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Introduction: gaps in (digital) archaeological theory
and method
‘We are all digital archaeologists’ is an increasingly
common refrain amongst practitioners today (e.g.
Morgan and Eve, 2012, p. 523). However, the ubiquity
of computational approaches in archaeology still seems
little understood. Debates about the philosophical
or cultural dimensions of digital technologies in
the discipline have a deep legacy, yet the technical
capacities of these tools still tend to eclipse meaningful
critique of their implications. Problematically, it is
usually the applications of computers that become
the overwhelming focus of digital archaeological
discussions at our conferences, in our written work,
and often in our classrooms too.
This trend to value the technical above the theoretical
is one that is seen across many fields (see below) — and
it is made worse by the fact that it tends to betray itself
again and again as any new piece of equipment is added
to disciplinary toolkits. The Computing Applications and
Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) enterprise
itself hints at the predicament, for applied methodology
is foregrounded in the organisation’s very name, with
richer qualitative analyses of the digital seemingly
consigned to the backstage.
However, closer interrogation of the history and present
of digital practice in archaeology suggests a wealth of
critically — engaged and theoretically — progressive
work in the discipline. Digital archaeologists have been
driving methodological change in archaeology for more
than a half-century now. As discussed below, today
they can also be found at the vanguard of critical social
action — from open access and ‘slow’ movements, to
public engagement initiatives and neoliberal critiques.
Yet they are rarely, if ever, cited as meaningful players
in disciplinary philosophising, nor do they have any
real visibility in our key archaeological theory texts.
As we see it, digital archaeologists (us included) are
guilty of not explicitly positioning themselves at the
heart of the larger discipline. And while we ostensibly
have the power to drive forward general archaeological
theory, we still seem not to have the rubrics in place
to impact these larger conceptual shifts. We aim here,
then, to begin identifying the gaps and tensions which
hamper our capacities to write contemporary and
future archaeological theory. These tensions include
everything from digital archaeology’s humble modes
of disseminating academic papers (e.g. in obscure
conference proceedings), to the CAA’s seeming lack of
voice in interdisciplinary affairs. Where, for instance, is
the CAA’s code of ethics?1 Where are its press releases in
response to matters of wide public concern (as done in
all major archaeological organisations, from the World
Archaeological Congress to the European Association of
Archaeologists)?
Costis Dallas (2015, p. 177) has outlined the problem as
such: ‘questions of huge impact to archaeological theory
Note that this paper was delivered in March 2016, and in March
2018 a code of ethics has indeed been published by the CAA. One of
the authors (Perry) has been involved in its preparation.
Theorising the Digital:
A Call to Action for the Archaeological Community
Sara PERRY and James Stuart TAYLOR
University of York
Corresponding author: sara.perry@york.ac.uk
Abstract
Although archaeologists are increasingly critically engaged in their deployment of computational approaches, those who label
themselves as ‘digital archaeologists’ are typically not recognised for their philosophical contributions to the discipline and are
rarely positioned at the forefront of general disciplinary theorising. Indeed, where digital archaeology does feature in volumes
on archaeological theory, it often amounts to little more than a footnote. This is in spite of the fact that digital archaeologists
have been driving change in archaeology for more than a half-century now. Notwithstanding the support of major international
organisations and widespread commitment to key social projects (e.g. open access, ‘slowness’, neoliberal critique, emancipa-
tion), digital archaeologists still do not seem to have the rubrics in place to force larger theoretical shifts in the discipline. We
aim here, then, to begin identifying the gaps and tensions which hamper our capacities to write contemporary and future ar-
chaeological theory.
Keywords: digital archaeology, theory, practice, critique, reflexivity
Mieko Matsumoto and Espen Uleberg (eds) 2018. CAA2016: Oceans of Data
Proceedings of the 44th Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology.
Oxford: Archaeopress
Cite as: Perry, Sara & Taylor, James S. 2018. Theorising the Digital: A Call to Action for the Archaeological
Community. In Oceans of Data: Proceedings of the 44th Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative
Methods in Archaeology, Mieko Matsumoto & Espen Uleberg, eds. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 11-22.
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and practice during the last half century, stemming
from post-colonial, feminist, indigenous, Marxist, and
hermeneutic approaches, appear to be peripheral in
the literature, subject-matter, and interests of digital
archaeology.’ While we would contend that these
questions of impact are increasingly shaping digital
archaeologists’ work, we build on the arguments of
Dallas and others to suggest that the predicament is
born out of — and exacerbated by — the lack of a larger
critical disciplinary framework to guide digital practice.
