What do you think about archaeology?

[Equality]

I did Archaeology a long time ago. I admit my choice wasn't exactly based on careful research and any consideration of what I was going to do after I graduated ... it was more the hope that I'd get to visit places like South America and Egypt and go diving through wrecks or sunken cities.

Two years of tedium followed before my third year when a new lecturer started and presented a different view - first year and second year was all 'fact', 'fact', 'fact' - remember this, learn this, repeat this in essays and exams. Then in the third year we were shown just how much our interpretation of sites and finds has changed through the decades.

We get a glimpse of the past - but how much has been destroyed, covered up or stolen and sold? Even with the stuff we have found we're still trying to make the best guess but can't be sure it's accurate. Is it a massive waste of time? No. There's enough good stuff out there to be fascinating. Is studying archaeology going to be anything like Indiana Jones? Fuck no. (but we did have one guy in lectures who showed up dressed like him)

 

[McMullen]

What do I think about archeology?

Does anyone think about anything else when archeology is mentioned?

Well, I think of people enthusiastically climbing down into pits in the desert to collect ancient feces, wearing head-to-toe plastic suits and facemasks to make sure that they don't contaminate the crap.

I think of people who love their jobs.

 

[TWRule]

Maybe since the OP has a 'positive view', he ought to just go ahead and make the case he clearly wants to make?

I'll play devil's advocate. Archaeology is a pointless endeavor. It relies on a the notion that one is somehow acquiring 'knowledge' by digging up artifacts, when in fact it's the case that one had a story/hypothesis they made up in mind ahead of time (usually some variant of a conventional narrative) and ad hoc explain their findings according to that, or at most deviate just enough to be able to tell some coherent story that the artifacts are explainable through, in any case. At all stages, it is the archaeologist's construction that is doing the 'work', not any 'knowledge'. So why not just do "history" without consulting artifacts, if it's going to be arbitrary anyway - besides perhaps that arbitrarily checking our stories against 'artifacts' forces our creativity into (possibly) fruitful bounds?

Yeah, no, that's really not how archaeology works at all.

Thanks for this constructive contribution to the discussion. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to 'how archaeology works' then?

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Maybe since the OP has a 'positive view', he ought to just go ahead and make the case he clearly wants to make?

I'll play devil's advocate. Archaeology is a pointless endeavor. It relies on a the notion that one is somehow acquiring 'knowledge' by digging up artifacts, when in fact it's the case that one had a story/hypothesis they made up in mind ahead of time (usually some variant of a conventional narrative) and ad hoc explain their findings according to that, or at most deviate just enough to be able to tell some coherent story that the artifacts are explainable through, in any case. At all stages, it is the archaeologist's construction that is doing the 'work', not any 'knowledge'. So why not just do "history" without consulting artifacts, if it's going to be arbitrary anyway - besides perhaps that arbitrarily checking our stories against 'artifacts' forces our creativity into (possibly) fruitful bounds?

Yeah, no, that's really not how archaeology works at all.

Thanks for this constructive contribution to the discussion. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to 'how archaeology works' then?

I'm not here to listen to my perspective; I already know what that is.

I'd have to ask why you have such a negative view of archaeology, though. What gives you the impression that it's all just guesswork?

 

[lechat]

archeology? garbage.
i could give half a fuck what people did 200 years ago to make some pot that stored some shit that helped them better their life by .0002%.
how bout you study a real field that teaches people something that might progress humanity instead of focusing on how inefficient and miserable the world used to be or how cool it was to make something in 3 months of hard labor that a machine can make 10 of a minuet with modern technology.

 

[TWRule]

I'm not here to listen to my perspective; I already know what that is.

I know what my perspective is too, but I'm sharing it - and not because I want to contribute to a survey of views on the topic, but because I was under the impression we were having a discussion about it, toward which end, as I mentioned, I was criticizing a particular sort of conception of archaeology and its purpose.

I'd have to ask why you have such a negative view of archaeology, though. What gives you the impression that it's all just guesswork?

