaeological control samples. It has proved to be useful for predicting the location of specific site categories. Ethnoarchaeological fieldwork has been carried out in the same alpine sample area, which has enhanced the interpretative potential of the proposed model, suggesting that the spatial of the analyzed sites could well be related to their dairying function. The creation of ethnoarchaeological locational models with a predictive potential may be very important not only in helping to tackle some theoretical and methodological problems in predictive modelling, but also in enhancing the importance of ethnoarchaeology in landscape archaeology projects.     

Identification and assessment of secondary refuse aggregates

Secondary refuse contains a wealth of information on the people who generated it. This article identifies some means by which archaeologists can identify and characterize secondary refuse aggregates — localized, high-density deposits of artifacts that have been discarded away from their place of use. A variety of studies of archaeological deposits — from prehistoric and historical archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and modern material culture studies — provides hypotheses and a comparative database for discussion. I suggest that socioeconomic and demographic factors operating in a society greatly affect the composition of secondary refuse aggregates and propose some hypotheses regarding the directions and magnitudes of these relationships.     

Framing the past: situating the archaeological in photographs

Archaeology continually reproduces its own images. Speaking archaeology’s visual language is one way we prove membership in the discipline. Many aspects of this visual language have become so naturalized within archaeological representation as to be almost unquestionable: the cleaning of the site, the use of scale, and particular framings and perspectives. How, then, is the production of particular photographic images of archaeology related to the practice of archaeology? Does archaeology look a certain way (in photographs) or are archaeologists reproducing an archaeology according to the way it is thought it should look? Using examples of early photographs from Latin American archaeological expeditions, this article investigates not only photography as an applied technology for scientific recording, but also its power to situate archaeological knowledge. Drawing on recent reflective and critical developments in both the history of archaeology and visual anthropology, it uses five focal points – trace, objectivity and authenticity, sight/site, still lifes, and still lives – to argue that early-twentieth-century archaeological photographs of Latin America participated in the generation of an ‘authentic’ past rather than simply paid testament to it.     

Ethnoarchaeology: A Non Historical Science of Reference Necessary for Interpreting the Past

Ethnoarchaeology appears nowadays as a poorly formulated field. However, it could become a real science of reference for interpreting the past if it was focused upon well-founded cross-cultural correlates, linking material culture with static and dynamic phenomena. For this purpose, such correlates have to be studied in terms of explanatory mechanisms. Cross-cultural correlates correspond to those regularities where explanatory mechanisms invoke universals. These universals can be studied by reference to the theories found in the different disciplines they relate to and which are situated outside of the domain of archaeology. In the domain of technology, cross-cultural correlates cover a wide range of static and dynamic phenomena. They allow the archaeologist to interpret archaeological facts—for which there is not necessarily analogue—in terms of local historical scenario as well as cultural evolution. In this respect, it is shown that ethnoarchaeology, when following appropriate methodologies and focussing on the universals that underlie the diversity of archaeological facts, does provide the reference data needed to climb up in the pyramid of inferences that make up our interpretative constructs.     

Looking Forward,Looking Back

This paper surveys the disparate literatures on time, and the relative paucity of metaphors available (based on spatial analogues or mirroring past and future onto one another). Parallels between approaches to the past and future are considered and different intellectual traditions surveyed in futurology, memory, history (chronotopes), archaeology and philosophy. Causation across time, how the past affects the present, how the future may affect present and the past are considered as ways of better understanding how tensed statements in time and of time are essential elements of history and of anthropology. Pluralizing is suggested as a positive step: we should be talking of pasts, futures and even of presents. This has consequences, for example, the Thin Red Line of actuality must be broadened to be perhaps the Thick Reddish Braid. As introduction to a special issue of History and Anthropology I consider the papers that follow and how they contribute to the theme.     

Imagining an Archaeology of the Future: Capitalism and Colonialism Past and Present

This paper explores how doing history backward may allow archaeologists to begin imagining an archaeology of the future. The purpose of such an archaeology would be two-fold: first, to examine the past from the vantage point of the present as a way of better understanding the past as precondition, and second, to critically examine the present with an eye toward imagining how archaeology might be able to influence the future. Drawing on case studies that offer windows on the growth of capitalist production and the continuing impacts of colonialism, this paper seeks to demonstrate the power of using archaeology to link past and present. By focusing on the ideological dimensions of processes such as commoditization and the erasure of indigenous histories I hope to highlight the value of doing history backward and its potential for constructing an archaeology of the future.     