Without such a critical framework in place, the whole
field of archaeology suffers.
To make our case, we begin by looking in depth at
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and their
integration into both archaeology and geography. Our
interest in the latter discipline stems from the fact
that it too has wrestled with comparable issues, hence
offering us an opportunity to learn from previous
experience. As we hint, where things appear to
destabilise is at those moments when new technologies
are added into disciplinary practice. Arguably, in
archaeology, this destabilisation results from the fact
that such technologies are being introduced into a
system that does not, in most cases, purposefully and
always (or ever) force critical attention onto their
socio-technical dimensions. We go on to review current
critical theory in digital archaeology to assert that we
already have the infrastructure in place to design and
roll-out a discipline-wide, purposeful reflexive theory
for the digital age in archaeology. We conclude, then,
by arguing that our challenge is to realise this reflexive,
computationally–informed framework, and hence put
digital archaeologists at the centre of theorising in the
discipline, rather than systematically and continuously
relegated to the side-lines.
The rise and peak of GIS, and the emergence of
critical GIS
By way of illustration, it is useful to consider the
relationship between archaeology/archaeologists and
one of the discipline’s oldest (ca 50 years old) and
more widely accepted and applied digital technologies,
Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The following
section seeks to link the general development of
geospatial technology hardware and software to their
application across the archaeological discipline. Our
intent is to connect these technologies to broader trends
in the history of cross–disciplinary critical thinking
about computing technology, thereby testifying to the
long genealogy of such work.
The first GIS implemented by the Canadian
government’s Regional Planning Information Systems
Division in 1964 was initially developed as a tool
for the large-scale management of landscapes and
environmental, cultural and political resources
(Wheatley and Gillings, 2002, p. 13), but was quickly
adopted elsewhere in North America and beyond. As a
system combining cartography, image processing, data
management and analysis within a spatial framework,
the development of GIS in the subsequent decades was
generally pioneered by universities and government
agencies, with a specific top-down agenda which has
been linked to post-war trends in urban and rural
planning and redevelopment (ibid.). This process of
development, and the subsequent uptake of these
Spatial Technologies (ST) by the commercial sector,
has been well documented and discussed elsewhere
(e.g. Pickles, 1995a; Peuquet, 2002; Wheatley and
Gillings, 2002, pp. 13–22; Conolly and Lake, 2006, pp.
1–32; and see also Lock, 2003 for an introduction to
the way in which the technology was adopted by the
archaeological discipline).
What is particularly interesting to us is how GIS rapidly
became adopted by, and made the main analytical
tool of, the broader discipline of geography. The way
in which this happened within geography’s academic
sphere, and the resultant critique, is a useful analogy
for archaeology’s own relationship not just with GIS,
but with technology more broadly. Crucially, up until
the mid-90s (i.e. for close to 30 years after its initial
invention), GIS was primarily deployed as a technical
tool. It has only been in the last 20 years or so that
deeper consideration of the social, political and ethical
implications of its application has emerged, primarily
as a result of wider postmodern critique.
Generally, there have been three waves of emergent
critique of GIS and related technologies within the
sphere of geography rooted in this postmodern
standpoint (O’Sullivan, 2006). The first wave, emerging
in about 1995, focused upon critiquing the social history
and positivist roots of the technology, highlighting its
quantitative focus (Pickles, 1995a; Sheppard, 1995; Kwan,
2002a). It called into question the ‘top-down’ hierarchy
and power dynamics of GIS technologies — arguing that
these technologies were exclusive (i.e. technologically
elite, in that they required a large amount of expertise
to operate and use effectively), undemocratic (having
been developed initially as military or governmental
applications, and later by large software companies),
and ultimately disempowering for many users (for the
above reasons) (Pickles, 1995b).
