Aris Politopoulos, Catherine J. Frieman, James L. Flexner, Lewis Borck
{"title":"An Anarchist Archaeology of Equality: Pasts and Futures Against Hierarchy","authors":"Aris Politopoulos, Catherine J. Frieman, James L. Flexner, Lewis Borck","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000483","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000483","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Scholars of the past frame the ‘origins’ or evolution of inequality, usually using archaeological or anthropological evidence as a basis for their arguments, as an intentional, inevitable, important step towards the development of states, implicitly framed as the pinnacle of human political and economic achievement. Anarchist archaeologies reject the idea of hierarchy as a positive or inevitable evolutionary outcome underlying the path to civilization. We argue instead for a radical reorientation towards archaeologies of equality. We propose a prefigurative archaeology that celebrates the myriad ways that human beings have actively undermined and resisted hierarchical social arrangements. We aim to reorient archaeology's focus towards societies that purposefully prevented or constrained the emergence of inequality. To demonstrate the potential of archaeologies of equality we present case examples from Oceania, Britain, West Asia and the American Southwest. Highlighting the accomplishments of societies of equals in the past demonstrates the contingency and problematic nature of present forms of inequality. It allows us to explore a different set of pasts and thus enact different presents as we imagine different futures.</p>","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140096979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Juan A. López Padilla, Francisco Javier Jover Maestre, Ricardo E. Basso Rial, María Pastor Quiles
{"title":"An Argaric Tomb for a Carpathian ‘Princess’?","authors":"Juan A. López Padilla, Francisco Javier Jover Maestre, Ricardo E. Basso Rial, María Pastor Quiles","doi":"10.1017/s0959774324000027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774324000027","url":null,"abstract":"Around 120 years ago, a burial was discovered in the Argaric settlement of San Antón, 60 km southeast of Alicante (Spain). Although it was similar to many others recorded during more than a century of research, some gold objects found made this burial exceptional in the Iberian Bronze Age funerary record. Based on the most recent archaeological data, this article reviews both the context and the whole set of grave goods. It also explores the intersocial relationships that these gold ornaments suggest, which directly or indirectly seem to point towards both eastern Mediterranean Europe as well as to the Carpathian Basin.","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140026710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Commentary","authors":"Kathleen Sterling","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000409","url":null,"abstract":"Greer offers an excellent primer on some Black Studies scholars’ critiques of humanism, for which he uses the label ‘counter-humanism’ after Erasmus (2020), distinguishing these approaches from ‘posthumanism.’ He identifies two primary strains of posthumanism relevant to archaeological interpretation, symmetrical archaeology and posthuman feminism, though examples of the latter are drawn from a broader body of academic literature and are subject to less critique. Posthumanists are shown to prioritize dismantling a human–object divide, while counter-humanists critique the human–non-human split. This may appear to be more or less the same project, but the framing of ‘A/not-A’ rather than ‘A–B’ emphasizes the hegemonic relationships between these categories, the continuity within, and makes more explicit the fact that people are included in both the non-human and object categories.","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"267 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139916073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Commentary","authors":"Craig N. Cipolla","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000379","url":null,"abstract":"Does non-anthropocentrism necessitate a turn away from marginalized people? This is a crucial question, asked lately by a growing number of archaeologists. Some see a turn toward things as a turn away from people, while others take a more nuanced view. Greer falls into the latter group, exploring this question by highlighting important contributions and corrections from Black Studies. Although the paper is framed as a challenge to posthumanism, I read it as a broad critique of non-anthropocentric approaches; after reflecting on these relationships over the last few years, I no longer draw strong associations between posthumanism and symmetrical archaeology, entanglement theory, or even ANT; for me, posthumanism involves a relatively greater degree of social and political concern than the others.","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139916088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comments","authors":"Susan Pollock","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000392","url":null,"abstract":"Matthew Greer offers us a powerful, refreshing and thought-provoking critique of posthumanist approaches in archaeology as he sees them through the lens of Black Studies. He asks us to leave aside—temporarily—concerns with anthropocentrism to concentrate instead on the human side of the equation, while nonetheless positioning himself in line with posthumanist efforts to dismantle the human–non-human divide. The crux of Greer's arguments is that posthumanist approaches do not go far enough in distancing themselves from humanism for two reasons. First, humanity remains (tacitly) equated with white, heterosexual, economically well-off men, a single group that forms the scale against which all other people are measured. Second, posthumanist approaches do not acknowledge that racism and related forms of oppression were integral to the emergence of humanism and not a by-product of it.","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139916087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reflections on a Counter-Humanist Archaeology: A Commentary on Greer 2023","authors":"Lindsay M. Montgomery","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000380","url":null,"abstract":"In ‘Humanist Missteps’, Matthew Greer makes the pointed observation that non-anthropocentric frameworks, including symmetrical, object-oriented and posthuman feminist archaeologies, have primarily focused on deconstructing the human–non-human binary while failing to problematize humanist assumptions about who counts as Human. At the core of Greer's argument is the matter of citational practice: which social theorists are archaeologists referencing in their efforts to craft relational approaches to humans, things, animals and plants? In answering this question, the author points to a notable lack of Black Studies theorists, particularly the work of Sylvia Wynter, Zakkiyah Jackson and Tiffany King, in posthumanist archaeologies. While I agree with Greer's critiques, his essay stops short of explaining this citational silence. In this brief commentary, I suggest that this absence of Black Studies scholarship reflects the fact that the discipline of archaeology remains a ‘white public space’ (Brodkin <jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic>2011: 545) and maintains an artificial division between analysis and activism.","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139916074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Striving as Readers: A Response to Greer","authors":"Christopher Witmore","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000410","url":null,"abstract":"The capacity of northern European gentlemen scholars educated in the love of wisdom, human dignity, friendship and rationality to treat their fellow human beings with irreconcilable prejudice and hold to ghastly beliefs of racial superiority, which legitimated violence, exploitation and extermination elsewhere, is one of the great tragedies of humanism. That the images of the human cultivated in texts were at variance with the lived experience of those who were treated <jats:italic>as other than human</jats:italic> was rarely noted in the books they read. I appreciate Matthew Greer's efforts to bring these concerns to the fore. I am grateful for the opportunity to read Sylvia Wynter, among others, and to think about their work in counter-humanism. I stand with Greer who reminds us that, as archaeologists, we must do more than critique ideologies, fight for inclusion, and engage in dialogue as demanded by a radical pluralism (Shanks & Tilley 1992, 246). Equity, social justice, openness, and decolonization demand the sustained effort of us all, both in our capacity as archaeologists and as readers of texts.","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"124 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139916080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Humanist Missteps, A Black Studies Critique of Posthumanist Archaeologies","authors":"Matthew C. Greer","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000367","url":null,"abstract":"Posthumanist archaeologies have attempted to move beyond humanist conceptions of the human for over a decade. But they have done so by primarily focusing on the ontological split between humans and non-human things. This only addresses one part of humanism, as Black studies scholars have long argued that it also equates humanity writ large with white, economically privileged, cis-gendered, heterosexual men, thereby excluding everyone else from the category of the human. They further argue that the violence and oppression inflicted on those excluded from humanism's definition of the human allows this ontological category to come into being. This article introduces Black studies’ critiques of humanism and applies them to posthumanist archaeologies. Ultimately, it argues that by not attending to the critiques raised by Black studies scholars, posthumanist archaeologies have inadvertently made humanist missteps wherein they continue using elements of humanism's definition of the human in their attempts to move beyond humanism.","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139916086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reply: Citational Politics and the Future of Posthumanist Archaeologies","authors":"Matthew C. Greer","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000422","url":null,"abstract":"I want to begin by thanking Craig Cipolla, Lindsay Montgomery, Susan Pollock, Kathleen Sterling and Christopher Witmore for their responses. I am honoured to be in conversation with such thoughtful and insightful scholars. In my reading, two main themes emerged from their comments—citational politics and what the future of posthumanist archaeologies might look like. To conclude our discussion of archaeology, Black studies and posthumanism, I will address each in turn.","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139916104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mirani Litster, Lynley A. Wallis, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation
{"title":"When the Foreign Becomes Familiar: The Glass Bead Assemblage from Madjedbebe, Northern Australia","authors":"Mirani Litster, Lynley A. Wallis, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation","doi":"10.1017/s0959774323000458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000458","url":null,"abstract":"<p>By investigating the materiality of colonial encounters, specifically the consumption of introduced commodities by Indigenous peoples, archaeologists can explore questions concerning value, agency, consumer choice and localization. This has the significant capacity to broaden understandings of intercultural encounters and challenge colonial narratives. Glass beads represent one of the earliest foreign material culture introductions to the Indigenous peoples of Australia. The rock-shelter site of Madjedbebe, best known for yielding the oldest evidence to date for human occupation in Australia, also contains one of the largest assemblages from an Indigenous site context in Australia—51 glass beads and associated fragments. We present here an analysis of these objects—through attribute and microwear analysis—in concert with the archival record, to reveal the ways in which <span>Bininj</span> (Aboriginal people) incorporated glass beads into their own lifeways.</p>","PeriodicalId":47164,"journal":{"name":"CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139655867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}