Archaeologists Need to Excavate More

Note: this essay was recently published as Letter to the Editor,  SAA Archaeological Record, 13[4]:3.

A recent essay by Anderson, Card and Feder (2013) encourages us to chase pleasant distractions.  They urge us to fight the forces that have “hijacked” (p.27) the public’s perception of archaeology, and outline a process to do this.  I’m uncertain that archaeologists ever had a claim on those perceptions, or should have one.  As long as professional opinions are viewed as mainstream and the other side as alternative then no hijacking has occurred.  Further, other fantasies are more threatening.

First, our knowledge of why people believe fantastic theories has been much improved by the research they have compiled.  There is enough evidence to support the generalization that humans don’t live on facts, truths, or science, alone.  They also use religion, superstition, fiction, lies, misinformation, and metaphors to create meaning in life.  Honestly, it would be a bland ugly world if facts and truth were all we had to sustain us.  Fantasy is useful.  Certainly, Feder has made a career out of jousting with the con artists and snake oil salesmen; it adds purpose to his life.

I do wonder about scientists who can’t see the world in anything but literal terms.  Ghosts, angels, werewolves, and vampires are metaphors for those people, things, and processes in life that challenge us, make us afraid, or feel wonderful.  There is nothing wrong with calling your car a guardian angel if it saved your life.  A vampire is someone or something that drains your energy, ambition, motivation, such as unpleasant people or governmental red tape.  They are everywhere.

As threats go, the sellers of alternative ideas are minor compared to the oligarchs and politicians draining resources away from our potential use.  Our nation’s economic crisis continues and the worst is still likely to come because the credit crisis of 2008-2010 was the vanguard of a much larger problem.  In comparison, jousting about the origin of rune stones is a pleasant distraction.

American archaeology also has an internal threat.  Like most vampires, this one is seductive, provocative, and promises to give eternal life (job security).  Its name is historic preservation.  With the rise of the preservation ethic in the 1980s, followed by the SAA ethics revision in 1996, and then topped off with the 2004 revision of the 36 CFR 800 regulations implementing section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, the preservation ethos has consistently worked to reduce archaeological excavations.  We used to dig more than we do now.

I, too, have participated in this.  In the early 1990s, while working for Fairfax County, Virginia, I always had an excavation underway or planned, and I enabled many others.  In federal service for the last eight years, I have facilitated zero excavations.  Every day, I seek to avoid effects to most sites, especially adverse effects to significant ones.  CRM archaeology has been diminished to locating, recording, and avoiding sites.  Excavation is generally a last resort or the result of an inadvertent discovery.

In 2004 archaeological excavation became an adverse effect under the revised 36 CFR 800 regulations.  This rapidly became an indictment against excavation.  At the Meta level it simply connotes that excavation is morally wrong or is too much of a burden (added costs, time, and planning).  Regardless of the procedures guiding us to resolve adverse effects, most developers and planners choose to not have adverse effects because of the negative perceptions about creating them or the sense that they are too burdensome.  At a macro level, the indictment equates excavation with those other adverse effects that archaeologists despise, such as bull dozing without research.  We know that excavation is destructive but now we also damn ourselves for it.  At the micro level, excavation potentially creates one of the most absurd situations possible in CRM.  Since excavation is still viewed as an acceptable mitigation technique, it is now possible to use an adverse effect to mitigate another kind of adverse effect.  The best response to this is to avoid adverse effects of any kind.

That creepy feeling that we are not connecting with and influencing the lay public in ways we expect or desire will continue even if we joust with con artists because we are not listening to the public.  The SAA sponsored Harris Interactive study identified that the primary association lay people have with archaeology is the image of digging.  And most of us are doing less and less of the one thing the public associates with us--digging.  There is no need to blame others for our social clumsiness.

The best way to connect with the lay public, and to undermine alternative views, is to increase excavations, everywhere possible, using the new Gemeinschaft perspectives.  Preservation should be an ally, not our master.

Reference:

 

Anderson, David S., Jeb J. Card and Kenneth L. Feder 

2013  Speaking Up and Speaking Out: Collective Efforts in the Fight to Reclaim the Public Perception of Archaeology, SAA Archaeological Record, 13[2]:24-28.

 

Our American Winter

This is an update on my thoughts about our current secular crisis.  The basic idea is that our culture cycles through four cultural eras, labeled the high, the awakening, the unraveling, and the secular crisis.  These four eras are equated with the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter.  And, we are in winter.  The idea comes from the work of Neil Howe and William Strauss, especially a book called The Fourth Turning (here).  I have described American eras previously (here).

The most important idea to take away about the secular crisis era is that it is a cultural identity crisis.  It may have powerful economic and/or political issues to resolve but ultimately it is about who we are as a people that is the core of the problem.  I summarized much of this previously (here).

To reiterate I think our current crisis is about the question: is America, the US, still Number One?

We have had horrific events, such as the World Trade Center attack, the War on Terrorism, the Great Recession, the FED stupidly owning everything, and we can expect an episode of genocidal warfare.

We can also expect a status quo change, such as: perhaps the US Dollar being replaced by something else; perhaps the US will see a decline in international economic and political influence; perhaps some wealthy people will be torn down from their gilded balconies.

The final resolution will be such that America becomes a more powerful Superpower, or a fallen and shattered one, or just a less influential player shunned by most others.  The fall (a full-blown collapse or just a big trip) can come quickly, as evidenced by the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1999. Alternatively, we might take over another large portion of the world.

My previous statements on this crisis had it begin with 9/11 because after that event our government became much larger (a usual sign of a crisis era).  The Big Brother effects of that event are still playing out, especially with the attention to NSA lately.  Homeland security is the mantra as they take away our constitutional freedoms. A focus on this issue means that the core question is:  are we a free people? I think the issue is bigger than this.

Many other people proclaim that the crisis era began with the credit crisis of 2007 and the Great Recession that followed.  We have been in a mild depression since 2007 and I think it eventually gets worse before the economic troubles are resolved.  There is no doubt that fear and anxiety in America (another important indicator of the crisis era) ratcheted up significantly after the market crash of 2008.  A focus on economic issues is one way to view the crisis.  Again, I see it as bigger than that.

Folks in the blogosphere who discuss these things ask us to take sides, our “crisis began in 2001 or 2007”. Choose one.

I am not certain that we can make such proclamations, especially as they would be used to suggest when the crisis ends.

The crisis ends when it does.

If we expect the era to last 20-25 years then it spans 2001-2021 or  to 2026.

On the other hand, it spans 2007-2027 or to 2032.

Either way we have a long way to go.

The difficulty in determining when it began has more to do with our Dionysian age rather than micro analyzing each weird event that has happened. 

In Apollonian ages, events will appear to be linear.  It is easier to identify when a crisis begins and ends.  Our American Revolution and the Great Depression-WWII are two crises that played out under Apollonian values.

During Dionysian ages, reflexive and reciprocal relations are more active. Thus, events are not going to line up in obvious linear sequences. When did the Glorious Revolution start and end? Or, how about the slavery dispute-Civil War-reconstruction? Those crises did not have clear-cut start/end dates, and neither does the current crisis.

It is best to just say, “It began in the early part of the 21^st century”.

Thirty years from now, we will have a good idea of about when it ended.