MODERN-WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY:

Presently Looking Forward to the Past

Ethan Lazuk

ANTY 450: Term Paper

Lazuk

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the problematic relationship between Archaeology and

modernity, specifically the self-deception among Archaeologists that modernity is

exceptional and therefore distinguished from the past by its newness. The

argument of this paper, based on the theoretical perspectives of Modern-World

Archaeology, is that Archaeologists, rather than separating present and past,

while fixating their efforts on the latter, should view modernity as a temporal

period not unlike any other, while the timeline for research should not reflect the

past alone, but give consideration to the past, the modern present, as well as the

future. This paper looks at three international examples of Modern-World

Archaeology in Argentina, India, and Scotland, in addition to an ethical

perspective from the context of Archaeology in modern conflict zones. The final

section will incorporate a comparison between Modern-World Archaeology and

Historical Archaeology in order to highlight the main points from this paper, while

demonstrating the significance of Modern-World Archaeology for solving the

illusion of exceptional modernity.

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INTRODUCTION

There is a tendency for archaeologists to rely on temporal categories.

Research efforts have remained focused on the past, especially the pre-

Columbian era before roughly 1450 C.E., while the present is an exceptional

temporal period, differentiated from the past by its unique progresses, and

therefore excluded from temporal connection (Dalglish, 2005; Lee Dawdy, 2010;

Orser Jr., 2008). Addressing modern ruins specifically, Lee Dawdy writes in

“Clockpunk anthropology and the ruins of modernity,” (2010) “Western observers

of recent ruins have found them banal, tragic, or noisome. Romantic views are

usually reserved for the ruins of a more distant past,” (p. 761). But this mentality

is changing at present, as the significance of past-present connections to

archaeological research is increasing.

We are in the midst of an “archaeological turn” in which time and

temporality are viewed with a renewed sense of appreciation for the “multilinear

genealogy” that connects the modern-present with the romantic past, creating a

solid temporal linearity (Lee Dawdy, 2010, p. 761). The goal of this

archaeological turn is to reclassify the modern-present, as well as the romantic

past, in order to decrease the influence that temporal boundaries play in

archaeological research. By looking to the present, archaeologists have the

potential not just to explain current phenomena in terms of past causality, but

also to help in the solving of present day problems of society by evaluating them

with a uniquely global perspective.

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Modern-World Archaeology is one type of archaeology that specifically

deals with research problems addressing some aspect of the present according

to methodologies that incorporate global, multi-site, and temporally redefined

considerations. This is a new and growing field within archaeology, and for that

reason it requires more reiteration of its common attributes than other subfields

might. We must also rely on a thinner library of existing literature. This means

that information about Modern-World Archaeology does not present itself

obviously, but instead must be cherry-picked and interpreted based on sources

that incorporate Modern-World Archaeology into their research practices, or

address other topic areas relevant to Modern-World Archaeology.

BACKGROUND and OVERVIEW

The purpose of Modern-World Archaeology is to link the “old” and the

“new” worlds (Orser Jr., 2008). What is special about Modern-World Archaeology

is not just its global scope, but also its global focus. On account of this global

focus, archaeologists who practice Modern-World Archaeology “are constantly

aware of the extra-site connections a site’s inhabitants maintained with the

‘outside world,’ however one might wish to define or contextualize this ‘world’” (p.

184). Simply by doing this archaeologists can “formulate a more complete

understanding of colonialism, capitalism, and the genesis of the modern age”

(ibid). The outside world is thus understood multi-dimensionally, and even if

Modern-World Archaeology begins with the examination of a single-site, its

research efforts always proceed outward from there, moving horizontally with

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multiple sites and/or linearly backward and forward from the site’s terminal of

habitation.