Firstly, I don't think it's "all just guesswork" - I apologize if I gave that impression. What I think is that it follows a certain method, and that every method has presuppositions which are constitutive to it. In other words, the findings a certain method yields are by and large a direct result of how that method is constructed. For this and other reasons, I am hostile to not just archaeology, but any science insofar as it is taken to yield 'fact', 'knowledge', 'truth', etc (these things are usually understood as somehow transcending the context of the theoretical frameworks in which they make sense). More precisely, I am not hostile to the sciences, but hostile to a certain way they are presented in the public consciousness.

On the other hand - given that I don't believe it can yield 'knowledge' in the unqualified sense - for me, archaeology itself is only valuable insofar as it yields practical utility (and admittedly, not knowing an awful lot about archaeology in particular, I'm not entirely sure how it does so in any unique way).

I'm open to listen to your (or anyone's) case for either how it does yield utility, and/or why its value somehow extends beyond that.

 

[Stasisesque]

Well, I just achieved a distinction in a material culture exam, so I guess I can't really say I don't appreciate archaeology. The theory is dull as dish water though, and I only did the module for the credits. Still, I respect those who go in to it as a career choice.

 

[Reed Spacer]

I dig it.
...
...
...
Oh shut up; you were all thinking it.

 

[Tiger King]

I really wanted to be an archeologist when I was little, I loved dinosaurs and imagined digging up their bones and investigating them.
Good luck to the op! Beats the hell out of an office job in my opinion.

 

[Muspelheim]

archeology? garbage.
i could give half a fuck what people did 200 years ago to make some pot that stored some shit that helped them better their life by .0002%.
how bout you study a real field that teaches people something that might progress humanity instead of focusing on how inefficient and miserable the world used to be or how cool it was to make something in 3 months of hard labor that a machine can make 10 of a minuet with modern technology.

How do you contribute towards the end of progressing humanity, then?

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I'll start off by saying that your post does call archaeology guesswork if not outright intellectual fraud.

It relies on a the notion that one is somehow acquiring 'knowledge' by digging up artifacts, when in fact it's the case that one had a story/hypothesis they made up in mind ahead of time (usually some variant of a conventional narrative) and ad hoc explain their findings according to that, or at most deviate just enough to be able to tell some coherent story that the artifacts are explainable through, in any case.

So why not just do "history" without consulting artifacts, if it's going to be arbitrary anyway - besides perhaps that arbitrarily checking our stories against 'artifacts' forces our creativity into (possibly) fruitful bounds?

If there is a "moral" issue, it might be just an issue of how questionable the motivations and projects of someone who wants to go digging, pretending to be discovering truths as they go, so that they might either simply win fame/fortune for themselves, amuse themselves at trivial fetishistic curiosities, or hold their "truth" over the heads of humanity as something that they must accept and regulate their actions by.

(Not full quote)

It's rather hard to read the above in any other way. I'm also confused why you put "artifacts" in quotations. The definition of an artifact is any object that has been manipulated by a human, I don't get how skepticism or sarcasm can be directed towards that. You also seem to have profoundly negative views of archaeologists, looking for personal glory rather than any academic or intellectual standard. I can tell you from experience that archaeology is far from a glorious field and there are far better and easier methods to accomplish that goal.

Your perception of archaeology and science seems to be based on the notion that, as the eloquent Mr. Homes puts it, we twist facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts. There are things that make sense outside of the frameworks we currently possess. When data begins to contradict the paradigm we currently occupy, we change it. We are interested in truth, knowledge and the like and are willing to change our outlook and methods to accomplish that end. We've done so numerous times in the past century.

To give you credit, you just described a mix of two early periods in archaeology; Antiquarianism and Culture-History. Antiquarianism proved useful for collecting artifacts, but not much else and has since received nothing but scorn from the community. Culture-History was interested in human history, but lacked any real way to do it. However, these two paradigms were abandoned shortly after WWII and the advent of technologies that enabled us to accurately date objects. This influenced everything in the field afterwards in ways that it would take far too long to describe here. One way was the complete rejection of grand narratives.

