Archaeolog

I recently attended Julian Thomas’ talk, “Archaeology and modernity: Depth and surface,” at the Archaeology Research Center at Berkeley. Julian’s talk highlighted the core argument of his recent book Archaeology and Modernity. In short, archaeology could not have existed prior to the modern era because modern thought created the very conditions for the existence of archaeology. Archaeology is distinctively modern. Yes. It is. Well, at least this is how it has always characterized itself. How else could it be?

Modernity, for Thomas, came about through a revolution in how humans thought of themselves in relation to the world. Modernity is characterized by epistemic breaks, philosophical ruptures, against the Aristotelian teleology and dynastic rulership of Medieval Europe and toward Renaissance humanism, Cartesian dualisms, rationalism, atomism and so on. With the social contract in place, the crossed-out God was replaced by Man. Constructed, planned, ordered, modern life, Thomas emphasizes, is put into theory before it is put into practice. Without modernity there would be no archaeology. Yes. There would also be no sciences, no nation-states. Without modernity the world would be a very different place.

Building up to the penultimate question, Thomas asks whether archaeology can exist outside modernity? Indeed, when it comes to this question of whether archaeology can exist outside of the conditions of modernism, Thomas is deeply pessimistic.

In addressing this very question, Thomas presents us with a tautology. Because modernity created the conditions for archaeology, archaeology is nothing but thoroughly modern, and therefore cannot exist apart from it. It is what it is.

Furthermore, the very modernist divides that Thomas contextualizes are, as he would maintain, arbitrary, oversimplified and outmoded. But if this is so why does Thomas reproduce them? Thomas argues for a counter-modern archaeology where ethics, politics, rhetoric, difference and dialogue take center stage. Such, he contends, is still a modern archaeology. Thomas reminds us that so long as we are modern (which if you are an archaeologist then you are) there will continue to be a counter point of view. The pendulum swings back and forth across the divides, first siding with one side, then the other, continually turning modernity’s revolving door of polarity and contradiction. A counter-modern archaeology continues to provide the energy and momentum for this.

After all we have no choice.

But what if the moderns got it wrong? What if we could bypass such a predicament altogether by retracing our steps?

Indeed, Thomas argues against “going back to first principles.” Fine. But Thomas readily embraces a modernist epistemology and this is the problem. He believes the thinkers of modernity. He takes their myths at face value. He boils the world down to subjectivity and meaning. He gives us a world-for-human-consciousness where the initiative always comes from the “thinking man.” This take on modernity validates what we have been spoon-fed for so long. In contrast, but not in contradistinction, I firmly believe that a recharacterization of modernity and archaeology is in order; a recharacterization of how we understand and interact with the material world.

This is not to suggest that we need to throw out the tub containing both the baby and the bathwater. Rather, this endeavor requires a symmetrical archaeology.

In a symmetrical archaeology modernist thought is treated as the outcome, rather than the prime mover. On the ground humans are always entangled within a heterogeneous collective. While Thomas has in his new book performed a great service for the history of the discipline, we need, more than ever, to understand how archaeologists operated on the ground under the banner of modernity. We need to understand how earlier antiquarians and archaeologists interacted with a diversity of entities in real-time practice, not just what they regarded as the outcome. We need to recognize how we have, in this sense, “never been modern.”

Digging under Thomas’ claims, there was no new man, no more rational mind, born out of a revolution of thought, rather the transformation came in combination with the proliferation of mundane and humble modes of engagement and articulation. Modernity presents itself as a revolution in thought when it was actually a revolution in how humans circulate something more of themselves and the world at a spatiotemporal distance. Modernity simultaneously denies the action of things. But this rebuttal is not a call back to materialism. Instead, along with archaeologists such as Bjørnar Olsen, Michael Shanks and Timothy Webmoor, I wish to plead for symmetry.

What are held as revolutions of thought occurred in step with the mobilization and proliferation of the printing press and graven images. They occurred alongside the slow accretion of optically consistent and standardized modes of showing and the ability to transfer something more of the world at a spacio-temporal distance. There are no mystical and over-dramatized ruptures, fissures or divides. We do not witness the birth of a new rational mind, but we encounter a collective on the ground, a mixture of a person, a compass, a chronometer, a telescope, a microscope or an accurate, optically consistent and standardized flat projection of the earth. We encounter the further distribution of humans and things in the world. We witness the birth of new collectivities, new mixtures of humans and things. What people thought in this context is a different question from who they are. Humans and things (modernism’s burdened ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’) are constructed simultaneously.

