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Posted by Bjørnar Olsen
Numerous studies have focused on modernity’s destructive effect on traditional life- worlds, the desertion of villages and the ruination of rural areas. However, the fact that the modern condition also produces its own ruined materialities, its own marginalized pasts, is less spoken about. Since the 19th century, mass-production, consumerism and thus cycles of material replacement have accelerated; increasingly larger amounts of things are increasingly rapidly victimized and made redundant. At the same time processes of destruction have immensely intensified, although largely overlooked when compared to the research and social significance devoted to consumption and production (González-Ruibal 2006, 2008). The outcome is a ruined landscape of derelict factories, closed shopping malls, overgrown bunkers and redundant mining towns; a ghostly world of decaying modern debris normally left out of academic concerns and conventional histories.(1)
This ruin-landscape is the topic of the current research project. Based on selected case studies of industrial ruins, abandoned fishing villages and war remains in Norway, Russia, Iceland and Spain we want to explore how the ruins of modernity are conceived and assigned cultural value in contemporary academic and public discourses. Our research will cover three main themes: the aesthetics of waste and heritage, the materiality of memory, and the significance of things. Through these themes we want to develop theoretical arguments that help to understand why the derelict materiality of the modern to such an extent has been devalued and marginalized, but also to suggest possible means for reaffirming its cultural and historic significance.
Continue reading "RUIN MEMORIES: Materiality, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past" »
Posted by Alex Knodell
Alex R. Knodell
Brown University
I recently attended a conference in Greece that was put together with the admirable goal of creating a dialogue between a local community and academic archaeologists working in the area. Topics to be addressed were past and present archaeological fieldwork, public involvement with, and awareness of, the area’s rich archaeological heritage, and future directions for scholarship and cultural resource management more generally. This sort of integration of the broader public in archaeological work not only adheres to the sometimes glossed-over ethical obligation toward public education and outreach (see footnote 1 below), but also has great potential for the preservation of the archaeological record in a particular area; if, that is, such an agenda is carried out in the right way. With such potential in mind, this conference fell depressingly short of the mark, and served rather to illustrate some of the problems and politics in which archaeology is inextricably enmeshed. This is not to say that conferences like this cannot be seen-through to their full promise, and, indeed, there have been many such examples from Greece and elsewhere that have proved to be enormously successful. Moreover, there is a growing interest in “community archaeology” (Marshall 2002). So while this posting is meant to be critical and draw out very real concerns with how we go about making archaeology public, I also hope to highlight the promise these types of endeavors hold, and their necessity in the preservation of the archaeological record. The names of the conference and its participants will not be mentioned as they are not necessary for the broader message I am trying to convey, which I think is relevant to archaeologists working anywhere there is a local community with a stake in their activities.
There are many pertinent directions this discussion could take, both critical and optimistic, and here I have chosen to focus broadly on the theme of community engagement. This aspect of archaeology directly affects a variety of stakeholders, academic or local, and can be examined critically from multiple perspectives. And while the ethical codes or guidelines of numerous organizations for professional archaeologists lay much emphasis on the consideration of local stakeholders, it seems more common to prioritize avoiding violation of these codes, rather than any proactive engagement in efforts that embrace the spirit of them. For example, while directors of field projects would certainly not do anything to harm the local communities in which they work, it is less common for projects go out of their way to involve the community in their activities, beyond employing a few people or businesses, or providing an occasional public lecture. No doubt, these are positive things and do involve community members, but it is in the best interests of both archaeologists and the community if local involvement expands to place greater emphasis on education, sustainability and the long-term.
Continue reading "Some Problems and Potential in Community Engagement and Making Archaeology Public" »
Posted by Christopher Witmore
Components for wind turbines at port in Nafplion, Greece.
Last Wednesday I attended a workshop at MIT entitled “Relocating innovation: Places and material practices of future making”. Convened by Lucy Suchman (in residence with the Department of Anthropology at MIT for the Spring of 2009), Endre Dányi and Laura Watts, all of the Centre for Science Studies at the University of Lancaster (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/centres/css/), the workshop sought to critically engage with discourses of ‘innovation’ through the comparative juxtaposition of “three different sites of social, technological, and political future making”: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Orkney, Scotland and the Hungarian Parliament. A basic premise of the workshop was that futures, or more precisely ‘future(s) making’, are located.
It helps to situate this premise—futures are located—by thinking about it historically. Thales in the shadow of the Great Pyramid, al-Haytham at Dar Al-Hekma, Edison in his laboratory Menlo Park, President Obama in the Oval Office; with each figure and site one encounters scenarios where horizons for substantial potentiality were designed. Whether we speak of geometry, optics, electricity or efficiency targets for the American Auto Industry, the practices undertaken with each site translated into futures that were made. (Of course, none of these futures were inevitable. The clinamen, Lucretius’ indeterminate swerve, is always a possibility.)
