ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY: THE LAST TEN YEARS

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ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY THE LAST TEN YEARS

• Prof Matthew H Johnson
• University of Southampton
• m.h.johnson_at_soton.ac.uk

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Elements of talk

• Where theory is, formally
• Where theory is, really
• Student response

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Theory the order you put facts in (has theory
become too inclusive does it refer to
everything?)
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N America processual-plus

• past is engendered
• agency is everywhere
• interest in symbolism
• interest in materiality
• whose past is it?
• Moss, Watkins 2005 argue that tension is
  essential Hegmon doesnt include indigenous,
  Marxist, feminist, queer, postcolonial
  archaeology

Hegmon, M. 2003. Setting theoretical egos aside
issues and theory in North American archaeology.
American Antiquity 682, 213-243. Brumfiel, E.M.
1992. Distinguished lecture in archaeology
breaking and entering the ecosystem gender,
class and faction steal the show. American
Anthropologist 94 55167.
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N America influence of NAGPRA

• North American Graves Protection and Repatriation
  Act, signed 1990 by George HW Bush
• Federally-funded institutions such as museums and
  universities draw up inventories of their
  collections and send summaries of all Native
  American human remains, sacred and ceremonial
  objects, and other objects deemed to be of
  cultural patrimony to tribes likely to be
  associated with such material

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UK Key changes

• Agency
• Materiality
• Phenomenology
• Field practice
• Stakeholder issues (heritage, diversity,
  inclusion)
• These broaden and deepen existing theory

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Global Context

• Hegmon processual-plus in North America
• Continental Europe different articulations of
  theory
• World Archaeological Congress

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All these developments

• roll out an interpretive agenda (?re-read
  Shanks and Tilley)
• Diffuse theory into different practices

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Discordant elements

• Darwinist, behavioural archaeology
• An enduring empiricism/culture-history

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Empiricism

• Formal definition belief that facts speak for
  themselves, without the need for intervening
  theory
• Discourse or habit of thought division between
  experience and words or concepts, and the
  prioritisation of the former

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Empiricist Rhetoric

• Appeal to the self-evident and familiar we all
  know what this is
• Rhetorical rejection of rhetoric plain
  speaking
• Primacy of field experience
• Primacy of difficulty/hard work

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Empiricism The Enduring Legacy I

• That only academics have the time for theory, and
  professional archaeologists, or those working
  in museums or cultural resource management, have
  no time to do it
• That as an archaeologist one can choose between
  taking or not taking a theoretical approach
  and/or that some approaches are very
  theoretical while others are very empirical
• That the moment for doing theory occurs after
  a basic grasp of the data (a moment that never
  seems to be now)
• A rhetoric which implies that theory is somehow
  less empirically grounded than archaeology
  without explicit theory
• An implication that plain speaking is superior
  to a theoretical rhetoric
• The notion that more empirical studies will be
  of more enduring value, whereas theories are
  merely passing fads
• The definition of questions which are more
  knowable or legitimate than others for example,
  that subsistence or lordship is a legitimate
  explanation for patterns in the landscape whereas
  exploration of memory or gender is wild or
  fanciful

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Empiricism The Enduring Legacy II

• The proposition that there is a position from
  outside theory, from which theory can be
  evaluated
• At the most basic level, the notion that the
  accumulation of more data, in and of itself, will
  automatically lead to a better knowledge of the
  past

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Empiricist Appeal

• Primacy of the field (students want more
  fieldwork)
• Centrality of materiality
• In this sense, we are all empiricists

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One of the most dismaying features of theory
today is that it is endless It is an unbounded
corpus of writings which is always being
augmented Theory is thus a source of
intimidation, a resource for constant upstagings
What? You havent read Lacan! How can you
talk about the lyric without addressing the
specular constitution of the speaking
subject?the completion of one task will bring
not respite but further difficult assignments.
(Spivak? Yes, but have you read Benita Parrys
critique of Spivak and her response?). (Culler
1997, 15).
Theory Makes The Theorist Vulnerable
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Student Responses

• Avoid a vulnerable position
• Separate theory and other knowledges into
  distinct domains (Darwinist complaint about
  culturalist knowledge theory in continental
  Europe)