Americanist Stratigraphic Excavation and the Measurement of Culture Change

Many versions of the history of Americanist archaeology suggest there was a stratigraphic revolution during the second decade of the twentieth century—the implication being that prior to about 1915 most archaeologists did not excavate stratigraphically. However, articles and reports published during the late nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth century indicate clearly that many Americanists in fact did excavate stratigraphically. What they did not do was attempt to measure the passage of time and hence culture change. The real revolution in Americanist archaeology comprised an analytical shift from studying synchronic variation to tracking changes in frequencies of artifact types or styles—a shift pioneered by A. V. Kidder, A. L. Kroeber, Nels C. Nelson, and Leslie Spier. The temporal implications of the analytical techniques they developed—frequency seriation and percentage stratigraphy—were initially confirmed by stratigraphic excavation. Within a few decades, however, most archaeologists had begun using stratigraphic excavation as a creational strategy—that is, as a strategy aimed at recovering superposed sets of artifacts that were viewed as representing occupations and distinct cultures. The myth that there was a stratigraphic revolution was initiated in the writings of the innovators of frequency seriation and percentage stratigraphy.     

Democratic ambivalence in post mortem

Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of films has broken new ground in Chilean cinema by offering a new perspective on realities of the Pinochet dictatorship, the outbreak of the coup, and the dissolution of Pinochet’s power. This article explores Larraín’s use of banality, which, I claim, realizes a democratic ambivalence that is latent in historical representation and History proper. Rather than accusing Larraín’s films of conservatism or apathy, I argue that these films seek to destabilize the known categories of identification: a radical gesture against any form of establishment. Paying particular attention to Larraín’s aesthetics, I claim that the radical gesture of Post mortem (2010) lies in its innovations at the level of mise-en-scène and editing. Drawing on philosophical insights in Jacques Rancière’s and Gilles Deleuze’s writings on historical representation and ambivalent representations, I argue that Larraín avoids conventional forms of historical fiction and Latin American political cinema.