Archaeological Theory Research Articles

A.M. Tallgren and ethnic interpretation in archaeology

The Finnish archaeologist Aarne Michaël Tallgren is remembered for his article on archaeological theory, which he published in Finnish in 1934 and in French for the international readership in 1936. There he denied the possibility of making ethnic conclusions on the basis of archaeological material. However, Tallgren’s relationship to ethnic questions has never before been analysed as a whole. This article examines how Tallgren’s conception of ethnicity developed. He inherited the ethnic paradigm of archaeology from his teachers but was initially rather cautious in his conclusions. Up to 1920, Tallgren’s own approach to ethnic questions gradually consolidated. In contrast to the view prevailing today, it is shown that ethnic conclusions were a central part of his reasoning in the 1920s but only in relation to the question of the roots of the Finnish people. Criticism against the ethnic paradigm of archaeology was voiced both in Finland and elsewhere in Europe in the 1910s and 1920s, and in the early 1930s, Tallgren also began to doubt this approach. Becoming acquainted with the new Soviet archaeology in the late 1920s sparked Tallgren’s interest in archaeology as social history, and the political use of the ethnic view of prehistory first in Germany and soon thereafter in the Soviet Union probably eventually led him to deny any ethnic conclusions.

“In Cairo also I worried my archaeological friends”: J. Norman Lockyer and Archaeoastronomy

It has long been acknowledged that J. Norman Lockyer played a central role in the foundation of archaeoastronomy as a field in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His interest in “orientation” flourished on a visit to Egypt, where he became convinced that rigorous scientific methods could be used to prove archaeological theories concerning ancient religions.However, despite the promising prospect of a public intellectual entering the sparse discourse around archaeoastronomy, little happened to promote the discipline after the Egyptian expedition. Whilst Lockyer is often framed as a lonely figure working at the dawn of the field, newly digitised lantern slides from the Norman Lockyer Observatory archives reveal his extensive interactions with a dedicated network of British archaeoastronomical researchers. Lockyer’s work, along with that of his new community, came at a very unfortunate time. This paper seeks to explain why he was shunned by prominent archaeologists, and why the discourse around archaeoastronomy up until his time smothered Lockyer’s attempts to legitimize orientation.

Ottoman archaeology between the Self and the Other: archaeological ethnography and the transborder research potential of the SW Balkans

ABSTRACT Religious syncretism alongside the coexistence of various groups of people and their shared material culture was a reality in the Ottoman-era Balkans. Such entanglements remain underrepresented in archaeological theory and practice because of the temporal proximity of the subject to the present and due to the cultural and identity politics of nation-state formation. This article offers a method to delve into the aforementioned archaeological context through a combined investigation of textual evidence, survey and archaeological ethnography. The case studies presented draw from the cultural landscapes and the material culture of the transborder area of Northwest Greece and Southern Albania. Emphasis is placed on the agency of the local actors who dwelled in the region and are often neglected when placed in the context of the broader accounts of the Ottoman era.

Pre-contact Indigenous fire stewardship: a research framework and application to a Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest

Fire is a key disturbance process that shapes the structure and function of montane temperate rainforest in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Recent research is revealing more frequent historical fire activity in the western central Cascades than expected by conventional theory. Indigenous peoples have lived in the PNW for millennia. However, Indigenous people's roles in shaping vegetation mosaics in montane temperate forests of the PNW has been overlooked, despite archaeological evidence of long-term, continuous human use of these landscapes. In this paper, we present a generalizable research framework for overcoming biases often inherent in historical fire research. The framework centers Indigenous perspectives and ethnohistory, leveraging theory in human ecology and archaeology to interpret fire histories. We apply this framework to place-based, empirical evidence of Indigenous land use and dendroecological fire history. Our framework leads us to conclude that the most parsimonious explanation for the occurrence of historical high fire frequency in the western Cascades is Indigenous fire stewardship. Further, our case study makes apparent that scholars can no longer ignore the role of Indigenous people in driving montane forest dynamics in the PNW.

