Abstract
In this article, I shall introduce some core ideas from my research on the character of photographic representations published in archaeological journals during the mid-twentieth century. The aim of this study is to show the connection between the employment of certain scientific visual aesthetics in site photography at a time when the discipline of archaeology wanted to be seen as more scientific. Using the rod scale as a key visual metaphor for the identity of the discipline, I will argue that the increasing presence of the rod scale in published site photographs played a key part in the development of a specific scientific visual vocabulary which was driven by the contemporary culture-historical context.
Highlights
To provide evidence for my argument, I have conducted a survey of archaeological site photographs published in six academic1 and two popular journals2 from 1950 to 1980, using various pictorial conventions such as scale, lighting and angle as units of analysis
Archaeological interpretation in Processual Archaeology was to become deduced from explicit questions, hypotheses and model-testing in order to produce critically informed conclusions based on scientific evidence, logical argument and evaluation
For the purposes of this study, I will be examining the increasing presence of the scale as a part of the visual aesthetic programme in site photography, and not the extent to which it is useful as an archaeological tool
Summary
I shall introduce some core ideas from my research on the character of photographic representations published in archaeological journals during the mid-twentieth century. It is possible to determine that certain visual aesthet- expressions or ideas at a time when the discipline of archaeics conditioned the idea of scientific archaeological site ology was experiencing tensions between its practice photography in archaeological publications in the mid- as a science and an art This can be further supported by twentieth century. It is possible that human presence under these conditions serves two purposes: to provide scale, and to visually describe, explain and inform the physicality and scientific processes involved in archaeological fieldwork Such images have raised important questions from an ethnographical perspective concerning gender and identity within the discipline of archaeology during the mid-twentieth century. This figure represents 55% out of the total number of site
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