Archaeologies Of The Heart

Archaeological practice is currently shifting in response to feminist, indigenous, activist, community-based, and anarchic critiques of how archaeology is practiced and how science is used to interpret the past lives of people. Inspired by the calls for a different way of doing archaeology, this volume presents a case here for a heart-centered archaeological practice. Heart-centered practice emerged in care-based disciplines, such as nursing and various forms of therapy, as a way to recognize the importance of caring for those on whom we work, and as an avenue to explore how our interactions with others impacts our own emotions and heart. Archaeologists are disciplined to separate mind and heart, a division which harkens back to the origins of western thought. The dualism between the mental and the physical is fundamental to the concept that humans can objectively study the world without being immersed in it. Scientific approaches to understanding the world assume there is an objective world to be studied and that humans must remove themselves from that world in order to find the truth. An archaeology of the heart rejects this dualism; rather, we see mind, body, heart, and spirit as inextricable. An archaeology of the heart provides a new space for thinking through an integrated, responsible, and grounded archaeology, where there is care for the living and the dead, acknowledges the need to build responsible relationships with communities, and with the archaeological record, and emphasize the role of rigor in how work and research is conducted. The contributions bring together archaeological practitioners from across the globe in different contexts to explore how heart-centered practice can impact archaeological theory, methodology, and research throughout the discipline.

Senses and affects, despite what some schools of thought in modern science think, are not only a physiological tool that captures the stimuli present in the world, but are also an apparatus that constantly updates our position in the world. They are material-discursive practices that we employ on a daily basis in the interpretation and evaluation of the world, a material-discursive practice that limits, delimitates, includes and excludes, arranges and rearranges the elements we grasp and interpret within the assemblies in which we are participating. That is why it is so important to understand how we are educated within these material-discursive practices, for this is the first step towards freeing our sense-affective processes and decolonizing our worldview. An archaeology of the senses and affects is aesthetically decolonized. It recognizes that we have been educated within a senso-affective aesthetic that normalizes and colonizes our behaviour. An archaeology of the senses and affects fights against epistemological violence like that manifested in the thinking that people in the past, as well as the present, thought and acted like Westerners.

With case studies from North America to Australia and South Africa and covering topics from archaeological ethics to the repatriation of human remains, this book charts the development of a new form of archaeology that is informed by indigenous values and agendas. This involves fundamental changes in archaeological theory and practice as well as substantive changes in the power relations between archaeologists and indigenous peoples. Questions concerning the development of ethical archaeological practices are at the heart of this process.

Archaeologists tend to rely on scientific methods to reconstruct past histories, an approach that can alienate local indigenous populations and limit the potential of archaeological research. Essays in this volume argue that listening to and learning from local and descendant communities is vital for interpreting the histories and heritage values of archaeological sites. Case studies from around the world demonstrate how a humanistic perspective with people-centric practice decolonizes the discipline by unlocking an intellectual space and collaborative role for indigenous people. These examples show how listening to oral traditions has opened up broader understandings of ancient rituals in Tanzania—where indigenous knowledge paved the way to significant archaeological finds about local iron technology. Archaeologists working with owners of traditional food ovens in Northern Australia discovered the function of mysterious earth mounds nearby, and the involvement of local communities in the interpretation of the Sigiriya World Heritage Site in Sri Lanka led to a better understanding of indigenous values. The ethical implications for positioning archaeology as a way to bridge divisions are also explored. In a case study from Northern Ireland, researchers risked sparking further conflict by listening to competing narratives about the country’s political past, and a study of archival records from nineteenth-century grave excavations in British Columbia, where remains were taken without local permission, reveals why indigenous people in the region still regard archaeology with deep suspicion. The value of cultural apprenticeship to those who have long-term relationships with the landscape is nearly forgotten today, contributors argue. This volume points the way to a reawakening of the core principles of anthropology in archaeology and heritage studies. Contributors: Peter Schmidt | Alice Kehoe | Kathryn Weedman Arthur | Catherine Carlson | Billy Ó Foghlú | Audrey Horning | Steve Mrozowski | George Nicholas | Innocent Pikirayi | Jonathan Walz | Camina Weasel Moccasin | Jagath Weerasinghe

Grounded in decades of research, this book covers contemporary matters such as the entanglement of race and nationalism with archaeology.

