The AEP grew out of a series of extensive topographical surveys conducted by M. H. Jameson (with the aid of V. B. Jameson in 1950) in the southern half of the Argolid peninsula in the 1950’s (Figure 3.1). These topographical surveys were the basis for the work of T. W. Jacobsen at Franchthi Cave and M. H. Jameson at Halieis. It was during the excavations of these sites in the 1960’s that both Jacobsen and Jameson recognized the limitations of focusing on two sites within a ‘complex archaeological landscape’ and decided that a more intensive program of survey was warranted (Jameson, Runnels and van Andel 1994, 8; refer also to Jameson 1976). The program initiated by the pair for the surrounding countryside came to be implemented under the Argolid Exploration Project. This program was multidisciplinary in scope, composed of archaeological, geological, botanical, oceanographic, historical, and ethnographic research. Given my purpose here I focus specifically on the archaeological survey.

Between 1979 and 1981 the AEP carried out an intensive systematic surface survey in the Southern Argolid, Greece. Three teams, Red, Blue, and ‘Verification’, walked transects, lines set at regular intervals of between 5 and 15 m, across selected areas of the landscape. Operating concurrently, these teams organized space on the basis of ‘obvious landscape units’ (Jameson, Runnels, and van Andel 1994, 219). Therefore, material borders such as terraces, field walls, orchard lines, fences, roads, etc., outlined the tracts. In more open areas the teams employed the aid of a compass to establish alignment, and flags to delineate the transect lines against ‘the background noise’ of the Greek countryside. Temporary material traces of their paths remain in the change in the ground cover under the weight of the walkers, or the presence of flags, or indeed the absence of those materials deemed worthy of removal which lay along the way. The path of each transect is easily transcribed as a number, textual description, or line in the ‘field’ notebook (Witmore and Adler 2004). These transcriptions or inscriptions now mark the activity of survey. But they are not alone, for materials have been collected. Material guarantors exist on shelves in a storeroom in Porto Kheli that are connected to the original context by the fragile link of a paper or wooden tag (Figure 3.2). But we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves; here I should detail how the things were collected to begin with.

When materials were encountered along a transect team members would call out what they saw—sherd, obsidian, shell, etc. (Jameson, Runnels and van Andel 1994, 224). As densities increased, the team leader made a decision as to whether they had encountered a ‘site.’ Here the project must rely upon the ‘experience and judgment’ of their team leaders. This is not the same as identifying a tree as juniperus drupacea or a small pebble as goethite. The criteria of site selection need to be specified.

Here we tread on dangerous ground. The specter of relativism creeps in. What if Tracey, a team leader, is thirsty or feels over-heated? What if some of the team are hung over from a night of drinking in the local taberna? Or Sarah and Lena lack sleep from traveling to Epidauros the night before? What if Yannis, Jane, and Felix have been at this for several weeks and are simply physically and mentally exhausted? Might their criteria change? What was a site four weeks ago is too much trouble to deal with now? Conversely, have their seasoned eyes and sense of place made them more adept at locating a trace they might have missed earlier in the season? Or would the presence of a lithic specialist on the team increase the probability of finding chipped stone? These questions (and there could be many more) begin to gnaw away at our confidence in our ability to thoroughly record what lies on the ground.

Of course, here one might, quite appropriately, respond that our dealings with materiality are always ambiguous and arbitrary and that attention to the details of human fallibility only obscures this issue. Here, however, I merely wish to underscore how our allies, our media, give us confidence when dealing with the material world—so much so, that other variables, what philosopher Michel Serres describes as belles noiseuses (1995), the ceaseless background noise of landscape, including weather, vegetation affecting ground visibility (ranging from poor to excellent), and these human aspects of mobilizing the material world, were (and still are) often the loci of doubt, of nagging frustration (however, for experiments in the measurement of uncontrolled variables in surface survey refer to Schon 2002). Surely, I do not wish to suggest that issues of what, and what not, to record did not arise, but rather that the media, the inscriptions, plans, charts, maps, etc., demand a specific and consistent mode of engagement with the material world. Let us return to the sampling procedures.

Media standardization is one means of battling the specter of relativism. One needs to deal with each site in a regular and consistent manner, irrespective of its singularity. And again for help we must refer to those ‘immutable mobiles’: context sheets or map forms. Time to number and record our materials.