Urban Heritage, and the Theory of Fragmentation: The Development of Archaeology in the City of Turku, Finland

ABSTRACT Despite the shift from object- to landscape-based approaches in urban heritage management, the analysis of heritage as objects is still viable, as the current archaeological theories of material culture do not see objects in the same manner as the object-based approach. To reveal the broader significance of urban archaeology for the cityscape, the relationship between the discipline and urban space is analyzed in the framework of fragmentation theory. The theory is based on prehistoric archaeology but modified to describe urban archaeology and its effects in the contemporary city. It is argued that fragments, regardless of their connection with the past and their central role in heritage work, also have autonomous potential to distract and act as agents disconnected from their original objects. The creative character of urban fragments should be explored further by archaeologists and heritage management. These ideas are scrutinized using the development of urban archaeology and heritage in the city of Turku in Finland as an example.

Marija Gimbutas and the Ethnic Origin of the Baltic Nation

Birutė Marija Alseikaitė-Gimbutienė (English Marija Gimbutas), is one of the most prominent and well-known archaeologists of the 20th century, pioneer of archaeomythology, creator of new theories in archaeology. In her scientific research, she paid a great attention to the ethnic origins and development of nations.This article analyzes the Theory of Baltic Ethnic Origins formulated by Gimbutas. The solution to this important scientific problem involves two main research stages. The first stage is formulation of the Theory of Indo-European homeland, named the Kurgans Theory. The second stage is formulation of the Theory of the origins of Balts. According to Gimbutas, a few cultural systems participated in the formation of the Balts: the indoeuropeans and substrat culture, that is Indo-Europeanized people of Central Europe. The Indo-Europeans migrated from their homeland, located in the steppe zone north of the Black and Caspian seas, in three waves between 4400/4200 and 3000/2800 BC, ultimately reaching Europe and Indo-Europeanizing it.A secondary Indo-European Homeland was formed in Central Europe, from which the Indo-European culture spread to the Baltic region and other European regions.The last, third wave of newcomers, from around 3000–2800 BC, had the greatest influence on the southeastern and eastern Baltic region and the surrounding territories. During several centuries of assimilation between local inhabitants and newcomers, around 2500–2000 BC, in the territory between the Vistula River in the west and the Volga and Oka rivers in the east, several cultural groups of Proto-Balts were formed. During further ethnocultural processes, around 2000 BC. the Baltic ethnos was formed. In the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. and in the first part of the 1st millennium AD the Balts inhabited a huge area in the North Eastern part of Europe.

Practice of academic and applicative archaeology in Slovenia from a social epistemological perspective

In the relatively abundant bibliography on archaeological theory and epistemology the impact of archaeological practice on archaeological epistemology has remained somehow less explored despite the fact that in the last three decades archaeology has undergone radical changes in practice. We would like to point to three interconnected trends: an exceptional increase in the amount of archaeological fieldwork, the fact that probably more than 90% of all field projects are in the domain of heritage protection, and that archaeology has become a data-driven discipline, producing new circumstances which challenge the traditional epistemological views and require social epistemological rethinking. This paper aims to explore some social epistemological aspects in current archaeological practice in Slovenia where two rather distinctive groups of archaeological researchers emerged, academic archaeologists and field professionals. The distinction between the two groups has grown since the late 1990s with the introduction of preventive archaeology, changes in legislation in heritage protection, and the development of the commercial sector in archaeology. These changes opened a series of questions on epistemic effects in new circumstances, e.g. how these two groups contribute to archaeological knowledge, how their modes of obtaining knowledge are structured and organized, what social factors condition these modes, and, least but not last, the question of forms of epistemic asymmetries.

