Hodder Ian, Hutson Scott. Reading the Past

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Conclusion: archaeology as archaeology

Traditional Middle Range Theory, which works best for

non-cultural processes and assumes strict independence of

context, creates a contradiction when it is applied to the

testing of hypotheses about mind, meaning and representa-

tion. On the one hand, it is argued by some processual ar-

chaeologists that universal relationships in the organization

of, for example, ritual and religion (Renfrew 1985) allow the

archaeologist to test theories against the data. Various predic-

tions are made on the basis of Middle Range theoretical un-

derstanding and the data are examined to see if they fit. For

this procedure to be scientific in the way that is often claimed,

the hypothesis about the past, the Middle Range Theory and

the data should all be independent of each other and the Mid-

dle Range knowledge should be universal. On the other hand,

as was noted in chapter 2, writers such as Renfrew, Flannery

and Marcus and Binford and Sabloff argue that each culture

has its own ‘cognitive phylogeny’ or each approach its own

paradigm. These two positions simply do not compute. The

contextuality of knowledge undermines the dependence on

universal measuring devices, the independence of theories and

the objective confrontation of theory and data.

The alternative is to move backwards and forwards be-

tween theory and data, trying to fit or accommodate one to

the other in a clear and rigorous fashion, on the one hand

being sensitive to the particularity of the data and on the

other hand being critical about assumptions and theories.

Much damage has been done in archaeology by the crudity of

hypothesis-testing and narrow ‘scientific method’, although

in practice most archaeologists have continued to find that

what they discover is of greater interest and complexity than

their expectations. There is always a surplus of meaning

which requires a more sensitive, hermeneutic interpretation.

A properly scientific approach accepts the need to account

for all the data, in all its particularity, and the need for the

critical probing of the only partial independence of theory

and data.

However much they would like to think otherwise, ar-

chaeologists rarely work as positivist natural scientists. We

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Reading the past

would argue that on the whole what they tend to do is follow

simple hermeneutic procedures within a stream of changing

interpretation. This realization has been clarified by the need

to interpret internal meanings but it is equally relevant to all

types of archaeology.

Any discussion of ‘reading’ the past or of internal mean-

ings has hints of empathy and a lack of science, so that the

statement ‘it makes sense to me’ appears to become the final

arbiter of any debate. Archaeology thus becomes prey to spe-

cial interests. Post-processual archaeologists would, however,

reject empathy and would reject the notion that anyone’s

interpretation of the past, however unrelated to the data, is

equally valid. Some would emphasize the contribution made

by debate between different perspectives on the past as one

mechanism for the critique of vested interests and invalid in-

terpretations. Others (e.g. Shanks and Tilley 1987a and b)

would describe the archaeological data as ‘networks of re-

sistances’ which constrain what can be said about the past.

Our own view is that even this is too ‘presentist’ and does

not allow that our conception of the present is partly built

out of the reality of the past. For example, it is undoubtedly

the case that our present ideas about evolution and progress

have been contributed to by the hard findings of archaeolo-

gists. Equally, archaeology is what it is today in each country

partly because of what has been found. What has been found

is a product of what has been looked for but it also affects the

way we look (for example, concentrating our researches on

certain wealthy or visible sites, regions or periods). Archae-

ology, the present and the past, subject and object, are in a

dialectical relationship which is always in movement. They,

we, depend on each other and bring each other into existence.

Archaeology and its distinctive role

In order for a broader, post-processual archaeology to be

achieved, studies of the three types of meaning of material

objects (as object, as signs and as operational contexts) need

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Conclusion: archaeology as archaeology

to be incorporated. In this way the four general issues of post-

processual archaeology (the relationships between norm and

individual, process and structure, ideal and material, subject

and object) can be addressed. It might seem that in becoming

part of such debates, and using theories from other disciplines,

archaeology would lose some of its distinctiveness and inde-

pendence. Post-processual archaeology is part of wider con-

cerns within social theory, and contextual analysis derives

much of its methods and theory from linguistic analysis.

Yet it has also been argued in this book that contextual

archaeological data can be examined in their own terms, and

that the specificity of past meanings can be approached. Per-

haps archaeology can contribute its own data to the general

debates, using its own methods and theories to do so, as an in-

dependent discipline. We wish now to examine the proposal,

again different from traditional and processual archaeology,

that archaeology is neither history nor anthropology, but just

archaeology.

