Archaeolog

Archaeology took on Science Studies (again) at the collective (4S) Society for Social Studies of Science and the History of Science Society and Philosophy of Science Association Conference this past weekend (November 2-4, 2006) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The working title for the conference this year was: "Silence, Suffering and Survival.” While there has been a long history of engagement between archaeology and philosophy of science, too often archaeologists have not taken active part in this inter-disciplinarian debate. Science studies opens a productive avenue for attending to pressing issues in the actual practice of the human sciences. Archaeology is emerging as a unique player in these studies, straddling as it does the natural sciences-humanities divide. And the discipline was well represented with an international assembly of archaeologists and philosophers.

The session was entitled “Silenced pasts: Archaeological practice and the politics of manifestation”. It was organized by Christopher Witmore, Matt Ratto and Michael Shanks. The session included:

Matt Ratto
The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Amsterdam
matt.ratto@vks.knaw.nl
“Epistemic commitments, virtual reality, and archaeological representation”

Michael Shanks
Stanford Humanities Lab, Metamedia Lab and The Archaeology Center
Stanford University
mshanks@stanford.edu
“Presence effects and archaeological media: case studies in performance arts”

Timothy Webmoor
Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Metamedia Lab and The Archaeology Center
Stanford University
twebmoor@stanford.edu
“Open source archaeology? The politics of collaborative heritage”

Christopher Witmore
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
The Artemis A.W. Joukowsky and Martha Sharp Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
Brown University
cwitmore@gmail.com
“Site-specific media, archaeology and collective (im)mortality”

Alison Wylie
Department of Philosophy
University of Washington
aw26@u.washington.edu
Discussant: intellectual boundary crossing and the legacy of archaeology and the study of science

Fig. 1 Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project 2006 Team (Dr. Patrick Hunt, Director & photographer) Team: front row: Gina Farias-Eisner, Brian Head, Ed Boenig, Katie Goldhan, second row: Beatrice Hunt, Jessi Humphries, back row: Andreea Seicean, Jessica Bradley, Sarah Concklin, Scotti Shafer, Brian Knowles, Nancy El-Sakkhary, Rhianon Liu, Casey Carroll, Dave Beall

In August 2006 the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project continued its focused search for Hannibal’s pass crossed in 218 BCE. Under the direction of Dr. Patrick Hunt, the Stanford group of 16 persons traveled at least 3500 kms through the Alps following the Isere-Arc river watersheds, the Durance-Queyras watersheds and the Dora Balthea and Rhone watersheds. We have had ongoing assistance from John Hoyte, co-leader of the Cambridge Alpine Elephant Expedition 1958-59 as well as collaboration with John Prevas, fellow explorer and military historian-author.

While some of our 2006 alpine routes were by vehicle over the Mont-Genevre, the Mont Cenis, the Little St. Bernard and others, our primary exploration over the passes was hiking on foot. Passes covered on foot included the Great St. Bernard (from below Bourg-St-Pierre to the summit, 5000 – 8300 - 7500 ft ) crossing from Switzerland into Italy (around 20 kms), the Fenetre de Ferret (7000 – 9000 - 7000 ft) crossing from Italy to Switzerland and back to Italy (around 10 kms), among others, but we especially concentrated on the Col du Clapier (4000 – 8600 – 3000 ft.) from Bramans and Le Planey in France to the Susa Valley in Italy (around 30 kms) and the Col de la Traversette (6000 – 9600 – 6000 ft.) from France to the border of Italy (around 10 kms).

In all, as I have published elsewhere (Alpine Archaeology 2007), our Hannibal searches in summer of 2006 covered at least around 20,000 vertical feet by hiking around 80 kms and in this new book further evidence is offered why the Col de Clapier - Savine Coche route is the most reasonable route to date, far more plausible than any other pass including the Traversette route, nonetheless acknowledging John Prevas' excellent study. Until compelling archaeological evidence is found, however, the question remains unanswered.

Fig. 2 Selected possible Hannibal Alpine Routes followed in 2006: red is Clapier route; yellow is Traversette route; turquoise is Little St. Bernard route; blue is Mont-Cenis route; green is Mont-Genevre route; orange is Great St. Bernard and Fenetre de Ferret routes

TO READ MORE, SEE PATRICK HUNT'S NEW ALPINE ARCHAEOLOGY (2007) BOOK

Stanford University

copyright © 2006
Dr. Patrick Hunt

http://www.patrickhunt.net
phunt@stanford.edu

An artistic exploration of archaeological theory

Andrew Cochrane (Cardiff University) Ian Russell (Trinity College, Dublin)

The pieces in this exhibition seek to contest traditional mechanisms for representation and spectatorship by questioning the status that visual images occupy in archaeological discourse. Photomosaics of iconic archaeologists and archaeological objects are constructed through the manufacture of archives and archaeological records of public images available over internet search engines. This digital ‘excavation’ of what is traditionally an unarchived public space marks the beginnings of a digital archaeological practice.

Inspired by Joan Foncuberta's series of Googlegrams (2005), we call into question the ways in which archaeologists position themselves and their work within contemporary society. By juxtaposing the figures of archaeologists or archaeological artefacts with a collage of public images, the pieces reveal the manufacture of representations of archaeological identities (of archaeologists) and that of the artefacts and monuments with which they work. In addition, through the use of the world wide web and freeware, they also challenge the role that digital media are playing in the fabrication of collective archaeological visual memory, interpretation, and mediated information. Rather than merely engaging in the pasts as archaeology has previously presented them to us, views are disrupted, interrupted and displaced.