The extended temporal purview of Modern-World Archaeology reaches

beyond the single site to the wider world and “foregrounds the global and the

local” (Orser Jr., 2008, p. 184). Previous archaeological research efforts could be

accused of having an affinity with micro-historical analysis given their tendency to

focus on the minutia excavated from a single site. Even though Modern-World

Archaeology does not engage in such practices, this does not mean that it

ignores the local for the global because “all archaeological research must begin

locally at the site-, intra-site-, or feature-level” (ibid, p. 185). Therefore, what

distinguishes Modern-World Archaeology is not the absence of

acknowledgement for the local, but rather the claim that archaeological research

should not terminate at the terminal limits of a site.

Archaeology has traditionally been focused on single-site research

projects. The amount of procedural work that goes into fulfilling archaeological

research projects at a single-site can be staggering. In terms of material culture,

many great and meaningful artifacts are uncovered. There is also a high-degree

of localized information about societal structure and practices from in between

the terminal dates of a site’s occupation. All of this information has the potential

to fulfill the academic purposes of the archaeological field, which is to provide

information for the sake of humanity’s betterment and self-understanding.

According to previous and more traditional archaeological theories, a single-site

produces sufficient information to satisfy the research aims. But for Modern-

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World Archaeology the single-site is never sufficient on its own because it does

not fully constitute the full-spectrum of required analysis (Orser Jr., 2008).

Charles E. Orser Jr. (2008) explains the justification for this extended

analysis in “Historical archaeology as modern-world archaeology in Argentina.”

The fact that the interconnectedness of the world is enacted through an entire

series of spatial and temporal scales, explains Orser Jr., is the “hallmark” of the

ongoing processes of globalization. To ignore this fact “in the name of exclusive,

site-specific analysis” is to ignore “the realities of post-Columbian history,” which,

as Shannon Lee Dawdy (2010) explains in “Clockpunk anthropology and the

ruins of modernity,” is also the archaeological period previously defined by the

misnomer of “exceptionalism” relative to the Romantic pre-Columbian past.

From Lee Dawdy (2010), the chief research concern regarding Modern-

World Archaeology is ruins. But she cares not for ancient ruins, near-past ruins,

or even yesterday’s ruins. Lee Dawdy is focused on the ruins of today, how they

emerged from the past, and how they will affect the future. In her research, Lee

Dawdy emphasizes the temporal aspects of Modern-World Archaeology, which

disconfirm the concept that the present is defined by temporal exceptionalism,

and the pre-Columbian past by romanticism, while supporting a globalized

perspective on a linear temporality with multi-site cause-effect relationships.

It is not enough that modern ruins appear “banal, tragic, or noisome,” but

“attending to these ruins undermines the stability of modern, progressive time

and simultaneously alters our perceptions of contemporary space” (p. 762). This

perspective, which capitalizes on the primary principles of Modern-World

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Archaeology, makes a theoretical break with past conceptions of modernism by

explaining how “modernity is always incomplete, always moving on, and always

full of hubris” (ibid). Further, as included in the aforementioned and ongoing

“archaeological turn,” previous infatuations with modernism included intricate

societal, including a cluster of:

capitalism, secularism, industrialization, colonialism, the onset of Atlantic

slavery, individualism and the divided subject, technological involution,

urbanization, global integration, science and rationality, mass literacy,

aesthetic modernism, the nation-state, and so on. (Lee Dawdy, 2010, p.

762-763)

But such renderings of modernism as including “a hodgepodge of ideas and

practices” are since being replaced, due to practitioners of Modern-World

Archaeology and their theoretical kin, with the conceptual definition of modernism

“as a form of temporal ideology that valorizes newness, rupture, and linear plot

lines” (p. 763). But there is another advocate of such revolutionary perspectives

on temporality, specifically past-present comparisons: pop culture.