The contemporary in post-medieval archaeology

SUMMARY: Contemporary archaeology is an emerging field of enquiry within the wider discipline associated with the questioning of temporal boundaries in what we study and why we engage with material remains of the recent past more generally. This article argues that contemporary archaeology should be broadly defined at this stage in its development and therefore can be located in Post-Medieval Archaeology through research that explicitly engages with what it is to conduct contemporary archaeology, but also through those implicitly considering how the past intrudes into the present. We believe that Post-Medieval Archaeology will continue to highlight archaeological studies of the contemporary into the future.     

Moving Towards Transformative Democratic Action Through Archaeology

Archaeologists have explored how politics affect the way we see the past. They have investigated how constructions of the past naturalize present political conditions, and have explored uses of the past in current politics. Few have examined how politics in archaeology can relate to the future. In this article I develop ideas on a transformational politics in archaeology that focuses on critiquing oppressive relations in the past and present, and works towards building more just relations for the future. I examine how we can achieve this through building more democratic relations in the places we work.     

Memory Mapping: Affect,Place, and Testimony in El Lugar Más Pequeño (2011)

This article examines the Salvadoran documentary El Lugar Más Pequeño (The Tiniest Place, 2011) and argues that the film gives new insight into the complicated spaces and practices of memory post-transition and post-conflict through a process I call ‘memory mapping,’ which I define as the aesthetic process of representing the affective, polyvocal, layered relationship between past, present, and place as experienced by individuals and the communities in which they live. Engaging primarily with affect and memory theory, I contend that the film maps post-conflict memory in two specific ways: first, through testimony, and second, through an exploration of the relationship between memory and place. Ultimately, I argue that memory mapping sheds new light on how the aftermath of conflict – the physical, but also the emotional ruination caused by violence – is negotiated in the everyday of human life.     

Mixed messages Archaeology and the media

Abstract

Over the past few years in the UK, archaeology has joined gardening, cookery and home make-overs as a motherlode for popular TV programming and feature articles. From a period of shifting uncomfortably between dull, if worthy, accounts of new finds with a limited non-academic significance, and the blatant sensationalisation of evidence, there is an increasing tendency to make more of any ‘mysterious’ data particularly that involving bodies, Egyptians, cosmic links, drugs and sex. It makes for good viewing figures, but some archaeologists have expressed concern that the stories are skewing the subject. This paper offers evidence from the front-lines of both journalism and archaeology – and suggests that archaeologists should pay more attention to how they, too, tell stories.

[The grave]contained an inhumed body wearing hobnailed footwear accompanied by a small New Forest beaker placed at the neck. The body had been covered by a board of planks nailed together which rested on a ledge left towards the bottom of the grave pit.' (Cunliffe, 1991: 8)

SUNSPOT! The 1,700 year old skeleton of an womanstill wearing leather boots – has been dug up byarchaeologists on a farm at Over Wallop, Hants.' (The Sun, August 1991).     

An International Scottish Historical Archaeology?

This paper serves as an introduction to the special edition of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on the theme of Scottish historical archaeology in its international context. The introduction aims to provide a context for the individual papers in the collection by briefly outlining some of the main characteristics of Scottish historical archaeology—as it has developed in the past, as it is at present and as it might develop in the future. The paper also discusses the ambiguous relationship between Scottish historical archaeology and wider historical archaeology.     

The Archaeological Heritage of Iraq in Historical Perspective

Abstract

In this paper I argue that members of the public are simultaneously attracted to and alienated by the uncannyin archaeology. I examine the role of popular culture representations of archaeology in these conflicting but connected processes, and strategies for overcoming them. By exploring Freud's notion of the unheimlich, or uncanny, in relation to archaeology and autopsies, I argue that it is mediated by popular culture, which alienates the public from the actual uncanny practices. By considering the relationship between archaeologists and the public as a discourse between actors and their audience, I examine ways in which this alienation can be overcome. My aim is to offer a better understanding of the complex ways in which people engage with archaeology.     