After a decade of critical engagement with these sorts
of issues, a second wave of critique of GIS and STs began
to emerge (Schuurman, 2000). (Note, too, the parallel
of these critiques, both in timing and in substance,
with the emergence of the post-processual school in
archaeology — also rooted in a disciplinary — level
postmodern critique.) Solutions or challenges to the
13
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characterisations offered by the first wave began to
be offered that called for GIS to incorporate non-
cartographic (qualitative) spatial knowledge in order
that it might be used as a progressive research tool
to explore wider themes in critical human geography,
such as ‘environmental justice, gender, class and race
analysis’ (Marianna Pavlovskaya in Wilson and Poore,
2009, p. 8). Notably, a specifically feminist GIS was then
born, rooted in the analytical needs of an emerging
feminist geography. Simply put, feminist GIS sought
both to call into question the connection between
GIS and broader masculinist (positivist) epistemology,
and to examine the potential of GIS and STs to help
represent, understand and analyse the implications of
gendered spaces and agency within those spaces (see
for example Kwan, 2002a, 2002b; Pavlovskaya, 2006; and
for an excellent case study, see Kwan, 2008). Closely
related to this was the emergence of a qualitative
GIS that promoted mixed methods in geographical
research, with a focus upon qualitative spatial data,
in turn questioning the traditional constraint of GIS
technology as a predominantly quantitative (read:
positivist) tool (see Kwan and Ding, 2008).
More recently, this last strand of Critical GIS (as it has
become known) has developed and evolved again, as
part of a third wave of critique. In an effort to directly
address issues of empowerment and to democratise
the process of knowledge production, another sub-
discipline has emerged known as Participatory GIS (see
Pavlovskaya, 2002; Elwood, 2006). This disciplinary trend
advocates ‘bottom-up’, community-based GIS practice,
which seeks to encourage positive social change from
production of geographic knowledge at the community
level. Recently this type of participatory practice has
begun to structure a form of ‘Neo-Geography’; the
agenda of which aligns with recent academic concern
for the concept of “big data” and local political interests
(e.g. the UK’s “Big Society” and “Local Voice”).
Ultimately, these emerging Critical GIS practitioners, in
their respective waves, began to ask (and try to answer)
conceptual and epistemological questions about GIS
and the way in which it helps produce knowledge.
Together, these key components and the associated
theoretical discourses have led to the evolution of a
broader disciplinary bubble within geography, known
now as Geographical Information Science (GIScience).
It, in turn, has resulted in some very interesting,
‘left–field’, theoretically — engaged and intellectually
— challenging applications of GIS (see for example
Hannah, 2008; Kurban et al., 2008; Kwan, 2008; Wilson,
2009; Zook et al., 2010; Elwood and Mitchell, 2012).
As GIS took root in geography, so archaeology began
to explore its potential for solving discipline-specific
spatial problems. By the mid-1990s, experimentation
with GIS, particularly at the landscape level, had become
quite common in archaeology, and was increasingly
exposed to the growing ideas of the emerging post-
processual movement. In its own way archaeology
began to theorise its use of GIS (see for example,
although not exclusively Zubrow, 1994; Barceló and
aars, Lera, iings, rris,
Bare an aars,
However, whilst explicitly acknowledging its post-
processual agenda and, to some extent (from a spatial
perspective), the important critiques of postmodern
geographers such as David Harvey and Edward Soja,
it is important to note that this corpus of literature
(and subsequent scholarship) rarely cites the critical
GIS literature outlined above (although see occasional
ntae eetins ie ageer, , r nn,
2017). This is in spite of explicit recognition by
many GIS practitioners within archaeology of the
technology’s ‘theory-laden-ness’ (Hacigüzeller, ibid, p.
246). Moreover, there has been no equivalent systematic
critique of the application of geospatial technologies
within our own discipline. McCoy and Ladefoged (2009,
p. 282) neatly summarise this fact, pointing out that:
‘for many years the relationship between spatial
technology and archaeology has been likened to
the ‘‘law of the hammer’’ (Moore and Keene, 1983)
in that the appeal of the technology has caused
excessive, gratuitous application, or pounding,
without regard to purpose, appropriateness, or
theory’ (Drennan, 2001, p. 668).
However, they do go on to argue that the balance is
gradually being redressed, highlighting a number
of key factors including: links to strong theoretical
developments in landscape archaeology, which aims
to use ST to solve archaeological problems, rather than
being led by the data; trends at a disciplinary level
towards teaching ST practitioners the fundamental
principles that drive the technology; and increasing
technological ‘savviness’ pertaining to the ‘strengths
and limitations’ of these technologies (McCoy and
Ladefoged, 2009, p. 282; see also Evans and Daly, 2006,
p. 3).
More recently, Mark Gillings has painted a rather bleak
picture of the relationship between GIS and wider
theoretical discourse, highlighting what he perceives
to be a dysfunctional, even irreparable schism between
GIS practitioners and landscape theorists (Gillings,
2012, pp. 601–602). Not everyone would take such a dim
view of the situation or agree that it is right to ‘give
up’ on a wider cross–discipline theoretical dialectic, but
ultimately it might be argued that Gillings’ end goal is
the same as ours: a call for a more critically–engaged,
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theoretically–driven application of technological
methods within the discipline.