“A fascination with recent ruins and folded temporalities in movies,

hobbies, and fashion may represent a more radical refusal of modernity” than the

current archaeological trend in academia (Lee Dawdy, 2010, 766). One example

is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005. This

massive hurricane caused severe devastation to the infrastructure of New

Orleans. In sports, the New Orleans Saints football team’s return to the

Superdome, which acted as a makeshift shelter after the storm, marked a highly

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emotional moment in not just sports, but American society. A further example,

based on my own personal interpretations, involves the messy and slow

rebuilding, and healing, process in New Orleans that is documented in the HBO

series Treme. With re-imaginings of actual events from before, during, and after

Hurricane Katrina, Treme is more than historical fiction on film. It is Modern-

World Archaeology at its best. It uses the history of infrastructure development,

including the levees, the episode of the hurricane, and the future implications of

available land for development in order to show the linear cause and effect

between the past, present, and future; the multi-site interactions, as out-of-state

developers are significant factors; and how present day ruins can elicit different

interpretations and emotions, like remorse by homeowners, regret by police

officers, and excitement by Texas real estate developers. Ultimately, though, it is

the ruins in New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina that set the background

for these discussions.

Contrasting impressions, like those to Katrina, were the focus of Chris

Dalglish’ (2005) work on the recent past of industrial sectors in Glasgow,

Scotland, “Urban Myths: Rethinking the archaeology of the modern Scottish city.”

One source of reluctance for modern people to revisit the recent past is because

they already know it, or at least believe that they do (Dalglish, 2005, p. 145).

Another reason why the past seems so familiar is because it has been “reduced

to a series of digestible and recognizable themes” (p. 148). This holds true to

popular remembrances of the days of Glasgow’s glory, and impending decline.

Regarding historical narratives on the subject, questions are neither raised, nor

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challenges proposed. Glasgow’s past is defined according to “powerful and long-

standing myths that have become absorbed” into the psyches of its citizens (p.

149). But there has also been a tension between competing visions, “creating a

complex of ways in which the city can be understood” (ibid).

Nineteenth century Glasgow was contemporaneously viewed as a duality

between the progress of its industry and the backwardness of its slums, both of

which were simultaneously promoted by the city’s middle classes and its

governing elite (Dalglish, 2005). “A central plank of civic pride, promotion, and

chauvinism,” though, was Glasgow’s contestation that it held coveted Second

City status to Britain. An obvious reason for this was population size. But the

more commonly referenced reason held then and now, is based on the city’s

perceived contribution toward the imperial enterprise that was colonial Great

Britain. That Glasgow had past significance as a Second City, and the perception

that it contributed to Britain’s imperial power, are historical myths that have

become received wisdom, but the acceptance of these myths as “self-evident

truths” discourages the contemporary population from exploring the intricacies of

its simplified past (p. 149). Despite romanticized feelings of past glory, modern

industrial relics are viewed with great displeasure. As an example, the sight of an

abandoned tenement might elicit negative feelings of social decay, or sorrow for

lost generations, or frustration over failure. But, by using Modern-World

Archaeology to address the recent past and its effects on the present communal

psyche, cultural knowledge in Glasgow is now being prioritized and publicly

promoted as a means of regenerating its citizens’ pride in their city. Through a

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familiarization with history, an abandoned tenement becomes a triumphant

reminder of past glory and future potential.

This example demonstrates how the application of Modern-World

Archaeology can address present day social problems, such as correcting

negative remembrances by introducing positive historical aspects. Similarly,

Veerasamy Selvakumar (2010) demonstrates the different applications of

Modern-World Archaeology in the context of India, including the use of past

knowledge to solve present day problems. As he explains in “The use and

relevance of archaeology in the post-modern world: views from India,” “traditional

knowledge about the past can be rediscovered and used for contemporary

problems and development” (p. 473). One example of this is in the dry regions of

South India, where traditional methods of harvesting rain water by using

subterranean tanks, which dates back to the Iron Age, has been reapplied “as a

model for developing the dry regions [including] as a substitute for larger dams

which can cause huge environmental damage” (ibid). Additionally, Modern-World

Archaeology can be used toward the preservation of archaeological heritage

sites in India. This has economic implications both internally and externally. The

revival of heritage sites also produces a wealth of knowledge that the existing

population can benefit from through education. By understanding their own past,

and its global interconnectedness, younger generations will grow to be more

tolerant of diversity, and better understand their potential roles in the context of a

globalized economy. Further, heritage sites means tourism dollars, which means

economic development. As a result of governmental ineptitude, India is currently

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losing a lot of potential income from tourism. If these profits could be harnessed,

they could have great implications for economic development in India.

