Archaeology Reading Group 2012

Forum Romanum
(Photograph: Andrew Stephenson)

Object-Image-Interpretation

Sessions for 2012

2 February

Chair: Will Anderson

Talk of 'the death of archaeological theory'

Readings:

John Bintliff 2011: 'The death of archaeological theory?' in J.L. Bintliff and M. Pearce (eds.), The Death of Archaeological Theory? Oxford: Oxbow Press, 7-22.

Leo S. Klejn 2006: 'Neither archaeology nor theory: a critique of Johnson', Antiquity 80, 435-41.

Matthew H. Johnson 2006: 'Response', Antiquity 80, 442-3.

23 February

Chair: Andrea Argirides

Heritage Protection in Times of Conflict

It can be argued that the ‘spoils of war’ is as old as the history  of warfare itself and even  modern-day warfare like Iraq and Afghanistan  and recent internal conflicts in Egypt, Libya and Syria have no doubt  endangered cultural heritage, cultural property and archaeological sites  within those regions. In recent years there’s been a plethora of  literature on culture, cultural heritage, cultural heritage management and  archaeological heritage, even resource management, discussing the importance  and relevance of protecting cultural and archaeological heritage in times of  conflict. Additionally, some of the key issues arising from this  literature include the following:
- Defining cultural and archaeological heritage and cultural  property - what are we protecting?
- Whose culture is it anyway?
- Whose responsibility is it to protect cultural heritage in times  of conflict?
- The ethics and politics of cultural property during  conflict.
- Ethics of archaeologists, cultural heritage experts and  anthropologists embedded in conflict and military operations.
- The politics of archaeological practice during armed  conflict.
- Preventing archaeological sites being used as military posts –  eg. Babylon in 2003.
- Understanding tangible and intangible heritage – what are the  priorities?

Reading:

Paul Bennett and Graeme Barker 2011: 'Protecting Libya's Archaeological Heritage', African Archaeological Review 28, 5-25.

22 March

Chair: Professor Jak Yakar (Tel Aviv University)

The Economic Organization of Preliterate Late Third Millennium Anatolian Society

The intensification of economic and sociopolitical contacts with Syria and Mesopotamia presumably brought about significant changes in the economic organization of Anatolian society in the second half of the third millennium BC. In the Mesopotamian and Syrian models of state-level economic organization, the management or supervision of the specialized industrial and agro-pastoral production sectors came under the jurisdiction of the central administration. Central economic control would have applied not only to production on state-owned lands, but also to the movement and distribution of goods and services throughout the state territory. One may assume that in Anatolia too with increasing specialization and work division in the second half of the third millennium BC palace and temple officials and personnel, and certain craftsmen, artisans and workers employed in non-agrarian production sectors in city-states could have received quantities of grain and other products from the palace and private sector as remuneration for their work and services. A taxation system imposed on agrarian production could have been the main source of revenue for a central administration required to remunerate the palace or temple workers and other non-productive city-state dependents. Since political power is dependent on a strong economy that generates wealth for its ruling class and the elite, the palace and/or temple administration in Anatolia, as in Syria and Mesopotamia, had to organize and manage the production sectors in the countryside. The system of management could have been a simpler version of the early second millennium Mari example described in an article by Frans van Koppen.

Reading:

Frans van Koppen 2001: 'The Organisation of Institutional Agriculture in Mari', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 44, 451-504.

12 April

Chair: Jason Adams (University of Melbourne)

Interdisciplinary Interactions in Archaeology: How Does Archaeology Manage Its Use Of (And Often Reliance On) Other Disciplines?

Part of the appeal of archaeology for many archaeologists is the opportunity (and often the need) to make use of other disciplines in order to build up a better picture of the culture/site etc. being studied. These interactions do however bring with them risks. How can we be confident in relying on someone working in another field when we have little of no expertise in that area? How do we ensure that the materials and/or information given by us to other disciplines for analysis/assessment etc. are used in what we would deem an appropriate way? Also, how do we redress a situation where we feel the archaeological project has not been served by, or indeed has been compromised by, the actions of someone in another discipline, be they unintentional or intentional?

The two readings I have chosen will enable us to look at these questions in a specific situation where science and field archaeology come into dispute. The readings are:

Perry, Linda 2005: ‘Reassessing the traditional interpretation of “Manioc” artifacts in the Orinoco Valley of Venezuela’, Latin American Antiquity 16, 409-26.

Barse, William P. 2008: ‘Grater flakes, the Pozo Azul Norte site and Orinocan subsistence practices’, International Journal of South American Archaeology 3, 37-44.