By centering our account upon these key figures, it is perhaps easy to see why popular culture persistently regards innovation as the province of the lone genius. However, Suchman, Dányi and Watts are much more cautious. Future(s) making, as the workshop sought to probe in more depth, is shaped by heterogeneous network of entities, contestations, utterly specific qualities of place and culturally oriented material practices. With each site of future(s) making one also encounters innovation at work.
Continue reading "Innovation, future(s) making and archaeology " »
Posted by Krysta Ryzewski
By: Lisa Anderson, Cassandra Mesick, Christine Reiser, Krysta Ryzewski & Bradley Sekedat
In April 2007, Brown University fielded a team composed of graduate students from the Department of Anthropology and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World in the 4th annual Ethics Bowl at the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) general meeting held in Austin, Texas. This year’s competition also included student teams from Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern State University, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the University of New Mexico.
The SAA Ethics Bowl is a debate-style intercollegiate competition, the content of which is based on a series of ten case studies pertaining to relevant issues in archaeology today. These hypothetical scenarios are designed both to stimulate discussion during the Bowl and to provide teaching resources across the wider discipline. The scenarios incorporate a broad range of archaeological issues. The cases we addressed, for example, concerned themes of Open Access, ARPA, cultural representation and diversity, archaeology in times of war, museum stewardship, and multiple publics.
More detailed information about the Ethics Bowl in general can be found HERE. The case studies for 2007 can be viewed HERE.
We were of course delighted to be adjudged the winners of this year's Ethics Bowl, but for us it was the lessons and benefits from the collaborative experience of preparing for it and participating in it that provided the richest rewards. We share part of our experience in this short commentary.
Continue reading "Lessons from the Ethics Bowl | Lessons from a Collaborative Experience" »
Posted by Krysta Ryzewski
The Greene Farm Archaeology Project (GFAP), in Warwick, Rhode Island, began in 2004 as a transdisciplinary and long-term project designed to facilitate research among a broad range of scholars and volunteers, using established and experimental archaeological methods. The central focus of the project is on researching 400 years of cultural and natural landscape transformations on one of the few remaining Providence Plantations (see project wiki http://proteus.brown.edu/greenefarm/Home).
Greene Farm landscape (2004).
In 2005, artist Lee Fearnside approached GFAP interested in filming a documentary called Telling Stories, focusing on how archaeologists create knowledge through discovering history. As archaeologists and historians having little knowledge or experience with filmmaking, we permitted Fearnside access to the project without considering how her work might affect our practices directly and indirectly. We were especially interested to see how Fearnside would translate and represent archaeology in her art, as she had no archaeological background except for having read Deetz’s In Small Things Forgotten. Over the course of two years, Fearnside filmed the field crew during excavations and in the laboratories. Though still a work in progress, I recently screened a rough cut of the film for the members of the Greene Farm field crew and gathered their response through a detailed survey and several discussions.
As an anthropologically trained archaeologist, I am particularly interested in examining the reception of the film by those whose work, voices, images, and interpretations appear in it. The field crew’s feedback and reactions are especially valuable in thinking about the many implications for relationships between artistic film/creative documentation and archaeology projects, and more importantly, the implications for how digital media affects archaeological practice. The following commentary focuses on an experiment stemming from the crews’ mixed reactions to the film. This is not an attempt to discuss the quality of the film (which is remarkable) or whether the filmmaker successfully captures the “creation of knowledge”. Instead, the purpose is to explore some of the questions and observations resulting from the intersection of the creative documentation and archaeological projects, as initially raised through the voices of the crew.
Continue reading "Creative Documentation and Archaeological Practice: Surveying Archaeologists on Film" »
Posted by Patrick Hunt
Fig. 1 Grand-St-Bernard Pass: Roman rock-cut road (Survey crew: Brian Daniels, Mike Smith and E. Wang)
Fig. 1 & Fig 2 Grand St. Bernard Pass, Plan de Jupiter: Roman rock cut road, summit (Italy, 8200', 2460 m)
In 1994 the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project began research to examine Alpine Roman Roads in the Grand-St-Bernard pass between Aosta, Italy and Martigny, Switzerland. This research is directed by Dr. Patrick Hunt, Classics Dept. Stanford University and has been conducted under the auspices of Stanford and the Office du Recherche Archeologique, Valais, Switzerland, and the Soprintendenza for Archaeology of the Valle da Aosta, Italy. There is an international collaborative effort at present between Italian and Swiss archaeological authorities to bring together years of research in the Great St Bernard Pass. For over 30 years Francois Wiblé has undertaken magisterial archaeological research in Martigny and is the undisputed authority of Roman presence in Valais. Italian archaeologists have also conducted much archaeological research in the Plan de Jupiter - recently under Cinzia Joris - and this ongoing Italian-Swiss archaeological work will present the most complete picture to date when published. This brief article on Roman Alpine Roads does not cover the same research agenda as the above-mentioned international collaboration.