Beyond GIS — the digital turn in archaeology
Of course, the ‘digital turn’ in archaeology extends far
beyond the application of GIS and STs, and includes a
whole range of quantitative and qualitative methods,
statistical approaches, and applied computational
technologies, linked both to the development of software
and hardware, and to larger cultural trends towards
sharing, collaboration, openness, and interconnectivity.
However, as we see it, critical attention to the
intellectual, political and economic impacts of these
digital applications is still overshadowed by results-
driven, technically–oriented work. Indeed, from our
perspective, digital archaeology might in some cases
be mistaken for a form of ‘neo-processualism’, focused
on specifications, accuracy, and precision as means
to generate increasingly ‘real’ archaeological models.
Indeed, the content of related scholarship often falls
int a i tat rais tie an again L at te
size of my point cloud!’
In a piece written for the peer-reviewed blog ‘Then Dig’
in 2013, Stuart Eve reflects upon his research interests
in ‘mixed augmented reality’ (at the time a ‘bleeding
edge’ technology in its own right) in archaeology and
the heritage sector. In it he refers to the ‘Gartner Hype
Cycle for Emerging Technologies,’2 which illustrates
how technologies are adapted over time. The cycle
builds upon the idea that, after its ‘technological
trigger’, emergent technology moves through a hype
— ‘peak of inflated expectations’ — into a ‘trough of
disillusionment’ (‘having been overhyped…it gets
knocked for being overhyped’). Then, with the hype
dying down, the technology matures through a ‘slope
of enlightenment’ to a ‘plateau of productivity’, as the
potential of the technology is explored and applied to
real-world problems (Eve, 2013).
Indeed, many technologies which might typically
be seen as new or emergent actually have relatively
long developmental histories. 3D technologies are no
exception here. In terms of excavation practice, for
example, many major projects have adopted them in
recent years as means of primary data acquisition and
recording in the field (see for example Doneus and
Neubauer, 2005; Callieri et al., 2011; Dellepiane et al.,
2012; Forte et al., 2012; De Reu et al., 2013; Dell’Unto,
2014; Forte, 2014; Opitz, 2015; Berggren et al., 2015; Forte
et al., 2015; Opitz and Limp, 2015). The origins of 3D
technologies, however, such as structure from motion
and laser scanning, can be traced back 50 years in some
cases.3 Yet most of these technologies have not really
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/hype-cycles/
Structure from motion is related to a longstanding tradition of
been freely available (i.e. affordable and useable) in a
practical sense at a disciplinary level for more than 5 or 6
years. Compare that with the 30+ years of development,
critique and theoretical engagement with GIS, which
has been accessible to researchers for a much longer
timespan, and has resulted in the sub-discipline of
GIScience, and it might be argued that 3D technologies
do, in fact, have a long way to go. However, that some
of these so-called ‘new’ technologies are actually fairly
mature suggests that time passed may not make much
difference to the development of a critically self-aware
approach in their deployment. Crafting a broader
critical framework in which these methods can be
embedded as they are adopted may be better means to
circumvent the effects of the hype cycle.
Having said this, as noted already, it would be wrong
to suggest that archaeologists never theorise their
digital methods. Indeed, on the contrary, there is a long
history of theoretically-grounded critique, evaluation
and data synthesis amongst digital practitioners. Early
on this was typified by stand-alone articles (again,
with specific reference to GIS, see for example Barceló
an aars, Lera, , r aers eiere
within the framework of the CAA (see for example
Lock, 1995; Wheatley, 1993, 2000; Wise, 2000). However,
it took time for a coherent corpus of theoretical digital
papers to emerge, and these standalone efforts often
seem not to have been presented outside of the CAA to
the wider discipline.