Basically what you need to know about the current methods of archaeology is a strong adherence to the scientific method mixed in with a very self-critical viewpoint. In recent periods (basically mid-90s to today) there has been a much increased focus on the individual and mythology. We'll likely only ever truly know about the minds of those who wrote everything down (read Rome, Greece, Egypt etc) because, like I said, they wrote it down. We don't have an attitude that we're always right either; we know our limitations.

As for the use of archaeology? To be honest I'm not entirely sure myself. I know that many see it as culturally and personally significant to know they possess knowledge of their ancestors. I just find it an interesting field to work in. However, it is always useful to understand the past in order to understand the present and try to foresee our future, enabling us to see patterns within our minds that have been reflected throughout history. Just because something doesn't advance our society such as the physical and biological sciences doesn't mean it's useless or worthless. I'd like to point out that we're on a video gaming forum.

Captcha; science. it works.

How fitting.

 

[TWRule]

I'll start off by saying that your post does call archaeology guesswork if not outright intellectual fraud.

And I'll start off by repeating that you've misunderstood my meaning, as I neither said that nor implied it. I've already explained what I meant; I don't understand why you want to insist I meant something I explicitly denied.

I'm also confused why you put "artifacts" in quotations. The definition of an artifact is any object that has been manipulated by a human, I don't get how skepticism or sarcasm can be directed towards that.

I was not making use of the disciplines own definition of 'artifacts', but a popular consciousness notion which may attach additional meaning to them is why.

You also seem to have profoundly negative views of archaeologists, looking for personal glory rather than any academic or intellectual standard. I can tell you from experience that archaeology is far from a glorious field and there are far better and easier methods to accomplish that goal.

I was not generalizing all archaeologist but speculatively listing possible motives for it. I once considered becoming an archaeologist myself out of a naive hope of adventure or some such, so it's not as though I am demonizing them.

Your perception of archaeology and science seems to be based on the notion that, as the eloquent Mr. Homes puts it, we twist facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts. There are things that make sense outside of the frameworks we currently possess. When data begins to contradict the paradigm we currently occupy, we change it. We are interested in truth, knowledge and the like and are willing to change our outlook and methods to accomplish that end. We've done so numerous times in the past century.

I'm not sure how this necessarily conflicts with anything I said. Sometimes when an anomoly is encountered, it will be explained by ad hoc hypotheses, other times the paradigm will be changed (I might have cited Thomas Kuhn here). My point of emphasis was that the paradigm is always a constructed interpretive scheme, not something 'discovered'. This is true of all the sciences, if not all human enterprises, in my view - which doesn't make 'facts' impossible, but does limit their effective scope to the context of whatever interpretive scheme they are situated in.

As for the use of archaeology? To be honest I'm not entirely sure myself. I know that many see it as culturally and personally significant to know they possess knowledge of their ancestors. I just find it an interesting field to work in. However, it is always useful to understand the past in order to understand the present and try to foresee our future, enabling us to see patterns within our minds that have been reflected throughout history. Just because something doesn't advance our society such as the physical and biological sciences doesn't mean it's useless or worthless. I'd like to point out that we're on a video gaming forum.

It's the 'understanding the past' notion I am critical of too. Again, if we're not taking ourselves to be capable of interpreting the past from some objective viewpoint and instead imposing our own values and creative imaginations upon it, or whatever artifice we choose to designate as relevant, then whatever we 'find' in the past will be more a reflection of ourselves than anything else. That's not to say there isn't some value to archaeology, but it can't truly be that kind of 'historical' value, in the sense of 'finding things out' about how the past was. Even texts found are of course subject to interpretation themselves.

Also, I was saying that I can only understand archaeology as being well justified through utility, not that utility should be a universal measure of value. I'm a philosophy major, after all.

 

[Bertylicious]

Archaeology is basically a degree in digging shit up then bullshitting about it.

Do a useful degree like maths, medicine or media studies!