This is why we at MetaMedia are so thoroughly interested in archaeological relationships with the digital world, which cannot be wished away by a superficial critique of the digital as a “pattern of pixels” (let’s not forget the pixilated history of photography in its early years). More importantly, archaeologists are becoming ever more complex collectives. And in this digital world we have to understand ourselves (with the proviso that there is more to understanding than meaning) as post-human. The crossed-out God (who has never really gone away) needs to be joined by the crossed-out Man (who will also never really go away). We need to witness the birth of nature, we need to write a new contract. Following Serres, we need to articulate a natural contract, in order to understand how it is that we human beings are entangled with the world.

Archaeology, “the discipline of things” is ripe to take center stage in the articulation of this new contract, but this cannot occur if we limit ourselves to modernism’s myth.

In beginning to address Thomas’ extremely important question: can archaeology exist outside of modernism? Yes. Modernism, the myth of a new, more rational, free-standing, thinking individual, never existed as such. But there was also a great deal of value, which came out of the social contract, as Thomas has endeavored to point out so clearly. Both have to be thoroughly mixed with an understanding that the past, which is populated by things, has action, it continues to percolate and is itself entangled with the contemporary and the future. To be sure, this is a much more complicated and tricky task. But it is necessary. Let us put aside the oversimplified and contradictory framework that continues to burden modernity and begin to understand the world symmetrically.

[Please note: this entry was scripted in the Spring of 2005.]

Matt Ratto, Michael Shanks and Christopher Witmore organized a session at the Society for Social Studies of Science conference in Pasadena, CA this past weekend (October 20-22). The conference focus was on “The Representation of Controversial Objects: New Methods of Displaying the Unruly and the Anomalous in Science and Technology Studies.”

Here is the abstract from our session “The Past: What an Unruly Thing!” :

Archaeology as a discipline has always had to play a dangerous game, working both to explain and contain the past through scientific means and, at the same time, seeking to explore and manifest history as an interpretive and hermeneutic object. In this sense, Archaeology stretches over the divide (marked even more clearly by the “science wars”,) between science and the humanities, with archaeologists recognizing that they often have to play both sides.

One recent response to this has been the incorporation of new means of representing and engaging with the past; traditional archaeological tools such as the map, the photograph, the scale model, and the material archive have been supplemented by computation simulations, visual models, new forms of performance and other modes of engaging with and articulating history. This work takes many forms and draws upon such diverse fields as economics, physics, and computer science, as well as architecture, literature, cultural and theater studies. As such, much of it sits in a complex relationship to modernist epistemics, and works to balance probablistic theories of the past with possibilistic and interpretive stances.

This panel attempts to describe and explore recent developments in archaeology as a way of reflecting on the issue of representation and the “unruly object.” In the discussion that follows, we will reflect on the relationship between STS and archaeology.

Michael and Chris were able to highlight a number of Metamedia projects oriented toward manifesting qualities of the material world otherwise sieved away by conventional forms of documentation.

Our message: archaeology's strained position stetched across the divide between the humanities and sciences is of interest to science studies.

Michael pointed to "three agendas or trends emerging in archaeology that lend force to archaeology's uniqueness:

• an understanding of archaeology as mode of cultural production – a scientific practice working on what is left of the past, archaeology is not a discovery of the past per se;

• archaeology seen as a science of relations between people and things;

• archaeology as mediating practice - translating materiality and mediating past and present in future-oriented projects."

Michael suggested "that these developments are of significant interest to science studies not least because they invoke:

• radically new ways of understanding cultural materiality;

• a new history and genealogy of humans and (cultural) artifacts (to include a pragmatogony);

• reevaluation of cultural heritage – the intimate relationship between tradition, the remains of history and contemporary cultural values and identities."

In complementing Michael's piece, Chris suggested "archaeology, unlike other sciences, actively transforms its fields of study. Archaeology transforms material/event contexts of practice into a combination of displaced things and media (plans, maps, diagrams, text, images, etc.). In this regard, archaeology always returns to a material world permanently transformed.

This transformative aspect of archaeology's practice means we can only get one shot to manifest the material world sufficiently. Though we may not always be sure how the unruly qualities of the material past can make a difference in our practices now, we have to consider how archaeologists or an interested public will engage with the remnants of the material past 10, 50, 100 or more years from now. In this regard, we can only anticipate for future generations by giving something of our practice over to multiplicities, presences and ambiguities."

