Archaeology Of Communities

The Archaeology of Communities develops a critical evaluation of community and shows that it represents more than a mere aggregation of households. This collection bridges the gap between studies of ancient societies and ancient households. The community is taken to represent more than a mere aggregation of households, it exists in part through shared identities, as well as frequent interaction and inter-household integration. Drawing on case studies which range in location from the Mississippi Valley to New Mexico, from the Southern Andes to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Madison County, Virginia, the book explores and discusses communities from a whole range of periods, from Pre-Columbian to the late Classic. Discussions of actual communities are reinforced by strong debate on, for example, the distinction between 'Imagined Community' and 'Natural Community.'

Introduction: the persistence of community -- Communal complexity on the margins -- Measuring social complexity in the early iron age -- Producing community -- Managing community -- Conclusion: the complex community.

“Community Based Participatory Research in archaeology finally comes of age with Atalay’s long-anticipated volume. She promotes a collaborative approach to knowledge gathering, interpretation, and use that benefits descendant communities and archaeological practitioners, contributing to a more relevant, rewarding, and responsible archaeology. This is essential reading for anyone who asks why we do archaeology, for whom, and how best can it be done.” – George Nicholas, author of Being and Becoming Indigenous Archaeologists “Sonya Atalay shows archaeologists how the process of Community Based Participatory Research can move our efforts at collaboration with local communities beyond theory and good intentions to a sustainable practice. This is a game-changing book that every archaeologist must read.” – Randall H. McGuire, author of Archaeology as Political Action

This volume provides new insights into the distinctive contributions that community archaeology and heritage make to the decolonization of archaeological practice. Using innovative approaches, the contributors explore important initiatives which have protected and revitalized local heritage, initiatives that involved archaeologists as co-producers rather than leaders. These case studies underline the need completely reshape archaeological practice, engaging local and indigenous communities in regular dialogue and recognizing their distinctive needs, in order to break away from the top-down power relationships that have previously characterized archaeology in Africa. Community Archaeology and Heritage in Africa reflects a determined effort to change how archaeology is taught to future generations. Through community-based participatory approaches, archaeologists and heritage professionals can benefit from shared resources and local knowledge; and by sharing decision-making with members of local communities, archaeological inquiry can enhance their way of life, ameliorate their human rights concerns, and meet their daily needs to build better futures. Exchanging traditional power structures for research design and implementation, the examples outlined in this volume demonstrate the discipline’s exciting capacity to move forward to achieve its potential as a broader, more accessible, and more inclusive field.

Communities in Contact represents the outcome of the Fourth International Leiden in the Caribbean symposium entitled From Prehistory to Ethnography in the circum-Caribbean. The contributions included in this volume cover a wide range of topics from a variety of disciplines - archaeology, bioarchaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography - revolving around the themes of mobility and exchange, culture contact, and settlement and community. The application of innovative approaches and the multi-dimensional character of these essays have provided exiting new perspectives on the indigenous communities of the circum-Caribbean and Amazonian regions throughout prehistory until the present.

This book traces the development of 'community archaeology', identifying both its advantages and disadvantages by describing how and why tensions have arisen between archaeological and community understandings of the past. The focus of this book is the conceptual disjunction between heritage and data and the problems this poses for both archaeologists and communities in communicating and engaging with each other. In order to explain the extent of the miscommunication that can occur, the authors examine the ways in which a range of community groups, including communities of expertise, define and negotiate memory and identity. Importantly, they explore the ways in which these expressions are used, or are taken up, in struggles over cultural recognition - and ultimately, the practical, ethical, political and theoretical implications this has for archaeologists engaging in community work. Finally, they argue that there are very real advantages for archaeological research, theory and practice to be gained from engaging with communities.

Community Archaeology is an assessment of the aims, results and validity of the broad spectrum of community archaeology initiatives taking place today. The project arose from a shared belief in cooperation between professional and non-professional archaeologists and the belief that archaeology does not have to take place in private between consenting companies. The 15 papers presented here are startlingly and pleasingly diverse, drawing on the expertise and experience of student archaeologists, academics, professionals, amateurs, educators and independent practitioners. A number of interesting common themes emerge, including general theoretical reflections on the nature and significance of community archaeology, education (which highlights the common concentration on excavation within community archaeology and the concomitant neglect of post-excavation work), funding and sustainability, namely the dichotomy between one-off or medium-term projects that are funded and long-term projects that tend to be staffed by volunteers. As well as the difficulties involved, the collection also highlights the pleasures and emotional dimensions of engaging with material remains of the past.

Archaeologists study a wide array of material remains to propose conclusions about non-material aspects of culture. The intricacies of these findings have increased over recent decades, but only limited attention has been paid to what the archaeological record can tell us about the transfer of cultural knowledge through apprenticeship. Apprenticeship is broadly defined as the transmission of culture through a formal or informal teacher–pupil relationship. This collection invites a wide discussion, citing case studies from all over the world and yet focuses the scholarship into a concise set of contributions. The chapters in this volume demonstrate how archaeology can benefit greatly from the understanding of the social dimensions of knowledge transfer. This book also examines apprenticeship in archaeology against a backdrop of sociological and cognitive psychology literature, to enrich the understanding of the relationship between material remains and enculturation. Each of the authors in this collection looks specifically at how material remains can reveal several specific aspects of ancient cultures: What is the human potential for learning? How do people learn? Who is teaching? Why are they learning? What are the results of such learning? How do we recognize knowledge transfer in the archaeological record? These fundamental questions are featured in various forms in all chapters of the book. With case studies from the American Southwest, Alaska, Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Mesopotamia, this book will have broad appeal for scholars—particularly those concerned with cultural transmission and traditions of learning and education—all over the world.