Between 1979 and 1982, once a density of materials was designated as a site, a flag was placed at the point where the transect was halted. A sighting compass was used to take bearings by means of triangulation with prominent geographical features easily recognizable upon the map (a 1:5000 scale military creation by the Greek Army Map Service). The site location was then marked on this 1:5000 scale map and designated with a letter (corresponding to the commune) and number (relative to other sites previously located). Map forms designed by what at the time was known as the Cambridge and Bradford Boeotian Archaeological and Geological Expedition (the project later came to be known simply as the Cambridge/Bradford Boeotian Expedition) provided a standardized means of plotting the two-dimensional shape of a cluster of lithics or ceramics, deemed a ‘site’ upon a circle with radii at every degree (refer to Figure 4 in Bintliff and Snodgrass 1985, 131).

Since we are dealing with what is known as a ‘site-based’ survey (Cherry 1983, 394-397; Dunnell and Dancey 1983), consistency, comparability, and iterability depend upon the site forms. Number, date, location, ownership, contemporary land-use, vegetation, hydrology, artifact densities, definitional criteria, photograph numbers, etc. are to be inscribed upon the form. The idiosyncrasies and specificities of each ‘site’ have a space at the bottom of the sheet. This is the space for such classic variables as weather or ground conditions, vegetation, and visibility. Add to this the number of samples taken and bag numbers, and this referent provides the critical link between a few square meters of countryside and the laboratory. In the space of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, anthropology, survey, topography, geomorphology, botany, and, yes, archaeology come together in the transcription of an engagement with the material world. In this, the exchange between the various modes of documentation—sketch plan, map and text—is crucial. Tape, compass, flags, pencil and ruler all intersect in this endeavor. So does the notebook.

The field notebook is a primary document that narrates the sequence of survey events through day-by-day entries recording the activities of the survey crews. It too specifies weather conditions and ground visibility. It lists the transects walked by team members and where they are located. Occasionally, it details the mood of the crew. The notebook outlines the circumstances behind the materials discovered and the character of those materials (typologies, condition, etc.) at the moment of the encounter. It details the criteria (size, artifact densities, exposed features, non-modern date, etc.) behind the designation of material clusters as ‘sites’ and offers initial suggestions regarding site identification. Every few pages a map traced from the 1:5000 topographic map is inserted. These maps were marked with lines indicating the length and direction of transects. Other features, including wells and the location of specific sites and finds, were also designated. References to these maps are periodically inserted in the text of the notebook.

The success with which the project can trace materials back to the locale in the landscape depends on the reliability and detail of the person in charge of the notebook. These narratives are, of course, varied. During the AEP field seasons each team maintained a notebook, which was kept by the team leader, an experienced archaeologist (Jameson, Runnels, and van Andel 1994, 219). With narrative forms of record there are inevitably disparities in recording styles, and hence a discrepancy in comparative standards. For example, on August 1, 1981, the ‘Red Team’ leader wrote the entry at the end of the day—the entire entry was in past tense. She commented on weather conditions and laid out their objectives for the day. Given the lack of ‘cultural materials,’ she summarizes the day by briefly describing the six areas surveyed in list form. The Blue team leader in contrast wrote his entry throughout the day. He gave the initials of each team member, yet did not comment on weather conditions. As the events are narrated in the course of the day, details are given concerning the nature of their engagements and their rationale for moving from one area to another. At the end of the day the Blue team leader comments on the attitude and condition of the crew. Yet despite such variations, without the notebook we would miss the first critical steps (for more discussion on the utility of narrative forms of record refer to Farid et al. 2000, 25-26), but we are not here negotiating a yawning gap between the material world and documents (Latour 1993). For we still have both materials and documents to show for the long hours of hot and sweaty survey work.

The tags relate the area and transect from which the ceramics, lithics, or other finds are derived. The notebooks and site forms encompass those very materials that the teams deemed significant enough to remove and transport to the laboratory. Between 1979 and 1982, the laboratory resided in an old school building (accommodated in an even older house) in Koiladha. Let it suffice to say that at this point materials and their references are linked to fewer individuals as we move into a laboratory context. As materials are reduced so too is the number of personnel involved in the process of transformation. In this way, the division of labor and accreditation can be taken to reinforce artificial divides such as that between the ‘field’ and the ‘laboratory’ (Berggren and Hodder 2003; Lucas 2001b, 12-14). But addressing this issue is not my purpose here. Notwithstanding, I must focus in on the activities associated with fewer individuals. Three archaeologists—Mark Munn, Dan Pullen, and Susan Langdon—oversaw the operations in the lab. It is here that most of the analyses took place.

The table covered with freshly washed and dried ceramic fragments, the box of andesite handstones, the plastic bag holding a plain roof tile fragment from B-54; these don’t contain the olive pits, terrace walls, thistles, or the roadside garbage of the Greek countryside. Still, something of that materiality has been transported here and laid out on the table or placed in the box and plastic bag. In the lab we have a host of other materials and media to aid us: comparanda are readily available in the form of diagnostic ceramics found in more secure contexts of excavation and during the survey, along with fabric descriptions, photographs, illustrations of ceramics, handstones, and lithics, and Munsell soil color charts. Following Latour we might say that we are ‘neither very far from nor very close’ to the archaeological site. ‘We are at a good distance, and we have transported a small number of pertinent features’ (1999, 36). Though much has been transformed, something of the material world remains. We are not yet dealing completely with text. We are not yet solely reliant upon media.