Bringing together 25 case studies from archaeological projects worldwide, Engaging Archaeology candidly explores personal experiences, successes, challenges, and even frustrations from established and senior archaeologists who share invaluable practical advice for students and early-career professionals engaged in planning and carrying out their own archaeological research. With engaging chapters, such as ‘How Not to Write a PhD Thesis on Neolithic Italy’ and ‘Accidentally Digging Central America's Earliest Village’, readers are transported to the desks, digs, and data-labs of the authors, learning the skills, tricks of the trade, and potential pit-falls of archaeological fieldwork and collections research. Case studies collectively span many regions, time periods, issues, methods, and materials. From the pre-Columbian Andes to Viking Age Iceland, North America to the Middle East, Medieval Ireland to remote north Australia, and Europe to Africa and India, Engaging Archaeology is packed with rich, first-hand source material. Unique and thoughtful, Stephen W. Silliman’s guide is an essential course book for early-stage researchers, advanced undergraduates, and new graduate students, as well as those teaching and mentoring. It will also be insightful and enjoyable reading for veteran archaeologists.

"Much needed. Fills an existing gap in the historical period with a wide range of examples from all over the world."--Margarita D az-Andreu, author of A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology: Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Past "Provides new, nuanced perspectives that will inspire studies in the materiality of identity creation and transformation in the past and its role in heritage creation in the present."--Stephen A. Brighton, author of Historical Archaeology of the Irish Diaspora: A Transnational Approach "Thoughtful, challenging, and original. Expands the spatial and temporal parameters of the growing literature on nationalism and national identity."--Philip L. Kohl, coeditor of Selective Remembrances: Archaeology in the Construction, Commemoration, and Consecration of National Pasts The Country Where My Heart Is explores the archaeology of the period during which modern nationalism developed. While much of the previous research has focused on how governments and other institutions manipulate the archaeology of the distant past for ideological reasons, the contributors to this volume articulate what material artifacts of the modern world can reveal about the rise and fall of modern nationalism and national identities. They explore themes of colonialism, religion, political power and struggle, mythmaking, and the formation of heritage and memory not only in modern nation-states but also in places where the geographical boundaries of a "homeland" are harder to draw. Featuring case studies from northwestern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Americas, the essays examine how historical archaeology informs the concept of national identity and the formation of the modern nation and how this identity is intimately and inseparably entangled with, yet still distinct from, ethnicity and race. Alasdair Brooks, honorary visiting fellow at the University of Leicester, is the editor of The Importance of British Material Culture to Historical Archaeologies of the Nineteenth Century. Natascha Mehler, senior researcher at the German Maritime Museum and honorary reader at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, is the editor of Historical Archaeology in Central Europe.

In its analysis of the archaeologies and histories of the northern fringe of Europe, this book provides a focus on animistic–shamanistic cosmologies and the associated human–environment relations from the Neolithic to modern times. The North has fascinated Europeans throughout history, as an enchanted world of natural and supernatural marvels: a land of light and dark, of northern lights and the midnight sun, of witches and magic and of riches ranging from amber to oil. Northern lands conflate fantasies and realities. Rich archaeological, historical, ethnographic and folkloric materials combine in this book with cutting-edge theoretical perspectives drawn from relational ontologies and epistemologies, producing a fresh approach to the prehistory and history of a region that is pivotal to understanding Europe-wide processes, such as Neolithization and modernization. This book examines the mythical and actual northern worlds, with northern relational modes of perceiving and engaging with the world on the one hand and the ‘place’ of the North in European culture on the other. This book is an indispensable read for scholars of archaeology, anthropology, cultural studies and folklore in northern Europe, as well as researchers interested in how the North is intertwined with developments in the broader European and Eurasian world. It provides a deep-time understanding of globally topical issues and conflicting interests, as expressed by debates and controversies around Arctic resources, nature preservation and indigenous rights.