At this year's beginning Doug Rocks-MacQueen called for another blogging carnival #blogarch.
A few years back there was a survey of archaeologists to determine the 25 Grand Challenges that archaeology could help solve: The results have been published by a group of renowed American scholars in American Antiquity:
- K. W. Kintigh/J. H. Altschul/M. C. Beaudry u. a., Grand Challenges for Archaeology. Am. Ant. 79 (1), 2014, 5–24. pdf.
- Archaeology Today – Archaeology Tomorrow Part I: Assessing Challenges – anthropocene, constructions of identity, heritage demolition…
- Archaeology Today – Archaeology Tomorrow Part II: Suggesting a solution – “Neoprocessualism”
In recent
years, maybe beginning already about 10 years ago, the emergence of a new
paradigm involving archaeology and other historic sciences was to be observed.
This still somewhat gradual change is not so clearly visible within archaeology
itself, but rather in disciplines making use of archaeological and historic
data, namely Geography, Palaeoclimatology, or Genetics. Kristiansen et al.
2014 refer to this shift as the “Third Science Revolution” in archaeology.
Additionally to the fields listed above, long
durée time series driving ultimately from archaeological and historic data
are increasingly also used in the emerging field of mathematical simulation of
historic processes. One aspect of this field is what had been termed “cliodynamics”
by Turchin (2008), a mathematical approach aiming at making history – and
archaeology – a predictive science.
These
diverse and multi-disciplinary approaches will result in a turn towards a more scientistic
approach to archaeology, somewhat opposed to the by now largely vanishing
post-processual paradigm. This future paradigm might once, in hindsight, be
termed “Neoprocessualism”.
Such a turn
appears very timely indeed, as these approaches make use of archaeological and
historical data with the aim of explaining past modes of change (German Wandlungsprozesse), not with the aim of
explaining them per se, but rather
with understanding the mechanisms behind “culture change” in general and behind
possible future changes in particular. Given, as outlined in part I of thisblog contribution, that we live in a period of what might indeed be a period of
grave changes, this seems to be an important objective. Together with other
historic sciences may archaeology, with a careful preparation of its long
time-scale trajectories’ data, play not only one major but indeed the major
role.
In this the
many different archaeologies will have to cooperate in information exchange and
this on multiple scales from local, to regional to global levels as only
multi-scalar approaches will allow to understand the complex dynamics of
change. Digitally prepared data bases and their public allocation is but one
step in this process towards Neoprocessualism, another is the blending with
data from other disciplines with the aim of a multi-disciplinary approach. In
archaeology this will typically be data from the environmental sciences and/or
palaeoclimatology, but also genetics and linguistics. In Europe,
where the anthropology component in archaeology is less emphasized, sociology
and the behavioural sciences will contribute hitherto neglected aspects. Thus,
“Neoprocessualism” would ultimately have to go much beyond the processual
approaches of the past, which had been at least partly rightfully been
criticized. Neoprocessual approaches to the past should attempt to seek a
balance between external triggers, mechanisms, and the acting individual and
the acting groups and communities. Human choice is to be understood within its
limiting margins but also with its freedom of action (German Handlungsspielraum).
The
argument could certainly be much extended, but the form of a blog contribution
seems unfit for a thorough in-depth study.
All I
wanted to say here is that such a meta-approach with a predictive aim, based on
carefully prepared archaeological data series, may indeed add to an engrossed
role of our understanding and dealing with the past, and to an engrossed social
and political role of our profession.
References:
K. Kristiansen, Towards a New Paradigm? The Third Science Revolution and its Possible Consequences in Archaeology. Current Swedish Archaeology 22, 2014, 11-34.P. Turchin, Arise ‘cliodynamics’. Nature 454, 2008, 34-35.
Links:
Interne Links:
- http://archaeologik.blogspot.de/2016/01/historische-modellierung-im.html
- http://archaeologik.blogspot.de/2016/01/archaeonik-1-wie-archaologen-die.html
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