Later, a body of theoretical literature began to coalesce,
as the wider implications of the digital turn became
more obvious at a disciplinary level. These are typified,
for example, by Lock and Brown’s (2000) volume On the
Theory and Practice in Archaeological Computing, derived
from a 1999 WAC session; and by Evans and Daly’s (2006)
volume Digital Archaeology: Bridging Method and Theory,
born out of an earlier TAG session in 2000 entitled
“Archaeological Theory for a Digital Past”. A scan of
this latter volume reveals papers ranging across a wide
variety of theoretical issues including, for example,
historiographical review of digital archaeology;
consideration of the way increasing ‘mountains of
digital data’ are archived without a clear understanding
of their end purpose (strangely prescient of the ‘Oceans
of Data’ theme of the CAA 2016 conference); synthesis of
higher order theoretical concepts of gender and identity
from statistical analysis; modelling and analysis of real
world processes to explore the interaction of humans
and their environment; landscape visualisation and
critical consideration of issues of scale (the latter being
photogrammetry in archaeology, with the earliest attempts to
recover a 3D scene from stereo images taking place in the mid-late
1970s (see Marr and Poggio, 1976; Ullman, 1979). Similarly, laser
scanning technology is also a relatively old technology, with the
earliest scanners being constructed in the 1960s and available in
industry since the 1990s.
15
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a theme that is taken up again, often from a digital
perspective, in Lock and Molyneaux’s subsequent
2006 edited volume); the impact of 3D visualisation
on the understanding of archaeology; and means for
disseminating digital information (Evans and Daly,
2006).
Our point is that critically and theoretically-engaged
discussion of the digital turn already exists within
archaeology: it has always been there, but it tends to
get lost in wider discussions of the technicalities or
presentation of results. As we see it, this predicament
stems from the fact that there is not yet a framework
(akin to what we have seen developed in geography)
within which these sorts of discussions can take place
— that is, there is not yet a critical — and critically
reflexive — digital archaeology.4
Reflexive theory for archaeology in the digital age
So, despite its relatively ad hoc development within
the discipline of archaeology, there is an obvious
genealogy of critical reflection on digital applications
in archaeology. Indeed, in the past year alone (2015–
2016),5 a substantial number of new academic outputs
on this subject matter have been published, reinforcing
the long history of critical digital practice (e.g. Caraher,
2015; Dallas, 2015, 2016; González-Tennant, 2015, 2016;
Huggett, 2015a, 2015b; Jeffrey, 2015; Kansa, 2015; Perry
and Beale, 2015; Reilly, 2015; Watterson, 2015; Alcock
et al., 2016; Cooper and Green, 2016; González-Tennant
and González-Tennant, 2016; Opitz and Johnson,
2016; Taylor and Gibson, 2016). These publications
variously attend to digital visualisation, gaming,
interface design, ‘big data’, 3D printing, virtual worlds,
online teaching and learning, social media (including
crowdsourcing and crowdfunding), and more. Yet, by
our interpretation, most converge on a comparable
set of conceptual concerns, suggesting that a reflexive
theory for archaeology in the digital age is already in
the making. As we discuss below, the robustness and
coherence of this emerging theory can be debated —
indeed, with a handful of exceptions, it seems relatively
rare for its authors to cite from one another, and there
are worrisome trends towards bias in existing citation
practice. However, the foundations for a critical digital
archaeology are being laid, and by our reckoning, digital
practitioners now have a responsibility to recognise
and actively shape their proportions. In so doing, we
suggest that a framework can be mapped out to ensure
We do not have the space here to explore the history, varying
definitions and critiques of critical archaeology and reflexive
archaeology, but we take as our basic starting points Hodder (1997)
and Leone et al. (1987). A handful of recent engagements with
archaeological theory (e.g. González-Ruibal, 2012; Kristiansen, 2014;
Thomas, 2015) are also discussed below.
We have focused on 2015-2016 merely to highlight the weight of
recent published work on the subject matter.
future technological developments in the discipline are
always and necessarily subjected to consideration of
their socio-politico-economic dimensions.
While we do not have the space here to review all recent
digital archaeology publications in depth, we argue
that a not insignificant number of them make a similar
case (whether implicitly or explicitly, although usually
by way of example) for a more complex, considered and
creative form of practice. Namely, they call for (digital)
archaeologists to design systems and infrastructure
that enable — or literally force — forms of criticality.
These might include:
Developing workflows that purposefully foster
slowness or time for reflexivity and introspection
(e.g. see Caraher, 2015; Huggett, 2015a; Kansa, 2015;
Opitz and Johnson, 2016).
Crafting systems that embrace complexity (rather
than systems that work to standardise), valuing
data’s specificity rather than trying to wash over
specifics in the hopes of generalising. To borrow
from Cooper and Green (2016, p. 294), the aim here
is to protect the ‘characterful’ nature of digital
data.
