Many archaeologists do not realize that their commonsense assumptions about what constitutes money naturalize orthodox (neoclassical) economic theory. Rather than the orthodox view of money as ...primarily a medium of exchange, this paper presents the heterodox claim of money as primarily a unit of account imposed by those with political power. This heterodox understanding casts money as the mechanism at the heart of ancient states’ political economies. A brief history of heterodox chartalist macroeconomics is followed by eight starting points from which archaeologists can explore the operation of state money using the material remains of past societies. Ancient Mesoamerica provides a case study that developed independently of better-known monetary histories from ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Indus, and Chinese civilizations. Monetized state economies date back to at least AD 600 in Mesoamerica and possibly as early as 300 BC. Cacao beans, standard lengths of cotton cloth, and shell and greenstone beads functioned as the currencies of taxation that underwrote political economies across ancient Mexico and Central America. I conclude that similar organizing principles, by which elites in hierarchical pluralities have extracted and deployed surplus production, resulted in the independent invention of money as an accounting system among unrelated ancient societies the world over. My primary argument is that money—understood as a politically controlled system of accounting—is largely missing from our analysis of ancient complex societies.
Satellite survey is widely used for archaeological site discovery, but the efficacy of the method has received little systematic investigation. In this analysis, twelve study participants of ...different experience levels performed an unstructured remote survey of 197 km2 in the Sama and Moquegua valleys of south central Peru where previous pedestrian surveys recorded 546 archaeological sites. Results indicate an average site discovery rate of 9.3% (0-18%, 95% range). The most experienced participants detect up to 20% (17-22%) of known archaeological sites. These detection rates can be used to derive reliable site frequency estimates on the Andean coast, which can be used in planning and budgeting for field efforts and estimating demographic patterns at large spatial scales that are difficult to achieve through pedestrian survey. More generally, this analysis offers a method for deriving correction terms specific to other parts of the world. Additionally, the results can serve as a baseline for evaluating the effectiveness of emerging artificial intelligence routines for archaeological site detection.
Archaeology in 2022 features more calls than ever for a socially and politically engaged, progressive discipline. Archaeologists increasingly respect and integrate decolonizing and Indigenous ...knowledge in theory and practice. They acknowledge and embrace the fluidity and diversity of sexes and genders, past and present. They document patterns of migration, ancient as well as contemporary, to combat retrograde and racist narratives that remain pervasive in the public sphere. At the same time, the field has a deep‐seated conservative bastion toward which many scholars retreat, arguing for an “objective” past that is free of political implications or interpretive ambiguity. As anarchist archaeologists, we see the myth of the objective past as one of many interconnected myths that have provided the basis for an archaeology that reifies and proliferates the current social order. We deconstruct myths relating to capitalist and colonialist ideologies of “human nature,” the assumed inevitability of the current order, and fatalistic commitment to dystopian or utopian futures. As alternatives, we present counter‐myths that emphasize the contingent and political nature of archaeological praxis, the creative and collaborative foundation of communities, the alternative orders that archaeology uncovers, and the role of a hopeful past for constructing the possibilities of different futures.
Resumen
La arqueología en 2022 destaca más llamadas que nunca por una disciplina progresiva, social y políticamente comprometida. Arqueólogos crecientemente respetan e integran conocimientos descolonizadores e indígenas. Reconocen y acogen la fluidez y la diversidad de los sexos y géneros, el pasado y el presente. Documentan patrones de migración, tanto antiguos como contemporáneos, para combatir narrativas retrogradas y racistas que permanecen prevalentes en la esfera pública. Al mismo tiempo, el campo tiene un bastión conservador muy arraigado hacia el cual muchos investigadores se repliegan, argumentando un pasado objetivo que es libre de implicaciones políticas y ambigüedad interpretativa. Como arqueólogos anarquistas, vemos el mito del pasado objetivo como uno de los mitos interconectados que han proveído las bases para una arqueología que reifica y prolifera el orden social actual. Deconstruimos mitos relacionados a las ideologías capitalistas y colonialistas de “naturaleza humana”, la asumida inevitabilidad del orden actual, y el compromiso fatalista a los futuros distópicos o utópicos. Como alternativas, presentamos contramitos que enfatizan la naturaleza contingente y política de la praxis arqueológica, la fundación creativa y colaborativa de las comunidades, los órdenes alternativos que la arqueología descubre, y el rol de un pasado esperanzador para construir las posibilidades de futuros diferentes. arqueologías anarquistas, mitos, contranarrativas, capitalismo, colonialismo, desastre climático, migración, multiespecies, futuros
This book relates three years (1921-1924) in the life of Gilbert Bagnani, a young Italian archaeologist in Greece, based on his letters to his mother in Rome, at first as a non-partisan observer of, ...and later as an active participant in, some of the most tumultuous events in modern Greek history.