The claim that ‘archaeology is archaeology is archaeology’

was forcefully made by David Clarke. His Analytical Ar-

chaeology (1968) is the most significant attempt to develop

a peculiarly archaeological methodology based on archaeo-

logical contexts. In his later Glastonbury study (1972; see

above, p. 68), Clarke conducted a detailed contextual analy-

sis incorporating a structural element. Apart from his non-

alignment with the view that ‘archaeology is anthropology or

it is nothing’, Clarke differed from much processual or ‘New’

archaeology because he retained a concern with cultural en-

tities, their diffusion and continuities. Despite a strong nat-

ural science element in his work, he was suspicious of too

easily imposing and ‘testing’ general laws. There are clearly

many similarities, therefore, with the more limited account

of a contextual approach provided in this volume. The ma-

jor difference, apart from the detailed type of methodology

embraced, is in Clarke’s failure to identify ways of moving

beyond the data to interpret them. In Analytical Archaeology

his scheme is analytical and empirical. The social and cultural

meanings of his archaeological patterns are far from clear.

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Reading the past

Simple cross-cultural interpretations were imposed (for exam-

ple regarding the significance of regional cultural groupings),

and there is little concern with meaning content and ‘history

from the inside’ in this or any of his later works.

Taylor too had claimed (1948) that ‘archaeology is nei-

ther history nor anthropology’ (ibid., p. 44). Again there are

many similarities between the view put forward in this vol-

ume and his conjunctive approach, which had as its primary

goal ‘the elucidation of cultural conjunctives, the associations

and relationships, the “affinities”, within the manifestation

under investigation’ (ibid., pp. 95–6). The aim was to exam-

ine contextual information in each unit or site as a discrete

entity within its own cultural expression, with an empha-

sis on the cultural context in contrast to the comparative

method. Further, ‘culture is a mental phenomenon, consist-

ing of the content of minds, not of material objects or ob-

servable behaviour’ (ibid., p. 98). In applied examples, Taylor

demonstrates the ability of archaeologists to reconstruct ideas

in the covert culture of past societies. For example, in an ex-

amination of cloth decoration Taylor notes whether cords are

twisted to the left or right, and goes on to identify structuring

principles, one being that Coahuila textile shows ‘unconcern

with regularized decorative wholes’ (ibid., p. 182).

Despite these clear similarities with the viewpoints dis-

cussed in chapter 9, there are some important limitations in

his approach, recalling the critical comments made earlier in

this volume. First, Taylor claims a categoric distinction be-

tween idea and practice: ‘Culture itself consists of ideas, not

processes’ (ibid., p. 110). This is the opposite to Binford’s

claim, and it is equally inadequate.

Second, Taylor’s view is normative, although not in the

sense that ‘societies’ somehow share an outlook on the world.

Taylor suggested that culture can be either shared or indi-

vidual and idiosyncratic. However, we would take issue with

Taylor in regard to the second meaning of normative – that

behaviour is rule-bound. Individuals or groups are so con-

trolled by systems or codes or structures that they cannot

usurp them. Taylor appears to talk of culture as made up

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Conclusion: archaeology as archaeology

of rules of this kind, rather than of contextual decisions in-

formed by rules and dispositions. In this sense his approach

is not contextual (situationally contextual) but normative.

Despite these and other differences with Taylor’s approach

(in particular Taylor does not develop a socially self-conscious

and critical stance in relation to the subjectivity of data de-

scription and interpretation), it is clear that Taylor, in com-

mon with Collingwood, has much to offer contemporary

archaeologists. It is not our concern to deny links to ear-

lier archaeologists – indeed it seems necessary to rebuild the

bridges which were so harshly broken by processual archae-

ology, and to re-evaluate what has been termed the ‘long sleep

of archaeological theory’ (Renfrew 1983b).