Studying the derivation of data and information
systems themselves, their temporal and relational
qualities, their histories of production and
circulation (e.g. Cooper and Green, 2016).
Reconfiguring our graphical user interfaces (and
general modes of publication) in order to reframe
the research process and engender theoretical
debate through novel forms of engagement (e.g.
Opitz and Johnson, 2016; Copplestone, in prep).
Rewriting our codes of conduct and ethics to better
align with the digital age and to account for the
complexities of human and non-human interaction
with digital media and digital worlds (e.g. Dennis,
in prep).
Prioritising and designing reward systems for
creativity or seeking to foster the creation of
unusual, inspiring, innovative outputs that go
beyond mere data capture/replication (e.g.
Watterson, 2014, 2015; Jeffrey, 2015; Reilly, 2015).
Using coproduction and forms of public
engagement to, as Jeffrey (2015) puts it, mitigate
the ‘weirdness’ of the digital object; to draw
attention to the craft, labour, aura, use, reuse and
other potentials (and problems) of these media.
And, more generally, developing models of practice
that draw explicit attention to the moral, aesthetic,
political and structural implications of the data and
their architecture (e.g. González-Tennant, 2015;
González-Tennant and González-Tennant, 2016).
Some of the most innovative recent digital archaeology
rets ratitiners ie e , ageer
16
, rgan , ringa an teani
(2012), Watterson (2014, 2015), González-Tennant
(2015), Jeffrey (2015), Reinhard (2015, 2018), Opitz
and Johnson (2016), González-Tennant and González-
Tennant (2016), Tringham (2017), Copplestone (in prep)
and Dennis (in prep) — are centred on creating digital
interventions that not only advance archaeological
research and method, but that focus us on thinking
differently about what archaeology is and what it could
be in the future. In many cases, these archaeologists are
both purposefully deploying varied forms of sensory
engagement (smell, sound, touch, etc.) and literally
opening up our archaeological landscape (to include
virtual worlds, contemporary artefacts and media),
using the digital as subject and object of research — as
tool to think with and means to critique.
Although typically unacknowledged by archaeologists
(but see Huggett, 2015b), such proposals follow broader
trends in the digital humanities and social sciences
wherein practitioners seek to push back against the
obfuscating tendencies of digital culture. As Posner
(2015; also see Marar, 2015 among many others) puts
it, ‘many of the qualities of computer interfaces that
we’ve prized, things like transparency, seamlessness,
and flow, privilege ease of use ahead of any kind of
critical engagement (even, perhaps, struggle) with
the material at hand.’ By Posner’s reckoning, current
digital applications generally make it near-impossible
to recognise or interrogate power dynamics at play,
leaving us blind to (and liable to reproduce) structural
inequalities (e.g. see Bernbeck, 2008). In contrast, the
best and most promising of contemporary digital culture
is daring, difficult, unorthodox — it entails projects
which ‘scrutinize data, rip it apart, rebuild it, reimagine
it, and perhaps build something entirely different and
weirder and more ambitious’ (Posner, 2015). Carrigan
(2016) calls this the ‘challenge of reflexivity’, and we
would suggest that many of the digital archaeological
practitioners cited above are already confronting this
challenge, using similar language to define it, and
working to construct new systems to determinedly
cultivate reflexive digital engagements.
In fact, one might suggest that such digital
archaeologists are actually already operating at a
more progressive level than other theoretically-
inclined practitioners in the discipline. A variety of
criticisms have been launched at the latter, particularly
those focused upon so-called community-based and
collaborative archaeology. As González-Ruibal (2012, p.
157) puts it, their ‘emphasis on soft multiculturalism,
ideas of consensus, individualism and multivocality (all
in tune with neoliberalism)’ has done little more than
‘depoliticize the discipline rather than the opposite’.
Conversely, a not-insignificant cohort of the digital
archaeological community has been explicitly political
(e.g. see the work of Morgan, 2012; Richardson, 2014;
González-Tennant, 2015, 2016; Kansa, 2015; González-
Tennant and González-Tennant, 2016; Taylor and
Gibson, 2016), working to achieve precisely what
González-Ruibal (2012) identifies as a crux of critical
archaeology in general, namely a commitment to
‘expose the darkest side of modernity and, particularly,
capitalism’ (p. 157) — ‘to take sides with the options
that challenge hegemonic power…to support those
narratives and actions that represent freedom and
equality’ (p. 158). Borrowing from Bernbeck (2008,
p. 395), ‘one of the first tasks of a truly ‘reflexive
archaeology’ is to investigate the ways in which the
discipline is complicit in legitimizing structures of
stark inequality.’ Many of the practitioners cited above
are doing just that.