For anyone who ever wanted to be an archaeologist, Ian Graham could be a hero. This lively memoir chronicles Graham's career as the "last explorer" and a fierce advocate for the protection and ...preservation of Maya sites and monuments across Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. It is also full of adventure and high society, for the self-deprecating Graham traveled to remote lands such as Afghanistan in wonderful company. He tells entertaining stories about his encounters with a host of notables beginning with Rudyard Kipling, a family friend from Graham's childhood.Born in 1923 into an aristocratic family descended from Oliver Cromwell, Ian Graham was educated at Winchester, Cambridge, and Trinity College, Dublin. His career in Mesoamerican archaeology can be said to have begun in 1959 when he turned south in his Rolls Royce and began traveling through the Maya lowlands photographing ruins. He has worked as an artist, cartographer, and photographer, and has mapped and documented inscriptions at hundreds of Maya sites, persevering under rugged field conditions. Graham is best known as the founding director of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 1981, and he remained the Maya Corpus program director until his retirement in 2004. Graham's careful recordings of Maya inscriptions are often credited with making the deciphering of Maya hieroglyphics possible. But it is the romance of his work and the graceful conversational style of his writing that make this autobiography must reading not just for Mayanists but for anyone with a taste for the adventure of archaeology.
In Field Seasons , Anna Marie Prentiss chronicles her experiences as an archaeologist, providing an insider’s look at the diverse cultures, personal agendas, and career pathways associated with ...American archaeology since the late twentieth century. As the narrative moves from her academic training to employment in government and private consulting to her eventual professorship at a state university, several themes emerge.
This book is about career paths. Its discussion of the diverse jobs within the archaeological profession makes it valuable to students seeking guidance about their career options. It also provides insight into the cultures of American archaeology, a discipline with many schools of thought and unique subcultures. The world of archaeological field technicians is quite different from that of government bureaucrats or academics. Prentiss also explores the elements of cultural change within archaeology while she reflects on her personal evolution throughout her thirty years within the discipline.
The book’s unique personal assessment of the state of American archaeology will appeal to a broad swath of students and professionals. Students will find it an entertaining road map to possible careers while professionals will find plenty of scholarly material concerning ethics, archaeological theory, and interpretations of the archaeological record.
Archaeologists all over the world face problems regarding complexity and disorganization. Whether surveying, excavating, or doing laboratory analysis, the nature of the evidence of prehistoric ...societies is fragmented and incomplete. On a global and very general basis, the older the site, the greater the fragmentation, the more the missing data, and the greater the disorganization that the archaeologist must navigate to understand the past. Of course, there are notable exceptions. Most archaeologists consider the topic from the specificity of a particular time, a particular place, and a particular society. In this paper, it is considered in its most non-particular and general format. In order to do so, the paper creates an artificial archaeological region that is surveyed and excavated to a greater and lesser extent and analyzed with a variety of statistical and graphic evaluations. It concludes that when all other things are equal, increasing fragmentation causes far more disorganization and increases complexity than does missing data. Thus, fragmentation is a far more important problem for archaeological interpretation than relatively small amounts of missing data.
Failure is a fundamental part of the human condition. While archaeologists readily identify large-scale failures, such as societal collapse and site abandonment, they less frequently consider the ...smaller failures of everyday life: the burning of a meal or planning errors during construction. Here, the authors argue that evidence for these smaller failures is abundant in the archaeological record but often ignored or omitted in interpretations. Closer examination of such evidence permits a more nuanced understanding both of the mundane and the larger-scale failures of the human past. Excluding failure from the interpretative toolbox obscures the reconstruction of past lives and is tantamount to denying the humanity of past peoples.