In this volume, the notion that archaeology should have

an independent existence, despite its involvements in general

theory and method, has the following components. First, we

have already commented in chapter 9 that archaeology can

be distinguished from antiquarianism by its concern with the

contexts of material objects. It has been argued that archae-

ologists can incorporate inductive methods in building up

from contextual associations and contrasts towards a critical

understanding of specific historical meanings. These readings

and interpretations are translations in a different time; they

make universal assumptions, but the results are not wholly de-

pendent on the present. The readings inform and contribute

to the present through critical evaluation of the past. How

much archaeologists can interpret depends on the richness

of their data networks and on their knowledge and abilities,

yet there is a clear potential for independent archaeological

contribution.

Second, while archaeologists may read material culture, we

do not read it as if it were text. There are distinct differences

between material culture and spoken or written language, dif-

ferences which need to be researched further. Material culture

often appears to be a simpler but more ambiguous language,

and, in comparison to speech, it often seems more fixed and

durable. In addition, most words are arbitrary signifiers of the

concepts signified: thus, the relationship between the word

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Reading the past

‘tree’, as opposed to ‘arbre’ or ‘tarm’, and the concept ‘tree’

is conventional, and historical. But a material culture ‘word’,

such as a photograph or sculpture of a human being, is not

an arbitrary representation of that which is signified: thus,

in contrast to the majority of words, many material culture

signs are iconic or indexical. These and other differences im-

ply that archaeologists have to develop their own theory and

method for reading their own particular data.

Third, archaeology can avail itself of evidence of human

cultural activity that covers enormous spans of time. This

long-term perspective has the potential for leading to new

insights into the four main issues in post-processual archae-

ology. For example, over the long term, what role is played

by the individual event in the general processes of social and

cultural change, and what is the relationship between struc-

ture and process? In the short term, it may appear that social

and economic determinants are more important, but over the

long term the social and economic decisions may be seen to

form repeated patterns that have an underlying structural or

cultural rhythm. Initial archaeological work in this direction

was discussed in chapter 5.

In these various ways, archaeology can be seen as an inde-

pendent discipline groping towards independent method and

theory, but necessarily linked to and contributing to general

social theory. The problem of the relationship between the

particular and the general, which underlies the three points

discussed in the previous paragraphs, is itself a wide issue to

which archaeology can make a particular contribution.

Archaeological objects raise questions about the relation-

ship between the specific and the general, in an extreme

and evocative form. This relationship, apparently ignored

in much recent academic archaeology, has been captured by

Mags Harries in her public art on the streets of Boston (fron-

tispiece). We claim that her art is archaeological, first because

she recognizes the close immediacy of everyday mundane

objects, their historical specificity. Often produced to be left

behind, unintended and unnoticed, the objects capture a fleet-

ing moment in concrete form. Second, however, we feel that

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Conclusion: archaeology as archaeology

we understand the objects, that there is a commonality and

nearness, even over great expanses of time. We are confronted

by the enormity of time and the generality of experience. In

this volume we have tried to argue that we can understand

this distance and generality only by exploiting to the full the

concrete everydayness of the artifacts themselves, in all their

specificity.

On the streets of Boston, Mags Harries creates archaeo-

logical objects. Her art is archaeological in the two senses

just defined. For archaeology itself to become archaeological

once again, it must involve more than digging up more ar-

tifacts and putting them in museums and into socio-cultural

sub-systems – we need to examine the specific contexts of ob-

jects in the past, in order to debate our own contexts in the

face of the generality of the long term.

In discussing tentative steps in these directions, this volume

intentionally raises more questions than it answers – about

the relationships between individuals and societies, about the

existence of general laws, about the role of archaeologists in

society, and so on. The meaning of the past is more com-

plex than we might have thought. However, rather than

taking the line that archaeology now appears hopelessly diffi-

cult, we have in fact suggested that archaeologists can return

to basic principles in translating the meaning of past texts

into their own contemporary language. The methods of ex-

cavation and interpretation based on the notion of context

are well-developed. Using such methods – Collingwood’s

question-and-answer procedure, notions of coherence and

correspondence, the idea that meaning is constructed through

structured sets of differences – and recognizing the impor-

tance of critical analysis, it is argued that contextual infor-

mation from the past can lead to understanding of functional

and ideational meanings. In this way long-term history can

be reconstructed and can contribute to debate within modern

social theory and within society at large.

247

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