During digital ‘excavation’ records are kept of the location, context, and dimensions of each available image in order to produce an ‘archaeological record’ detailing the point in time when the search occurred. This seeks to enhance archaeological practice to confront a world which is rapidly becoming saturated by fluid and transient systems of information. In these works, Google Image searches are utilised to amass libraries of images by employing generalised search terms with no artistic intervention. These libraries are then fed through Easy Mosaic 2005 v1.2 to produce a pixel system which manufactures the original images of archaeologists and objects.

Each (in)dividual piece subverts and parodies notions of 'truth' in archaeology and the veracity of dominant images in the construction of the past and present, memory, identity, gender, emotion and agency. Such a reflexive approach generates connections between unfamiliar essences, resulting in ruptured and fragmented yet dynamic archaeologies, histories and representations.

This exhibition will be composed of between three to five 1m x 1.5m mounted images with accompanying titles cards and a separate poster introducing the exhibition.

Confirmed exhibitions include:

♦ EAA 2006. 19th - 24th September. IAE, Cracow, Poland
♦ CHAT 2006. 10th - 12th November. Bristol University
♦ TAG 2006. 15th - 17th December. University of Exeter
♦ Resisting Archaeology 2007. 17th -20th May. Uppsala University, Sweden
♦ WAC 2007. 20th -27th May. University of the West Indies, Jamaica

Full text version forthcoming with the Cambridge Archaeology Journal February 2007.

Figs 1 & 2 Carthaginian shekels (probably silver), said to represent Hannibal, c. 220 BC, and Hasdrubal, c. 209 BC, (both as Herakles-Melqart?) respectively

What kind of archaeological evidence could distinguish two very similar events only a little more than a decade apart? Of all the possible absolute or relative chronometers an archaeologist might use, sometimes coins are the most datable artifacts. This is the optimum evidence our Stanford Alpine Archaeology project hopes to ultimately find in our ongoing Hannibal research expeditions. As Metcalf says, "The relationship between numismatics and archaeology has always been close...coin finds help to date strata or levels..." (Metcalf, 1996:814). Possibly applicable here, the well known and intrepid Hannibal Barca’s crossing of the Alps was in 218 BC and his less well known brother Hasdrubal Barca followed him around 208-07 BC. Both traveled with an army and elephants, although Hasdrubal’s was apparently a much smaller army and the second crossing happened during spring as opposed to Hannibal's passage in late fall moving into early winter.

As I have published elsewhere (Alpine Archaeology 2007), there are archaeological means to potentially distinguish Hannibal's from Hasdrubal's passage - or at least indicate that if mintings of Hasdrubal coins were found, it would prove that it was not Hannibal's passage. However, if Hannibal coin issues were found but no Hasdrubal coin issues were found, it would still not prove that it was Hannibal's passage, only that it could be either of the two.

TO READ MORE, SEE PATRICK HUNT'S NEW BOOK ALPINE ARCHAEOLOGY 2007.

Stanford University

copyright © 2006
Patrick Hunt

phunt@stanford.edu
www.patrickhunt.net

Johan Normark

Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Göteborg University, Sweden

The following text is a short resume of what I call Polyagentive Archaeology. It shares some similarities with Symmetrical Archaeology. Apart from the ingredients of Latour, other technoscientists and Gell, which all have been used in recent years, polyagentive archaeology mainly includes ideas from Bergson, Deleuze, Grosz, DeLanda, Pearson, Badiou, Sartre, Nietzsche, Darwin and Aijmer. The most recently updated text is my dissertation (Normark 2006) from which the following text is taken and slightly modified.

Polyagentive archaeology proceeds from the idea that the real challenge for archaeology is to construct a theory where the material remains are in focus and not the human beings which are the focus of the humanocentric approaches lumped together such as “culture-history”, “processualism” or “postprocessualism” (“assymetrical archaeologies”). Here I am partly following Fahlander and Oestigaard’s (2004:5) belief that archaeology is entering a third formative phase; the study of the social dimensions of materialities. Like my fellow colleagues Cornell and Fahlander (2002), I do not believe in an absolute symmetry since polyagentive archaeology seeks human patterns but these are initially reduced in order to find what is continuous and persistent in the archaeological record. This continuous and persistent is not the human being. However, neither is it the artefact as a material thing. Even material objects change, they become. Polyagentive archaeology sets the focus on the processes of becoming, the actualizations of the virtual.

In some contemporary social theory there has been an emphasis on the relationship between humans and non-humans, especially in the field of technoscience (Haraway 2003; Ihde 2003; Latour 1987, 1993, 1999a, 1999b, 2000, 2002, 2003a, 2003b; Law 1999; Pickering 1995, 1997, 2003). These researchers are united in a belief in an active material world. However, the only way in which we can represent this active and changing world is through static entities and solids, such as words, pictures, numbers and matter (Bergson 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004). For this reason, some technoscientists wish to abandon the representational idiom (Fris Jørgenssen 2003:213). This is also a central issue in the polyagentive approach.

One way to break away from hyper-representationalism is to loosen up the entities, make them interpenetrate, and not see them as isolated from each other. However, we still need to write and illustrate our ideas, and we can never escape the representationalist chains. Instead, the focus for polyagentive archaeology is on how polyagents interact without any particular entity taking the central role. No entity can have an absolute boundary in space and time. In this endeavour I ally myself with posthumanism, since my aim is to decentralize, in some instances even end, the importance of human beings in archaeology. If the relation between the human and the non-human is just a social construction, then this distinction is useless. However, I do believe that this relation is more than a social construction, particularly since social constructionism sees the becomings of materiality only as the result of human activities and imagination, something Deleuze calls hylomorphism (Pearson 1999:214). Therefore, my approach aims to go beyond constructionism (Hacking 1999), representationalism and hylomorphism (Deleuze and Guattari 1988), in order to find the basis elsewhere.