Multiple fields & archaeological practice: Reiteration

Key Pages

Christopher Witmore |
-- |
Table of Contents |
-- |
Archive |
Scenographies |
-- |
Symmetrical Archaeology |
-- |
the Metamedia Laboratory |
-- |
Mediating Archaeology

In closing this chapter I touch upon the issue of reiterative practice. If mediation is the ‘upstream’ process of mobilizing and manifesting materiality, iteration and reiteration begin in tracing the chain of references back ‘downstream’ (refer back to Figures 3.5 and 3.6). In the course of the archaeological process one need not follow in detail the chain of transformations in order to acknowledge the iterability of ones actions. Iteration is a common outcome of the act of transformation where some new goal involves retracing ones steps. Recall that a well worn piece of polychrome directed AEP personnel toward a new iterative goal, which involved returning to the slopes of Mt Kotena in hopes of locating potential Late Neolithic. An act of mediation ‘upstream’ brings about an act of iteration ‘downstream’ with the input of a new actant—a small fragment of well-worn polychrome pottery. We return to things displaced a little more, but not as lone humans caught in a hermeneutic spiral. While iteration is a fundamental aspect of survey practice within the example of the AEP, the importance of the ‘re’ in reiteration surfaces when one returns to what is often considered to be a closed and ‘completed’ archaeological project (also refer to Cavanagh, Mee and James 2005; Davis 1998).

Reiteration begins in tracing the chain of references through the media of an archive. Reiteration has to do with the in depth negotiation of materials and inscriptions produced through previous archaeological engagements and their mediation in the production of new archaeological knowledge concerning that same site or landscape. No project once published should be thought of as an airtight black box (pace Webmoor 2005) rather it provides the momentum for an ongoing series of transformations. The event of archaeological practice remains an ongoing event. We continue to transform the material past and are, as a result, part of its ongoing life-cycle (Lucas 2001a; Shanks 1998).

In this dissertation I suggest potential reiterative practices for revisiting the features and landscapes and reworking the materials of the AEP through other modes of engagement (writing, documentation, and recording). There are of course modes of reiteration which might involve more detailed and nuanced scientific practices that have developed in the interim such as geophysical prospection, chemical analyses of particular sites, and so on (cf. Cavanagh, Mee and James 2005, 1). However, this dissertation seeks to demonstrate how instead of sieving away the ambiguity of the material world through our most necessary inscriptions, scenographies, and paper work we may attend to something of this complexity through new digital modes of engagement and mediation. Through new acts of delegation, new skill sets, and new modes of knowledge production we may hold on to the more ambiguous qualities of the material world a bit longer. We may manifest something of the countryside of the Southern Argolid, which the AEP did not attend to. However, in so doing we should not forget the positive qualities of paper-based media. Much of this will be taken up on the following chapter.

Return to mediation

Forward to Chapter 4: Multiple fields and media

Table of Contents

Multiple fields and archaeological practice Home