On the pottery table we enter into a new context of transformation. New inscriptions cross our path. A general ‘artifact summary sheet’ details the counts and weights of the various things from the units collected (Runnels, Pullen, and Langdon 1995, 3). Numbers, measurements in grams, replace aspects of the materials. Things are sorted. The media disperse along with the materials by category. If we continue to follow the ‘ceramics’, further details are inscribed upon either a ‘nonpottery ceramic form recording rooftiles, loom weights,’ etc. or ‘a pottery recording sheet for identified vessels represented by potsherds’ (Runnels, Pullen, and Langdon 1995, 3). The former denotes counts of roof tiles, loom weights, spindle whorls, and even figurines by site in the rectangular space of a grid laid out upon a spreadsheet. The latter does the same for pottery, whose aspects include fabric, manufacture, shape, decoration, and surface treatment, ticked off at the intersection of these categories and the specimen number.

Things are filtered a little more. Pottery fragments may undergo comparative analyses and be recipients of the coveted catalogue entry. The numbers of pottery fragments are reduced depending on our collective articulation of those diagnostic criteria deemed necessary for situating a fragment in time and location. Caliper, slide gauge, metal pincers (for examining the fabric of ceramics in cross section), ruler, etc., all aid in facilitating their inscription. Those materials that make the cut may go on to the draftsman or photographer where they will enter new processes of mediation. In this way tens of thousands of pottery fragments may be reduced to a few thousand catalogued entries. Between 1979 and 1982 these analyses were conducted in the house, turned school, turned laboratory, in Koiladha. In 1983, selected material for the publication catalog was transferred to the Leonardo storeroom of the Archaeological Ephoreia of the Argolid, in Nafplion, where Mary Lou and Mark Munn, aided by artist Claire Zimmerman, completed the inscription of ceramic finds.

But even at these late stages in the process of transformation steps are retraced. Sites are revisited, transects are reiterated, and materials are reassessed based upon knowledge articulated on a table in the lab in Koiladha. Fresh breaks on pottery fragments from a collection unit suggest that sites C-12/C-14 should be reassessed. A single well-worn piece of polychrome might be enough to necessitate revisiting the south slopes of Mt. Kotena to search for potential Late Neolithic. In the back and forth movement between landscape, site, material, notebook, tape and laboratory, instruments, comparanda, media, etc., we have a little more confidence in our engagement, we are a little more direct in our purpose (for a discussion of this process of articulation refer to Latour 1999, 133-144; Yarrow 2003). In the course of retracing our steps, of reiterating our paths, we return to things ‘displaced a little further’ (Latour 1999, 74: emphasis in original).

I will spare us further details of the laboratory procedures, numerical calculation, illustration, photography, additional collation, narration, etc. In place of the things we now have our inscriptions and other media. These ‘immutable mobiles’ may now move with us into other contexts where they may be further displaced and transformed into final publication volumes, so that eventually, for example, on page 167 (along with an illustration on page 354) of the published Pottery Catalogue we are left with number:

‘333 LARGE INCURVING BOWL WITH TABULAR HANDLE Fig. 19 (F32-N-206) Rim with part of tabular handle. D. 0.42, Max. pres. W. 0.07. Semicoarse fabric; some lime; unevenly fired, 5yr 6/6 (reddish yellow) to 5YR 5/2 (reddish gray) core. Incurving wall, slightly thickened rim, flattened lip; wide tabular handle attached below rim and below maximum diameter, taenis to left of upper attachment. Exterior slipped (self slip?). Early Helladic II.’ (Runnels, Pullen, and Langdon 1995, 167).

Text and illustration, media, circulate wider and farther than a single fragment of pottery from the churned up soil of V----- K-----’s olive grove.

It is these final moments of articulation, when scores of references and other intermediaries are pulled together into a composite text, that we encounter the most guarded steps of the archaeological process. While archaeology grants detailed attention to referencing the steps of scientific practice, this detailed attention becomes remiss in the very lasts steps of the write up process. Why should they not be deemed worthy of such attention? Such an imbalance contributes to a further distinction between scientific and humanistic practices. Scientific practices involve the detailed referencing of each step, while the steps involved in the articulation of the final document (comprised of multiple acts of delegation) are either not inscribed or are completely effaced. In order to bypass this classic divide we must maintain the same level of standards in every step of the archaeological process. This issue will be taken up further with the discussion of collaborative ‘social software’ in the next chapter.