The Dynamics of Inclusion at the Dynamics of Inclusion in Public Archaeology Workshop Public Event

This paper describes, analyzes and critiques a public archaeology event created to demonstrate the methodologies of a dialogic archaeology. Collaboratively produced by the Wenner-Gren-sponsored Dynamics of Inclusion in Public Archaeology Workshop and the African Burial Ground National Monument, this event drew a capacity crowd representing diverse communities from the New York City region for a program dedicated to exploring public archaeology as it is, and has been, practiced in New York City. The on the ground actions involved in designing the event are explored here for insight into how communities form in, around, and with archaeology, while participant observation data gathered during the event is used to demonstrate the facilitating role archaeology and archaeologists play when a community uses the past for needs in the present. Feedback from several of the audiences attending the event, including the Workshop participants and other archaeological colleagues who were present, provide reflection on the aims and goals of public archaeology.     

Archaeometry and materiality: materials‐based analysis in theory and practice*

Due to the diversity of contemporary archaeology, the aims and approaches of archaeological scientists and archaeological theorists are often at odds. I suggest that this position is problematic, both intellectually and methodologically, as both groups are fundamentally engaged in the same task: an understanding of past societies through the medium of material culture. This paper offers a review of the intellectual positions of both groups, with a brief discussion of the history of archaeological theory and an appraisal of its current trajectory. I will discuss how and why contemporary theoretical perspectives have fundamentally diverged from the perspectives of archaeological scientists and how the recent theoretical emphasis upon materiality offers a rapprochement between theoreticians and archaeological scientists.     

Curious archaeology: the process of assembling a fringe prehistory

Abstract

This paper compiles an interview with Preston Peet, editor of the recent popularaudience archaeology book Underground – the Disinlormation Guide to Ancient Civilizations, Astonishing Archaeology and Hidden History (The Disinformation Company, New York,2005). The volume positions itself unashamedly at the fringes of archaeology. This interview serves as primary, qualitative data for archaeologists to understand how they communicate with the public, how archaeology on the fringes operates and how editors act as conduits between professional and public spheres.     

Household Archaeology in the Andes

Data from domestic contexts can be used to address significant anthropological research questions. Archaeological investigations in the Andes (areas once incorporated into the Inka empire, including northwestern Argentina, highland Bolivia, northern Chile, Ecuador, and Peru), like many parts of the world, rely on ethnohistory and ethnography to interpret the archaeological remains of domestic areas and make inferences about households. In this review I describe the ideas about Andean households that archaeologists are using and how domestic remains are being examined to infer social, economic, and political processes. Household archaeology in the Andes requires ethnoarchaeology and theory-building in order to understand the complex social dynamics at the foundation of ancient Andean societies.     

WAC Reflections Through Maori Eyes

For a while now issues surrounding ethics in archaeology have occupied my thoughts, as have case studies of ethical misconduct. In fact a large part of why I gravitated toward archaeology is rooted in past instances of poor ethical practice instigated against my people, and the overwhelming personal need I have, to seek redress and change for Iwi Maori. Part of my commitment to both of these endeavours, is expressed through my association with WAC, with whose present code of ethics and principles i find affinity with.     

Between Memory and Materiality: An Archaeological Approach to Studying the Nazi Concentration Camps

Abstract

By its very nature, historical narrative that is rooted exclusively in textual sources is destined to be more linear, more univocal, and less equipped to deal with the problematic. On the other hand, due to its unique abilities and approaches, historical archaeology thrives on the tensions inherent to any attempt to understand past and present experience. In this article I negotiate between two approaches to studying the concentration camps of the Third Reich—one canonical the other experimental. It is suggested that when studying the camps, we are faced with a series of tensions: between past and present, between remembering and forgetting, and between live human actors and the material record. This article explores two research paradigms: first, the traditional text-centric historical approach, and second, an approach that might be called 'historical archaeological'. I embrace the inherent tensions between the two approaches, and put forward some innovative ways for coming to terms with these places of internment.