It is important to read the articles in this order as the Barse article is a response to the Perry article. Please think about these articles from as many different angles as you can, e.g. the methodologies, practices, results, conclusions and intentions of the authors, as well as the resulting the implications for field archaeologists.

3 May

Chair: Louise Hitchcock (University of Melbourne)

Entanglement, Transculturalism and Hybridization Processes in the Late Bronze-Early Iron Ages

Entanglement presents us with a new way to understand the role of objects in promoting agency, as well as a way forward in understanding and interpreting the appropriation of the foreign object and the meaning of so-called hybridized objects in constructing identity.

Readings:

Stockhammer, Philipp W. 2009: ‘The change of pottery’s social meaning at the end of the Bronze Age: new evidence from Tiryns’, in Christoph Bachhuber and R. Gareth Roberts (eds), Forces of Transformation: The end of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 164-9.

Stockhammer, Philipp W. 2012: ‘Questioning hybridity’, in Philipp Wolfgang Stockhammer (ed.), Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization: A transdisciplinary approach. Heidelberg: Springer, 1-3.

Stockhammer, Philipp W. 2012: ‘Conceptualizing cultural hybridization in archaeology’, in Philipp Wolfgang Stockhammer (ed.), Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization: A transdisciplinary approach. Heidelberg: Springer, 43-58.

12 July

Chair: Andrew Stephenson

Publishing and Authorship

This session will look at what you need to know when publishing you work: your responsibilities, but also you rights and entitlement to acknowledgment and payment. We will look at commercial, open access and creative commons alternatives and where you can go to for help. Sample documents will be circulated before the meeting.

16 August

Chairs: Emily Poelina-Hunter and Aleks Michalewicz

Online and Open Access Publishing and Academic Profiles

How does online and open access publishing work, especially when you are able to using a profile website like academia.edu or LinkedIn? How useful are these web sites for disseminating your research, increasing professional networks and creating a public profile for archaeology students and academics? We will be joined by Prof. Tony Sagona and Assoc. Prof. Louise Hitchcock to gain a staff perspective.

Readings:

Katherine Mangan 2012: ‘Social Networks for Academics Proliferate, Despite Some Doubts’, The Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 58, issue 35, 20-1: http://chronicle.com/article/Social-Networks-for-Academics/131726/.

Marketing and Communications, University of Melbourne 2010: Social Media Guidelines. Online document available at http://socialmedia.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/UoM-Social-Media-Guidelines.pdf.

Val Colic-Peisker 2012, 'Beware the scammers targeting academics', The Australian, August 5 2012. Online article available at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/beware-the-scammers-targeting-academics/story-e6frgcko-1226439754177.

25 October

Chair: Damjan Krsmanovic

Late Bronze Age Anatolia: A Game of Thrones?

Studies of Late Bronze Age Anatolia have been dominated by a focus on the Hittites. As a result, perspectives on other cultures have tended to be from a Hittite perspective, often influenced by contemporary textual information. This paper (see below) represents a recent trend in Late Bronze Anatolia studies which seeks to do away with such top-down assessments which privilege one culture over others. This has led to ruminations on the nature and extent of Hittite hegemony, as well as defining the character of other Anatolian polities on their own terms. Glatz and Ploudre show how certain evidence is demonstrative of the political climate of certain places at certain times. In instances of political and social instability, different 'parties' sought to use common material culture and iconographic vocabulary in order to project competitvely ideas about power and control.

Reading:

Claudia Glatz and Aimée M. Ploudre 2011: ‘Landscape monuments and political competition in Late Bronze Age Anatolia: an investigation of costly signaling theory’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 361, 33-66.

13 December

Empiricism in Archaeology

Even as the brouhaha between processual and post-processual approaches fades into history, questions linger over ‘knowledge claims’ in archaeology. In a recent article, Matthew Johnson defines and contextualises empiricism as a key theoretical standpoint, usually taken for granted, sometimes denied or papered over, but invariably resurfacing to challenge any deviant ‘intellectualist’ tendencies. Johnson identifies the legacy of empiricism as deriving from modernist and Enlightenment ways of thinking and cultures of antiquarianism dating back to the 17th century and proposes some ‘therapeutic practices’ for archaeological interpretation. The article touches on themes discussed in previous reading group meetings including the interpretation of medieval castles and phenomenological approaches in landscape archaeology.

Reading:

Matthew H. Johnson 2011: 'On the nature of empiricism in archaeology', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17, 764-87.