Beyond programs of action science studies has yet to sufficienctly grasp the richness of things. Archaeology has much to contribute in terms of how it attends to issues of material presence, experience and multiplicity. Fortunately researchers and philosophers of science such as Matt Ratto, Laura Watts and Don Ihde are listening.

Returning from the 'field'...some thoughts on what constitutes fieldwork. Such a pregnant term for the human sciences; replete with senses of: initiation, untowardness, difficulty, spontaneity, inauguration, maturation, practicum, discipline, validation, accreditation, as well as exoticism, travel, aristocratic pursuit and leisure. A process or 'fielding' of experience, 'fieldwork' plays an indispensable role in the training of academicians - but also of inculcating professionalism in general - so what/why is it? Is it simply the proverbial adage? application of skill is the best apprenticeship. Amazingly, though pedagogically central to these disciplines, there is little explicit discussion except in the administrator's office signing forms or expressing anxiety, or as part of a project defense; and in these instances the logistics of preparation for carrying out a project 'in the field' outweighs any mention of what type of experience it will entail. This only adds to the mystique of 'the field'. And sets up the fieldworker for the questions: is this what they hinted at with their reticent descriptions?; is this how it's supposed to go? for everyone or is this intended to be an idiosyncratic experience?

No ritual without anticipatory anxiety and then confusion, self-doubt and questioning. Eventually a re-orientation or shift somehow, bringing a re-formed confidence.

This could be discussed with respect to Van Gennep or Turner's process of ritual. And of course social/cultural anthropology, the discipline of fieldwork, has drawn this reflexive analogy. But I'd like to start with what/why fieldwork is from a ground perspective.

First, ‘an archaeology through the back door’. This relates to the sentiment of attempting to begin a project. Without using prior personal or professional connections to an archaeological field-site there is an incredible amount of leg work – or more accurately dialoging – which has to be built up incrementally in order to gain the confidence and critically the acquiescence to begin working as ‘an outsider’ @ a new site. Summer after summer I would meet more Mexican and foreign archaeologists excavating at the site and visit their camps. At the end of the day over a beer or pulque – think milk gone off mixed with tequila – perhaps after mixing a ton of concrete by hand with the site’s restorers to gain respect - there would be a verbal exchange about projects’ intentions, theoretical background, legitimacy of interests, appropriateness of Teotihuacan, etc.; generally culminating in a tour of recently excavated tunnels or trenches, chatting with the other excavators, and perhaps a ride back through the site at night on an ATV – urbanized Teotihuacan covers more than 22square km. – catching ‘privileged’ glimpses of the pyramids in moonlight not permissible for tourists.

Yet often the result is utterly discouraging: excavation leaders are uninterested in participating, or downright hostile to your theoretical intentions, days are ‘wasted’ attempting to track down ‘so and so’ who finished/is starting/is looking for help for a project, a bottle of coca-cola is thrown from a passing bus @ the strange gringo walking the streets, a run-in with feral dogs in an abandoned street, seeing a drunk man die in the mercado, being lost and alone in the northern deserts, spending days fevered and ill in bed, etc. At times that ‘back door’ only seemed to become impenetrable, and a desperate feeling builds: will I have to conduct a project ‘through the back door’ without institutional approbation and as the strange outsider/gringo – how? And how much time before its necessary to tell the academic advisors that prospects are looking bleak?

Second, though, there slowly builds a feeling of gaining ‘the inside’: guards no longer harass you but wave you through the gates, the ubiquitous vendedores of crafts (and sometimes cheap crap) no longer proposition you, señoras at the mercados recognize you – and no longer overcharge you – you’re invited to houses for dinners, senoritas begin to flirt; and then you find yourself in a cantina singing a Led Zeppelin song you barely remember, but which the señor singing Mexican ballads insists upon as a sign of good faith between the two cultures. You become part of the local gossip. Just everyday experiences; but they’re paramount in building a confidence and an inter-confidence with the site, the archaeologists, the towns, the people. And none of this ‘data’ will be part of the finished dissertation. Throughout the fieldbook, thoughts scribbled in the margins: “how am I going to use this” crop up. Critical yet not within the strictures of an archaeological report, it forms part of the ‘behind the scenes’, off the stage field-working which will continue to inform the meshing of practice and theory for the duration of the project. It also nonetheless furnishes the requisite starting point of a project – later condensed and edited for the revealing and liberating personal prefatory remarks. At this point, the ‘limen’ or threshold of Van Gennep’s scheme seems to still hold as a concise metaphor for this experience of imperceptibly gaining a new vista– of the possibility of conducting and concluding the project. Something critical has been crossed.