Accordingly, given the traction for a critical, reflexive
(digital) archaeology, we are left to wonder why digital
archaeologists are so often (or always) written out of
contemporary archaeological theory. Why are they
regularly perceived as atheoretical? Why is there so
little recognition of the growing amount of ambitious
digital work that has the capacity to reframe the general
archaeological workflow, not to mention the very
foundations of archaeology’s philosophies? We, too, as
authors of this paper and co-hosts of the first ‘digiTAG’
(Digital Theoretical Archaeology Group) event at the
CAA conference in 2016 (from which our argument
is born) are guilty of throwing out the accusation
that digital archaeologists often lack a critical eye.
We ask, then, what is at work here in fostering such
misunderstandings? And what are the consequences of
ignoring the predicament?
Challenges to writing a reflexive (digital)
archaeological theory
The discipline sits today at an interesting theoretical
crossroads, with scholars at variance about the
coherence and dimensions of current trends in
archaeological thought (cf. Kristiansen, 2014 with
comments; Thomas, 2015). Where digital engagements
enter into these debates, they are generally attended
to in the most naive of ways — focused primarily on
the promise of “big data” and social web/online public
communication for reconfiguring our thinking. Yet,
as Chilton (2014; also see Huggett, 2015b, Perry and
Beale, 2015) makes clear, in these contexts, such tools
have hardly been theorised; they tend to escape deep
critique and evade systematic analysis of their political
consequences, e.g. in terms of sustainability, equality,
democracy, wealth and poverty. Following Huggett
(2015b, p. 19), this ‘means that the [digital] data arrive at
the would-be user context-less and consequently open
to misunderstanding, misconception, misapplication,
and misinterpretation.’
17
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Meanwhile, the opinions of digital archaeologists
themselves on these matters seem often to be side-
lined (after González-Tennant, 2016), relegated as they
usually are to specialist publications (e.g. conference
proceedings, digital-themed texts and journal issues)
and going uncited in general archaeological theory. The
predicament is an exasperating one, especially because
digital archaeologists appear to be complicit in their
own marginalisation.6 For instance, in the inaugural
article to the subject-specific journal Frontiers in Digital
Archaeology, Costopoulos (2016) argues ‘I want to stop
talking about digital archaeology. I want to continue
doing archaeology digitally.’7 Costopoulos goes on to
confess his shame over the field of practice of digital
archaeology as a whole:
‘I must admit that I am a bit embarrassed at the
public expense involved in the numerous rather
sterile meetings in which I have participated about
the digital turn in archaeology and the setting up
of public archives, community GIS, etc., for what
so far I consider very little results. The carbon
footprint of some of these meetings must have been
stupendous…But I do not think the expense so far
has been justified by the outcomes.’ (Costopoulos,
2016)
Perhaps unwittingly, Costopoulos hints here at some
of the very issues that ‘doing archaeology digitally’ has
often failed to address — its financial burdens; its unequal
deployment based on geography, education, ethnicity,
language; its possible implication in structural violence
and structural inequality; its gendered dimensions; its
environmental impacts, carbon footprint and more.
Taking this latter point about environmental impacts
to its extreme, as digitally-oriented practitioners,
we invest in the media technology industry, which as
Parikka (2014) outlines, has long sustained itself on civil
war, child labour, resource depletion and environmental
devastation, massive energy consumption, electronic
waste and colonial occupation. Parikka describes this
era as the ‘anthrobscene’, wherein media technologies
and their enabling infrastructures effect obscene
impacts upon the globe. Whether or not archaeologists
care to enter into a debate about our culpability in
nurturing the anthrobscene, our digital practice has
global material and economic ramifications — yet
these ramifications are regularly unaccounted for in
the extant scholarship. In those cases where deeply
political (digital) archaeology is being performed (e.g. by
The irony is not lost on us that this paper itself is an output of
conference proceedings.
Not only does the journal’s very name force a particular
conversation about digital archaeology, but the parent organisation
behind the journal, Frontiers, has been accused of predatory open
access practices linked to its digital medium (Terras, 2015; Scholarly
Open Access, 2016).
ageer, rgan, Riarsn, ringa, it sees
notable that such practitioners, firstly, are often not
acknowledged for the depth, complexity and longevity
of their theoretical contributions to the discipline;
and secondly, are often female (see comparable
argument in González-Tennant, 2016). Our preliminary
scan of recent publications by digital archaeologists
themselves suggests that these politically–committed
individuals go less cited by their own digital colleagues,
and — when cited — are attended to superficially, as
mere champions of public or participatory approaches.
