ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY: THE LAST TEN YEARS

ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY: THE LAST TEN YEARS Prof Matthew H Johnson University of Southampton m.h.johnson@soton.ac.uk

Elements of talk • Where theory is, formally • Where theory is, really • Student response

Theory: the order you put facts in (has theory become too inclusive – does it refer to ‘everything’?)

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 doesn’t include indigenous, Marxist, feminist, queer, postcolonial archaeology Hegmon, M. 2003. Setting theoretical egos aside: issues and theory in North American archaeology. American Antiquity 68:2, 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: 551–67.

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

UK: Key changes • Agency • Materiality • Phenomenology • Field practice • Stakeholder issues (‘heritage’, diversity, inclusion) These broaden and deepen existing theory

Global Context • Hegmon: ‘processual-plus’ in North America • Continental Europe: different articulations of theory • World Archaeological Congress

All these developments… • ‘roll out’ an interpretive agenda (?re-read Shanks and Tilley) • Diffuse ‘theory’ into different practices

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

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

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

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’;

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

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

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 haven’t 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 Parry’s critique of Spivak and her response?’). (Culler 1997, 15). Theory Makes The Theorist Vulnerable

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

ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY: THE LAST TEN YEARS