But this takes a while (not quantifiable) as you, your demeanor, your spoken Spanish, your institutional standing, your generosity, your clothing, your amiability, your propensity to drink/or not and so forth are all studied and the conclusions evaluated. Really, it constitutes an intimate defense of the project’s fieldwork.

Third, once a measure of momentum builds, the project unexpectedly take off. All that ‘pointless pandering’ in the towns, with the local archaeologists and tourists, at local festivals, affords a familiarity which abruptly makes the project viable and, even better, builds an interest in what you are doing. Suddenly, I am asked for questionnaires and times to chat for interested brothers, knowledgeable grandparents, disgruntled employees of the site wanting an outlet for their opinion, local ‘traditional’ leaders who are conducting fasts in opposition to a new Walmart, ‘new age’ Toltec shamans meditating in the site who believe in ‘black light’ conduits of spiritual experience, and for once aloof archaeologists who now want ‘their story’ to be included. This is the rewarding part. And though fleeting, the ‘hope’ should be recorded for reading through the fieldbook later on: “yes, thank god it’s somehow coming together. Letting things unfold w/o expectations, and people and opportunities present themselves – I let it unfold without forcing” (p.159 fieldbook).

Fourth, the security in the project is fleeting and circumstances continue to place you in an ‘over-exposed’, vulnerable position. Not that the momentum of the project has slackened, but ever new happenstances present themselves which poise to threaten the progress. The new director – as with ever-changing political contexts – of the site sends his guards to collect you in their pick-up for an impromptu meeting. Things have changed since the meeting with the original director: the governmental institute overseeing the archaeological zone has created their own questionnaire, and mine is now seen as competition with the ‘official census’. Moreover, he is displeased with the questions targeting the institute, and he is concerned about the critical opinions of the employees. I should preface this by stating that the director has an uncanny resemblance to Fidel Castro, replete with obsequious assistants running to and fro and a large cigar. He would like me to discontinue working within the zone. A set-back; yet I already have a sufficient number of completed questionnaires from internal employees, and am already at the decisive stage in fieldwork where the question becomes: one can always collect more information, more contacts, but balancing that with the progress already made and the financial and temporal constraints of continuing, do I have enough to produce a convincing and compelling dissertation? Part and parcel with the behind the scenes ‘establishment phase’, this represents another crucial topic of fieldwork rarely explicitly discussed – and certainly not quantifiable in definite terms. Somehow my guidance for this portion came solely from a nondescript, almost folkloric saying: ‘you will know when the time is right.’ My ‘field’ component of the fieldwork was winding down. And at the time, I knew that the ability to make this decision was somehow an encapsulating learning experience in my ‘fielding’: identifying an interesting project, locating it materially where it would be most salient and potentially poignant, stepping-off into the vagaries of ‘background work’, and making the project feasible all appear to be contained within that singular moment when theoretical interest and lived-through practical application collude in the judgment ‘I have enough to write this fieldwork.’

There it is again: ‘fieldwork’. But such a realization quickly makes one certain of the dispersed and distributed nature of ‘fieldwork’. It was not over. I would be reworking and generating anew information for my dissertation long after my flight back north over the Chihuahuan deserts. Chris Witmore has pointed up this heterogenous, un-contained nature of ‘multiple fields’ of production. Where did the fieldwork begin and end? Even while in the preliminary stages in Mexico I was far from gathering data. And now back, much information will still be collected via the internet in the form of newspaper articles and e-mail exchanges. Can we only lodge a definition in physical terms: the presence in Mexico, whatever form it took, constituted my fieldwork? This contains some of the ‘field of production’ for my dissertation, but much slips by. ‘The field’ for me might have been geographically encapsulated by the valley of Teotihuacan, but the fields of engagement and production extend to my room cluttered with notes and papers, to conference locales where the material is worked through, and even cybernetically, with material being continually worked and reworked on my computer, and through its connection to servers sitting distributed over various non-places.

Perhaps then I would, if forced, land on a definition in terms of a state of being; something closer to an emotional state than anything else. There doesn’t seem to be a concise word to summarize the travails of being simultaneously driven for a purpose and ‘on’ in every sense of the word, while simultaneously being vulnerable, of allowing oneself to be a neophyte open to happenstance and opportunity. A paradox, a process indefinable in temporal and physical terms and yet definite in experience and memory, ‘fielding’ may better capture the dynamic Being, the what, why and how, of fieldwork.