Ethnographies of Archaeological Practice

Cultural Encounters, Material Transformations

Contributions by Jonathan Bateman, Lisa Breglia, John Carman, Oguz Erdur, Denise Maria Cavalcante Gomes, Charles Goodwin, Anders Gustafsson, Cornelius Holtorf, Dirk Jacobs, Hakon Karlsson, Angela McClanahan, David Van Reybrouck, Timoteo Rodriguez, Blythe E. Roveland, Michael Wilmore, Thomas Yarrow Edited by Matt Edgeworth

Publication date:

04 May 2006

Length of book:

216 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759108448

Ethnographic perspectives are often used by archaeologists to study cultures both past and present - but what happens when the ethnographic gaze is turned back onto archaeological practices themselves? That is the question posed by this book, challenging conventional ideas about the relationship between the subject and the object, the observer and the observed, and the explainers and the explained. This book explores the production of archaeological knowledge from a range of ethnographic perspectives. Fieldwork spans large parts of the world, with sites in Turkey, the Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil, Italy, Germany, the USA and the United Kingdom being covered. They focus on excavation, inscription, heritage management, student training, the employment of hired workers and many other aspects of archaeological practice. These experimental ethnographic studies are situated right on the interface of archaeology and anthropology_on the road to a more holistic study of the present and the past.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Multiple Origins, Development and Potential of Ethnographies of Archaeology
Chapter 2 Sites of Knowledge: Different Ways of Knowing an Archaeological Excavation
3 The Mutual Constitution of Natural and Social Identities During Archaeological Fieldwork
4 A Linguistic Anthropologist's Interest in Archaeological Practice
5 Reflecting Upon Archaeological Practice: Multiple Visions of a Late Paleolithic Site in Germany
6 Pictures, Ideas, and Things: The Production and Currency of Archaeological Images
7 Studying Archaeological Fieldwork in the Field: Views from Monte Polizzo
8 Digging the Dirt: Excavation as a Social Practice
9 Realisafiction: A Day of Work at Everybody-Knows-Land
10 Landscapes of Disciplinary Power: An Ethnography of Excavation and Survey at Leskernick, UK
Chapter 11 Histories, Identity and Ownership: An Ethnographic Case Study in Archaeological Heritage Management in the Orkney Islands
12 Among Totem-Poles and Clan Power in Tanum, Sweden: An Ethnographic Perspective on the Communicative Artifacts of Heritage Management
13 Amazonian Archaeology and Local Identities
14 Conjunctures in the Making of an Ancient Maya Archaeological Site
15 Complicit Agendas: Ethnography of Archaeology as Ethical Research Practice

Ethnographies of Archaeological Practice shows the best results of how and why the daily life of archaeology works. Here are the questions asked, the range of methods used, the best investigators' work, and the results. The book tells us what should be done next and provides a model of how to do a more effective archaeology using ethnographic examination of archaeological work.