Selvakumar further reports “state actors see history as a point of

celebration and a nationalist tool, and not a source of knowledge and intelligence

that can help to improve the governance of the nation, and to understand the

causes of problems faced by the deprived sections of society” (Selvakumar,

2010, p. 474). This is unfortunate, as it not only inhibits the aforementioned

benefits, but also the ability of archaeology to “support understanding of the

relevance of the history of minority groups” or to help “subordinated and

marginalized communities to search for their roots” (ibid). Such purposes are

highly relevant to Modern-World Archaeology, which explains its increasing

usage in countries that faced colonialism in the past. Orser Jr. (2008) explains

how “the unfolding process of colonialism, its historical elements and its

contemporary implications is a constant companion of modern-world

archaeology,” which illuminates the reason for the successful spread of this type

of archaeological practice in South America (Orser Jr., 2008, p. 189).

“Colonialism is not something that just ‘happened,’” explains Orser Jr.

(2008). “It has clear historical roots and present-day ramifications” (p. 189). The

historical parallels of phenomena like colonialism in places like India and South

America affirms the theoretical stance of Modern-World Archaeology that says

that sites are globally interconnected, as well as the idea that temporal divisions

are not accurate because the processes causing affectation to one particular

location are not differentiated from those occurring elsewhere, in place or time.

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For example, Selvakumar reports how “nations, groups and communities across

South Asia have constantly created the ‘other’ using region, religion, ethnicity,

caste, and language as criteria,” which, being used in order to gain power and

dominance, subsequently leads to the adoption of a policy of “love the self and

hate the other” (Selvakumar, 2010, p. 475). For practitioners of these sinister

methods, “history, archaeology and heritage are used merely as tools” for

promoting self-interested ideologies (ibid). These and similar themes are echoed

by Gabriel Moshenka (2008) in his overview and proposal of ethical procedures

for modern-conflict archaeology, “Ethics and Ethical Critique in the Archaeology

of Modern Conflict.”

In an effort to propose a set of ethical guidelines to be followed in modern-

conflict archaeology, which could easily be reclassified as Modern-World

Archaeology of conflict zones, Moshenka (2008) states that first among the areas

of concern “is the relationship between archaeologists and indigenous or

descendant populations,” which he describes as “principally but by no means

exclusively” a concern of Modern-World Archaeology (Moshenka, 2008, p. 161).

Similarly to Dalglish’ description of mythology in Glasgow, Scotland, Moshenka

reports that, even if an event occurred recently, there may be widely dissimilar

recounting of its specifics, depending on the agenda of the interviewee (p. 164).

And like in India, where according to Selvakumar government officials, the

expected overseers of history and heritage, regard the past as a tool to be

manipulated for self-interest than for more grand and noble purposes of

education and development, the results of Modern-World Archaeology of conflict

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zones are beholden to the agendas of the research funders. But, in this digital

age, these are more commonly becoming media producers, especially of

television, who “frequently regard archaeology as a resource to be exploited and

have very little interest in archaeological ethics or even responsible and safe

working practices” (p. 167). Whether they are TV executives or government

elites, the potential misuse or misapplication of archaeological research or its

hijacking by alternative purposes, is an omnipresent possibility. Thus, like the

research designs, the results of Modern-World Archaeology also attest to its

belief in the global interconnectedness of events, and the foundational equality of

past, present, and future phenomena, regardless of temporal designations.