So where do we situate the ‘field’ in relation to entry 333 on page 167 of the Pottery Catalogue and the corresponding figure on page 354 (Figure 3.3)? Our tradition of archaeological thinking is mistaken in maintaining a single radical separation between the knowledge mediated upon an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper and the material world it stands in for—the field. This taken-for-granted scheme does not account for what occurs in practice. Now that we have followed in detail the steps between the material world of the Southern Argolid and our media we realize that we have not fallen into a yawning abyss that is classically held to exist between them (e.g. Butler 1993; James 1978; Preucel and Bauer 2001) (as sketched out in Figure 3.4). Rather in place of the field over and against the contexts of knowledge production there are multiple fields spaced along a chain of transformation characterized by many small gaps between the world of things and any final publication in the form of text, plans, maps, images, illustrations, etc.

In this chain, which is exemplified by the archaeological process of the AEP, the material world has undergone a series of transformations and translations whereby each successive stage ‘takes the place of the original situation’ (Latour 1999, 47). With each step from field walking to drawing sections, taking photographs, sampling, measuring, narrating, etc., we leave behind ‘locality, particularity, materiality, multiplicity, and continuity’ yet we gain ‘compatibility, standardization, text, calculation, circulation, and relative universality’ (Latour 1999, 47) (Figure 3.5). The series of references or textual markers established along this chain finds its ‘fruition’ in the form of a final publication with the references (the markers of each transition), be they in the form of field notebooks, context sheets, context photos, the archaeological ‘finds’, etc., maintained in the form of a project archive. Contrary to the notion of archaeology as a linear process, the purpose of the chain of references, guaranteed by the material archive, is to facilitate our retracing this process of transformation and translation. One must be able to follow the chain of references back to the material world focused upon: it follows that the archaeological process is recursive, that it circulates.

The notion of a singular chasm between the world of things and the world of language (also refer to Rowlands 1984; Thomas 2004b) vastly oversimplifies how archaeologists enter into particular ontological configurations with the diverse entities of the material world. There is no single vast chasm (James 1978), as with the divide between the ‘field’ and archaeological ‘home-bases’ (laboratories, archives or studies), or ‘data’ and interpretations. Instead, each of the steps as exemplified in the AEP process constitutes a small gap between the material world and the final publications (refer to Latour 1999, 69-74). In this way, each step, whether it is a transect near the Fournoi village, a table with ordered sherds in a yard in Koiladha, a photographic black room, or a computer console in the Classics Department at Stanford, is a field of archaeological production. These are the multiple fields that are present along the chain of transformation. In each of these fields an articulation from materiality to reference occurs across a small gap (Figure 3.6) and not simply across a single and radical separation between the material context of few square meters of the Greek countryside and a final publication or, indeed, ‘at the trowel’s edge’ (again compare Figure 3.4). These fields mark the multiple constituting moments and acts of articulation in the archaeological process. As I emphasized in Chapter 1, this is not a zero-sum game of equivalency between the material past and record as the critique of Andrews, Barrett, and Lewis (2000) could be construed as implying. Each field may be revisited by retracing the chain of references generated in this process. Just as the AEP retraced their steps on multiple occasions, other archaeologists might reiterate the fields and rework the materials and media produced by previous archaeological projects in order to come up with new translations (also refer to Lucas 2001b). So the catalogue entry on page 167 and the illustration on page 354 of Runnels, Pullen, and Langdon 1995 are also beginnings. The transformation of the landscapes of the Southern Argolid continues.

Archaeologists not only need to be more aware of how we span the multiple gaps, the multiple fields, between the material world and text, plans, maps, illustrations, etc., but also of how these processes are caught up in diverse networks linking fields which encompass everything from funding bodies, socio-political alliances, media and materialities (refer to Latour 1987 and 1999, 80-112) to, for example, even the modes of engagement and articulation practiced by an artillery officer in the British military during the Napoleonic Wars as detailed in Chapter 2. We not only need to delineate clearly each of these gaps within our references in the same way which is demanded of us in the excavation trench or along the survey transect, but also to situate this process in relation to these larger networks—these other fields. Things (our tapes, trowels, theodolites, media, etc.), too, have a stake in our nonlinear and interconnected paths of knowledge production (Olsen 2003; Yarrow 2003). They too must be included. This scheme of multiple fields is a means of maintaining something of the complexity of archaeological practice in our modes of documentation and language. It is a means of bypassing the gulf between what we do and what we say we do. Yes, this is a tall order. Nevertheless, it is a course we must consider, for these multiple fields constitute the terrain of archaeological knowledge production in real-time practice.

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