Because many of the prior studies on Roman roads in the Alps and this pass in the Pennine Alps in particular have already been published in Italian, French and German, the Stanford research noted here is much indebted to these foundational studies. The Stanford study of the Roman road in the Pennine Alps (Via per Alpis Poenina) is original in part, and while pioneering research findings are briefly summarized here, the Stanford project also seeks to make available the existing literature to an English-speaking audience. Some of the prior literature includes articles or monographs by Blondel (1962), Walser (1984), Wiblé (1975-2006), Planta (1979), Mollo Mazzena (1991) and many others, including the seminal work in English by W.W. Hyde, Roman Alpine Roads (1935), excellent but now outdated in many parts. The new and original research of the Stanford group is also summarized here, and published elsewhere in part, for example, in the Journal of Roman Archaeology XI (1998) by this author. This brief summary is also not offered as comprehensive about all Roman roads in the Alps, but mostly considers one region of the Pennine Alps.
As I have published elsewhere (Journal of Roman Archaeology XI 1998, Vallesia LXIV 1999, and most recently in a new book, Alpine Archaeology 2007, Roman roads in the Alps offer a special case for road construction where normal methods apply in general but also where added features distinguish these high montane routes from lowland routes over relatively flat ground. One of my new discoveries published in the 2007 book is the point that the angles of 105 degrees at the rock-cut road adjacent to the Plan de Jupiter in the Grand-St-Bernard Pass appears to necessitate a pivoting front axle, and if this rock cut road is from the early Flavian period, it antedates the previously-suggested date for pivoting front axles by at least 30 years.
TO READ MORE, SEE PATRICK HUNT'S NEW ALPINE ARCHAEOLOGY BOOK (2007)
Stanford University
copyright © 2006
Dr. Patrick Hunt
phunt@stanford.edu
http://www.patrickhunt.net
Posted by Timothy Webmoor
A wonderful meeting with intellectual buzz yesterday at MetaMedia Labs with Alison Wylie and the MetaMedia directors. Discussing the interface of intellectual property rights, digital interface and design, engagment with place beyond embodiment, and the future of academic collaboration, matters of new media served as a nodal point connecting thinkers and practitioners in the philosophy of archaeology.
Amongst other specific topics discussed, were ideas on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and the ramifications for the movement, driven by scholar.google and digitization of academic library holdings, of e-texts and the publishing future for a discipline such as archeology. This delves into the informatic liberation movement, or digital democracy as its more friendly epithet, and what action (if any) archaeologists will take on the matter.
While many may prefer to remain sidelined or insular from the ensuing informational revolution (particularly in terms of distribution and accessibility), oddly enough the litigation begun for cultural property rights from Indigenous/stakeholder claimants may equally force the issue for mid-lined archaeologists as such copy-''rights'' are beginning to merge into issues of digital copyright and information conveyance. We see this happening with the move to digital information (as simple as on-line .pdfs and digitized images to library cataloging and archiving on servers) and the archiving of data sets in archaeology which has been widely encouraged - most recently by UNESCO. Such protection or claims to digitized heritage will be litigated with regard to soft copyrighting which is somewhere between ''all rights reserved'' and ''public domain''/no rights. Two early developers at the forefront of this information sharing accord came out of a Stanford Law-Silicon Valley team-up and are linked below:
creative commons
scientific commons
For media practioners and archaeologists involved, this seems to be precisely the ethical way forward, which is to make data open, free and available to all (researchers/stakeholders alike), while retaining the minimum of attribution. Archaeology would not be alone, as public culture has already moved in this direction. Like Michael was saying, this is really where the creative artist world is going in terms of information sharing; he mentioned the visual/performing arts, but for independent minded musicians, this is also where it is at.
So this brings us to the cross-roads of: digital mediation of archaeological knowledge + property rights with specific respect to on-line/fuzzy realm of cultural production (where copyright laws do not yet fully exist/bind) + push for ''informatic liberation'' or digital democracy and the fostering of inclusion (to maintain ideal of free, accessible information and for us as archaeologists to facilitate this). This is why I am in particular wanting to push this usage of mediation: its semantic derivation, legal connotation and enhanced conveyance-of-information-via-new-media association all hook up synergistically.
New territory for insights and inclusive collaboration.
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