Past, Present, and Future of Complex Systems Theory in Archaeology

Past, Present, and Future of Complex Systems Theory in Archaeology

VALENTINA DOMETJANOVNA VIKTOROVA HAS BEEN EXPLORING THE MILLENNIUM FOR ALMOST A CENTURY: ON HER 90TH BIRTHDAY

This article is dedicated to Valentina Dometjanovna's research activities on the occasion of her 90th birthday. Valentina Dometjanovna is a rare type of researcher: an archaeologist-philosopher. Her archaeological theory, «Scientific Research in Archaeology. Archaeology» and «The Thing and the Sign in Archaeology». She is the author of more than 180 scientific articles. During her life she conducted field research in the middle reaches of the Tura River, upstream and downstream of the Tavda River, on Andreevskoye Lake near Tyumen, on the island «Kamennye palatki» near the village of Palkino in the Zheleznodorozhny district of Yekaterinburg.

Finding the fun: Towards a playful archaeology

AbstractGames and other forms of play are core human activities, as vitally constitutive of cultural and social practices in the past as they are today. Consequently, play, games and fun should be central in archaeological theory, but our review shows they are anything but. Instead, very few studies deal with these concepts at all, and most of those that do focus on how the affordances play offers link it to ritual, power or other ‘more serious’ phenomena. Here, we offer an explanation as to why play has taken such a backseat in archaeological thought and practice, relating it to the ambivalent aesthetics of having fun with the past in our own discipline. Building on our own playful practices and those of other scholars in the ancient board gaming and archaeogaming communities, we propose a move towards a more playful archaeology, which can provide us with a new window into the past as well as into our own professional practices.

Mapping the field of cultural evolutionary theory and methods in archaeology using bibliometric methods

Bibliometrics offers powerful means of visualising and understanding trends within research domains. We here present a first exploratory bibliometric analysis of cultural evolutionary theory and attendant methods as applied specifically within archaeology across the last four decades (1981–2021). Bibliographic coupling network analysis shows that there exists a broadly successive series of author clusters making up the core of this research domain. A broader vernacular version of cultural evolution is also commonly used in thematic or regional research traditions that fall outside of cultural evolutionary studies in the strict sense. Our bibliometric networks trace the development of evolutionary archaeology over the last four decades and while they demonstrate the centrality of computational models, they also suggest a stagnation in the application of precisely that suite of methods—phylogenetics—that is central to evolutionary archaeology’s biological counterpart palaeontology. Recent methodological innovations in palaeobiology are, however, offering new ways of integrating artefact shape data directly with phylogenetic applications. This development may usher in a renaissance in artefact phylogenetics and appropriately marco-scale applications of cultural evolutionary theory in archaeology.

Research compendium for 'Mapping the field of cultural evolutionary theory and methods in archaeology using bibliometric methods'

Research compendium for 'Mapping the field of cultural evolutionary theory and methods in archaeology using bibliometric methods'

Research compendium for 'Mapping the field of cultural evolutionary theory and methods in archaeology using bibliometric methods'

Research compendium for 'Mapping the field of cultural evolutionary theory and methods in archaeology using bibliometric methods'

A conversation with Koji Mizoguchi. On globalization, Japanese archaeology and archaeological theory today

AbstractOn the occasion of a short research trip to Japan, I had the opportunity to sit down with Professor Koji Mizoguchi in Kyushu University, Fukuoka, to discuss several topics, which you will find transcribed below. I was curious as to his thoughts that he – as the President of the World Archaeological Congress, a non-governmental and non-profit organization that promotes the exchange of archaeological results, training at a global scale and the empowerment of Indigenous and minority groups, a Professor of Social Archaeology, and one of the few archaeologists writing archaeological theory in the far East – had on the state of the art of archaeology today. Furthermore, since I grew up in Europe but nevertheless feel a deep connection with my own Asian ancestry, I was very interested in Mizoguchi’s own experience and contributions to archaeology in Japan and the world.

Postcolonialism as a Reverse Discourse in Egyptology: De-colonizing Historiography and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt and Nubia Part 2

This paper investigates the use of postcolonial theory in Egyptology and Sudan archaeology. Theories and concepts developed out of examinations of specific historical colonial encounters were often applied by Egyptologists with little or no critical historical contextualization. Consequently, when using postcolonial theories and concepts some Egyptologists unwillingly transferred specific historical backgrounds to both ancient Egyptian experiences and those of their neighbours. This is inspected using the concept of reverse discourse as developed by M. Foucault. We need to construct novel and more data-informed concepts to understand the experiences and realities of living under Egyptian occupation.

