Archaeolog

Polyagentive archaeology works from the understanding of two realities of the world; the virtual and the actual.

The virtual

(V1) The non-empirical and immanent level of polyagentive archaeology is the level of virtual (qualitative) multiplicities (Bergson 1998, 2001, 2004; Deleuze 1991, 1994). The virtual is a nonnumeric duration which is impossible to split up. It is pure quality. The virtual is the past that is simultaneous with the present, which it actualizes through becomings. It is always turning into something else by differentiating and repeating. This virtual multiplicity becomes actual (quantitative) multiplicities that make up the analytical and spatialized world. It is the latter we find as polyagents, which are actualized objects with “causative capabilities” in an actualized polyagentive network.

(V2) Polyagency is a collection of intensive processes that lie in-between the virtual and the actual. It is a distributed agency that lacks an identity of its own, but it generates other identities through the becoming, both externally and internally (Grosz 2001). It is rhizomatic, meaning that there is no genealogy here, no straight line in the polyagentive process. It is in the in-between where individuation takes place, where virtuality closes onto itself and forms an actualized boundary to what is external.

(V3) Both polyagency and virtuality lack metric spatiality (space seen in Euclidean terms) and actualized/spatialized temporality (when time is seen as sharing the characteristics of space). However, they generate polyagents that have spatiality (Grosz 2001). With polyagentive archaeology it is possible to use both “long-term” and instantaneous perspectives of the same data. The virtual that persists in a “long-term” perspective is actualized through events that come down to us as material patterns.

(V4) The virtual is the ontological foundation for a complex ontology of ontologies (Aijmer 2001; Wittgenstein 1998). No ontology can be said to be truer than any other. However, the virtual can be found in all ontologies, but it does not explain how their actualizations are perceived by human beings which can be reached by other ontological perspectives. This “virtual ontology of actual ontologies” focuses on temporal movement rather than on substance and representation.

The disjuncture between ‘what we do’ and ‘what we say we do’ has contributed not only to a great deal of conversation and debate it has also lead to a fair amount of angst and misunderstanding in archaeology (i.e. theory/practice split or the homebase/field bifurcation). Many (myself included) firmly believe that this disjuncture can only be addressed by following up close what ‘we’ (understood to encompass people, institutions, media, materials, things, etc. which comprise an archaeologist) actually do in practice.

Anthropologists and sociologists have long enrolled ethnography and ethnomethodology as set of practices for engaging with what scientific practitioners do (this has been especially successful when they have been bold enough to free themselves from the weight of epistemology!). Hitherto, archaeology, sadly, has been in large part ignored by these practitioners (refer to my entry from October 23, 2005 and Tim Webmoor’s from November 6, 2006), though there are notable exceptions in the related field of the philosophy of science with the important work of Alison Wylie. Thankfully, the tides are changing and this is in large part due to a few archaeologists who have taken the initiative themselves.

A recent book edited by Matt Edgeworth, Ethnographies of Archaeological Practice: Cultural Encounters, Material Transformations is an example of this initiative and will help us along the path to knowing who we are! The volume pulls together a diverse and welcome body of ethnographic work with archaeology (beyond the well-known reflexive strategies operating at Çatalhöyük, Turkey) from projects throughout Europe and the Americas

Andrew Cochrane and Ian Russell

The 2006 Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (CHAT) conference provided an instalment of discussions, dialogues and debates, which did not disappoint those searching for a healthy argument over the relevance of possibilities of performing archaeology in a contemporary world.

On the Saturday night (11 November 2006), a host of collaborators and creators convened on the darkly lit and off-the-beaten track venue known to Bristolians, artists and Bohos as the Cube Microplex. The anarchic venue became the stage for a panel of ‘archaeologists’ and ‘archaeo-artists’ combined together to form what the CHAT termed ‘Hybrid Archaeologies’. In true CHAT fashion, the chairing of Dan Hicks weaved a thread of intellectual significance with archaeological weight.

The evening began with the personal and provocative work of Christine Finn (University of Bristol). Reflecting on her encounters, explorations and excavations during her return to her family and childhood home after her parents’ deaths, Finn led us on a wonderfully non-linear, audio and visual vignette. Finn’s images and words demonstrated with bravery and conviction how archaeological expression of the contemporary is intrinsic to how we often cope with and negotiate our relation to significant and traumatic events in our lives.

Fig. 1 Ba'al stela from Ugarit-Ras Shamra, H. 142 cm, c. 18th-15th c. BCE, Musee du Louvre, AO 15775

That Hannibal was a great strategist, unpredictable himself yet often able to predict his enemies’ actions, has been long appreciated. This is usually all one needs to know as an answer to why Hannibal crossed the Alps. Because the Romans under Publius Cornelius Scipio at Massalia guarded the coastal route to Italy hemmed in by the Alpes Maritimes, Hannibal did the one thing for which the Romans were most unprepared, not being fond of mountains themselves as Hyde maintained, (1) and thinking themselves protected from such unlikely incursions such as Hannibal and his army made, entering Italy through the “fortress” Alps. Naturally, the Celts allied to Hannibal in and around the Alps would also be more useful if he avoided the narrow coastal corridor where Roman might and influence held sway.

But are these the only background reasons to consider when asking why Hannibal would cross the Alps? I would argue that Hannibal was predisposed to crossing the Alps for added possible philosophical reasons the practical Romans would have barely understood, hence their likely silence on this because their own names were not generally theophoric, and usually unrelated to their gods, unlike the Carthaginians and many other cultures in the Ancient Near East. Here it is important to consider Hannibal’s very name and personal history to be important as a more subtle but nonetheless substantial incentive or at least mitigating factor for crossing the Alps. There are also connections to Punic religious tradition that make more sense in reference to this possibility.