Whilst a tentative observation, we would suggest there
may be systematic bias presenting itself here which
deserves further interrogation.
Bias extends straight to the core of general disciplinary
theory, where the so-called ‘grand challenges’ of
archaeology today (Kintigh et al., 2014) appear to
betray both a pervasive focus on archaeology as science
(where our practice could be read as primarily a natural
science: materialist, positivist and objective), and an
absence of concern for archaeology as politics (as per
critique by Cobb, 2014). Digital tools, when deployed in
the name of addressing such challenges, arguably often
underpin and worsen the predicament. For instance,
as Jeffrey (2015, p. 149) puts it, ‘Digital representations
of the past continue to struggle to overcome the
perception that they are either purely scientific tools
for analysis and management or flashy and unnecessary
demonstrations of technological prowess offering
no real insight into or connection with the past.’ Key
disciplinary theoreticians actually seem unaware of the
capacities of digital media and of long-standing digital
archaeological experimentation with the senses (e.g.
by Eve, 2012; Cooper, 2014), so much so that Kristiansen
(2014, pp. 27–28) can be found writing,
‘My own unfulfilled dream is that one day we shall
be able to release the sounds of prehistory: talking,
music etc. stored in some mysterious way in the
atomic particles of pottery and metal during the
process of their production. It will probably never
happen…’
What seems evident here is that archaeologists might
fundamentally misunderstand what the digital can
and could do (both positively and negatively) for the
discipline — and digital archaeologists themselves might
be fuelling the situation. Borrowing from Reilly (2015,
p. 230), ‘The bar is seemingly set too low’. Not only are
our expectations of the technology deficient, but so too
are our assumptions about digital practitioners, digital
research potential, and the socio-political impacts and
implications of digital work. Yet there is no reason why
this mindlessness need persist.
To draw from Dallas (2015, p. 178), ‘by doing archaeology
digitally it should seek…to make a difference to
18
the broader epistemic and pragmatic contexts of
archaeological work.’ As we see it, our real challenge
now is to draw together recent critical digital practice
(as described above) into a more coherent rubric that
testifies to the fact that so many archaeologists are
already contributing to these contexts of work. We
believe that, in so doing, we can proffer a more cohesive
reflexive model for the digital age in archaeology.
Beyond the authoring of such a rubric in the form of
an academic article, which we hope to cooperate on in
the future, we would also suggest immediate next steps
might include:
1. Continued fostering of initiatives like digiTAG
(day-long sessions of presentations hosted
alternately at the TAG or CAA conferences),
which aim to nurture broad discussion between
digitalists and other specialists within archaeology.
As a new collaboration between the TAG and CAA,
digiTAG now needs a sustainable model to keep it
active. Within the CAA, this might be framed as
a Special Interest Group. Within TAG, it has been
tentatively positioned as one among the “family”
of TAG events, although its long-term management
structure now needs solidifying.
2. Concerted contribution to training networks
and international centres of best practice (e.g.
the Norwegian DialPast research school) whose
concern is for building cutting-edge, theoretically-
engaged communities of practice, particularly
amongst PhD students and early career scholars.
3. Investment in a series of synthetic volumes on
critical digital archaeology, perhaps commissioned
through digiTAG presentations or developed in
concert with investment in training networks.
4. The development of a robust framework of reflexive
practice for the application of critically engaged
digital methodologies at a disciplinary level (in
the vein of Hodder, 1997), which may culminate in
good practice models and a series of theoretically
grounded case studies.
Digital archaeologists are in a position to lead
archaeological theoretisation overall. In fact,
Huggett (2015a, p. 87) goes further, arguing for our
cross-disciplinary relevance in terms of being ‘best
positioned amongst digital humanists to investigate
and understand the implications, transformations,
and repercussions of digital technologies.’ We do not
need to be simplistically reduced to wielders of big
data or technical equipment. We do not need to be the
subject matter relegated to medium-specific journals
or conference proceedings. The CAA itself can — and
should — be a go-to point for archaeology overall.
We have the capacity, the tools, and the conceptual
foundations to shape the future of the discipline. It is
time for action.
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