The Political Ecology of Archaeology and the Archaeological Imagination in the Honduran Frontier

ABSTRACT Integrating political ecology and archaeology has resulted in innovative approaches for reconstructing past human-environment interactions and understanding the legacies that shape environmental degradation and resource struggles today. This paper contributes to this emerging interdisciplinarity by proposing a political ecological approach to investigate how archaeological remains are assigned value as resources, drawing on interpretive theories in both archaeology and political ecology. This article applies this approach to examine the archaeological imagination driving expeditions in eastern Honduras that aimed to find the remains of a site of monumental importance associated with the legend of the White City. Through a political ecological lens, it becomes clear that the interpretation of the region’s archaeological heritage within the context of a legend is the result of displacement and resource control dynamics. Although archaeologists reject the legend as a credible source, actors continue to exploit its symbolism for prestige and profit. This approach highlights the disjuncture between profit-driven narratives of archaeological heritage and the socio-natures that underpin our imagination of such sites. The paper suggests that engaging with the socio-nature of archaeological sites may lead to more inclusive and nuanced interpretations of the past, showing how political ecology can contribute to public archaeology.

The African Origin of Civilization curated by Alisa LaGamma and Diana Craig Patch; Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room curated by Hannah Beachler, Michelle Commander, Ian Alteveer, and Sarah E. Lawrence

The African Origin of Civilization curated by Alisa LaGamma and Diana Craig Patch; Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room curated by Hannah Beachler, Michelle Commander, Ian Alteveer, and Sarah E. Lawrence

Negotiated Positivism: The disregarded epistemology of Arne Furumark

Archaeological theory during the twentieth century is often presented according to a tri-partite scheme. This article serves to put this model into question through the explication of the epistemology of the Swedish classical archaeologist Arne Furumark. He introduced a heuristic model for ceramic studies in 1941 that bears the hallmarks of logical positivism. This early appropriation of analytical philosophy in classical archaeology does not resonate with the above-mentioned model of archaeological theory. However, Furumark did not adopt the agenda of processual archaeology wholeheartedly as the greater part of his research was founded on a culture historical framework. Furumark’s epistemology was negotiated between two archaeological paradigms, or two branches of positivism.

Outline of a theory of breakage

Much of the debate in archaeological theory throughout the last decades has revolved around challenging problematic humanist principles that have shaped our discipline, particularly the idea that humans are masters over nature. Postprocessualists sought, among other things, to emancipate the human condition from this essentialist claim in part by exposing the historical and cultural situatedness of this humanist principle – an epistemological endeavour. In comparison, posthumanists have animated the material world (albeit in different ways) to decentre human beings in relation to long-forsaken nonhumans – an ontological agenda. While posthumanists accuse postprocessualists of practicing anthropocentrism and the latter accuse the former of occupying an ahumanist and anti-epistemological position, there are powerful commonalities in their critique of late humanist doctrines. The aim of this paper is to introduce a theory that exposes the illusory humanist claim of human control over nature and to recognise other forces with momentum besides human will, while at the same time giving prominence to questions about human knowledge and practice. Therefore, a connection is formed between postprocessualism and posthumanism and, as an ironic result, a theory of breakage is formulated. When we consider human participation with breakage, defined as those continuous and uncontrollable phenomena involving the unbinding of object form, we come to terms with a different form of anthropological understanding termed ‘the social knowledge of breakage’. This constitutes an embodied form of knowledge, which is acquired and expressed practically from a young age about how objects break and how one must respond to these situations. This knowledge is exposed in both mundane and ceremonial practices, in linguistic and non-linguistic forms, shaping social practices in uncertain ways, and can be analysed according to three different strands. In this way, we become aware of the creative ways in which broken materials inadvertently affect our practices.

The Blind Spots of the Colonial Legacies of Archaeological Theory and Practice

The Blind Spots of the Colonial Legacies of Archaeological Theory and Practice