INTERPRETATION and CRITICAL REVIEW

When introducing Modern-World Archaeology, Shannon Lee Dawdy

(2010) described it as being part of an ongoing “archaeological turn,” which is

basically and summarily represented by “the slow death of modernity as a

temporal ideology” (Lee Dawdy, 2010, p. 763). This presents a problem for

theoretical perspectives in archaeology that are implicitly or explicitly organized

around the conception of a temporal division between traditional and modern,

such as Historical Archaeology. Lee Dawdy defines Historical Archaeology as

being “synonymous with the study of modernity through its material culture”

(ibid). Martin Hall and Stephen Silliman (2006) introduce their book on the

subject, Historical Archaeology, with a concession to the ambiguity of the sub-

field, by simply saying “’Historical Archaeology’ means different things to different

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people” (Hall & Silliman, 2006, p. 1). They do acknowledge, however, that

Historical Archaeology is particularly interested in written histories of post-

Columbian colonial encounters as well as the impending capitalist world system.

Writing in 2001, before Modern-World Archaeology was firmly established

as an autonomous sub-field, Charles E. Orser Jr. presents an overview of

Historical Archaeology in the 21st century. In his work, “The anthropology in

American historical archaeology,” Orser Jr. gives a historical overview of

Historical Archaeology, which includes descriptions of its most prevalent

theoretical concepts. First emerging in North America in the 1960s, Historical

Archaeology was focused on the textual evidence of literate societies. However,

“within the emergent Taylor/Binford frame-work, the parameters of the

history/prehistory divide became irrelevant as culture process took precedence

over temporal affiliation” (Orser Jr., 2001, p. 624). At the dawn of the 21st century,

the field of Historical Archaeology could be conceptualized in several ways, but

the most prevalent perspectives, according to Orser Jr., include:

historical archaeology as a critique of modern history, including

capitalism, capitalist expressions, and resistance; historical archaeology

as a trans-temporal study of broad cultural trends and processes; and

historical archaeology as a generally particularistic study of specific

places. (p. 625)

Further, Historical Archaeology can be considered a critical pursuit in those

instances where it strives to “be active and engaged in the problems of

today’s world,” but this kind of Historical Archaeology “is variously termed

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‘Modern-World Archaeology’” (ibid). And so, here is an example of how

Historical Archaeology adapted through time until finally Modern-World

Archaeology emerged. In order to better understand Modern-World

Archaeology today, however, it would be best to compare it to Historical

Archaeology in its essentialist form, as there do exist several theoretical

contrasts between these two archaeological sub-fields.

According to Hall and Silliman (2006), Historical Archaeology can be

expressed in six dimensions of inquiry, including scale, agency, materiality,

meaning, identity, and representation (Hall & Silliman, 2006, p. 8). Of course,

all things depend on the context of the research question. But, generally, for

scale the aim is to avoid pressures to shift to a larger scale in order to “grasp

the relationship between the small-scale and local” (ibid). Agency in

Historical Archaeology likewise prioritizes the individual (p. 10). With regard

to materiality, micro- and/or macro-details of the capitalist world system are

pertinent. Meaning is inferred from the textual sources of evidence with which

Historical Archaeology is most concerned (p. 11). Identity, while a disputed

subject, is mostly intertwined with the results of indigenous-colonial

encounters. Regarding representation, while Historical Archaeology focuses

on past-present interactions, the majority of enquiries made are framed

within the concerns of the present (p. 14).

In his later work on South America, Orser Jr. (2008) states in his

introduction that Historical Archaeology is no longer a precise enough

description of 21st century archaeological methods in certain contexts. As a

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solution, archaeologists focusing on critical methodologies, globalized

perspectives, and the solving of present-day problems have been renamed

as practitioners of Modern-World Archaeology. For Orser Jr., this conclusion

represents a departure from his prior comments in 2001, namely the idea

that Modern-World Archaeology no longer falls within the purview of

Historical Archaeology, but rather stands autonomously on its own theoretical

merits.

As mentioned, Modern-World Archaeology is not only global in scope,

but focus as well, meaning that its practitioners “are constantly aware of the

extra-site connections a site’s inhabitants maintained with the ‘outside

world,’” which is understood multi-dimensionally (Orser Jr., 2008, p. 184).

Thus, there is a distinction between the preference of Historical Archaeology

for a single-site focus, and that of Modern-World Archaeology for focusing on

multiple sites, or at least a single-site in a globalized context. Further, the

localized focus of Historical Archaeology is not excluded from Modern-World

Archaeology, but the latter does not agree with the premise that research

must terminate at the spatial or temporal limits of a site (p. 185). For Modern-

World Archaeology, “a key concept is ‘globalization,’ the idea that expresses

the inexorable linkage between the local and the global” (p. 188). Meaning in

Modern-World Archaeology is not singular, nor derived from a singular

source. Rather, several meanings are “embodied in the connection between

diverse peoples” and the contemporaneous socio-historical contexts in which

they live. These are “multiscalar links that were created, maintained, and re-

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created in the post-Columbian era” by an assortment of diverse yet

interconnected actors from all over the world, and to understand these links it

is integral for Modern-World Archaeology to maintain both its global focus, as

well as its temporal objectivity, or the idea that temporal distinctions like

“modernity” are baseless ideological constructs.

SUMMARY and CONCLUSION

Modern-World Archaeology is the product of an ongoing

“archaeological turn,” in which pre-Columbian romanticism and post-

Columbian modernity are shown to be ideological interpretations, and are

therefore discredited as temporal categories. Modern-World Archaeology

believes in viewing the interconnectedness of multiple-sites using a global

focus. This global focus means research at a site can expand spatially, but

because Modern-World Archaeology also ignores temporal distinctions

between the past, present, and future, research can also stretch temporally

in either direction of a site’s terminal dates. This is what makes Modern-

World Archaeology particularly effective for both addressing present-day

research goals and contributing to the solution of present-day problems. As a

result of its differences with Historical Archaeology, such as a globalized

focus on interconnected phenomena, instead of a single-site localized focus,

Modern-World Archaeology has emerged in the 21st century as an

autonomous and viable theoretical persuasion within the greater field of

Archaeology.

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Bibliography

Dalglish, C. (2005). Urban myths: rethinking the archaeology of the modern scottish city. Scottish Archaeological Journal, 27(2), 147-183. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.weblib.lib.umt.edu:8080/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=10&hid=109&sid=205d68e9-2213-4a03-a9d9-b54849182778%40sessionmgr4

Hall, M., & Stephen, S. (2006). Historical archaeology. Massachusetts : Blackwell Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.faculty.umb.edu/stephen_silliman/Articles/Introduction (Hall and Silliman).pdf

Lee Dawdy, S. (2010). Clockpunk anthropology and the ruins of modernity. Current Anthropology, 53(6), 761-793. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.weblib.lib.umt.edu:8080/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/657626.pdf?

Moshenka, G. (2008). Ethics and ethical critique in the archaeology of modern conflict. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 41(2), 159-175. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.weblib.lib.umt.edu:8080/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=12&hid=109&sid=205d68e9-2213-4a03-a9d9-b54849182778%40sessionmgr4

Orser Jr., C. E. (2008). Historical archaeology as modern-world archaeology in argentina. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 12(3), 181-194. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.weblib.lib.umt.edu:8080/stable/pdfplus/20853160.pdf

Orser Jr., C. E. (2001). The anthropology in american historical archaeology. American Anthropologist,103(3), 621-632. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.weblib.lib.umt.edu:8080/stable/pdfplus/683602.pdf

Selvakumar, V. V. (2010). The use and relevance of archaeology in the post-modern world: views from India. World Archaeology, 42(3), 468-480. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.weblib.lib.umt.edu:8080/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=205d68e9-2213-4a03-a9d9-b54849182778%40sessionmgr4&vid=12&hid=109

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