Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T08:12:22.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Regions of the imagination: archaeologists, local people, and the archaeological record in fieldwork, Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Michael Fotiadis
Michael Fotiadis*
Affiliation:
Dept. of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Get access

Abstract

This paper takes a close look at the relationship of an archaeological team engaged on a regional survey for the Greek Archaeological Service to the local population, and at the practices and scholastic assumptions of the archaeologists. Regional survey, with its emphasis on populations and resources is found to resemble the work of census takers and bureaucrats (and not surprisingly many locals see the archaeologists as representatives of the state). Prehistoric farmers are treated as ‘sensible’ and apolitical, and archaeology is seen to adopt refined tactics that domesticate the unfamiliar and banish the difficult and contradictory from concern. The intellectual safety of demographic approaches becomes clearer when the multiplicity of relations between the team and the locals is considered – precisely the variety missing from the texts written about the past – and when the archaeologists attempt to banish local life and politics from their narratives.

Diese Arbeit unternimmt eine genaue Begutachtung einerseits des Verhältnisses eines archäologischen Teams, das an einem Regionalüberblick für den Griechischen Archäologischen Dienst arbeitet, zur einheimischen Bevölkerung sowie andererseits der Praktiken und scholastischen Annahmen der Archäologen. Regionalüberblicken mit ihrer Gewichtung auf die Bevölkerung und Ressourcen wird eine Ähnlichkeit mit der Arbeit von Volkszählern und Bürokraten unterstellt (und es überrascht nicht, daß viele Einheimische Archäologen als Repräsentanten des Staates ansehen). Prähistorische Landwirte werden als ‘zweckmäßig’ und apolitisch behandelt, und die Archäologie erscheint im Licht der Aneignung verfeinerter Taktiken, welche Ungewohntes griffig machen und Diffiziles und Gegensätzliches außerhalb des Interesses bannen. Die intellektuelle Gewähr demographischer Ansätze wird offensichtlicher, sobald die Beziehungsvielfalt zwischen dem Team und der einheimischen Bevölkerung in Betracht gezogen wird – gerade jene Vielfalt, die in Texten, welche über die Vergangenheit geschrieben wurden, fehlt – und, sobald Archäologen versuchen, das örtliche Leben und Lokalpolitik aus ihren Texten zu streichen.

Cet article examine Ie rapport entre une équipe archéologique engagée dans la prospection régionale pour le conte du Service Archéologique Grec, et les pratiques et suppositions des archéologues. La prospection régionale, qui met l'accent sur les populations et les ressources, ressemble fortement au travail des recenseurs et bureaucrats (et il n'est pas étonnant que de nombreuses personnes du pays considèrent les archéologues comme des représentants de l'état). Les agriculteurs de la préhistoire sont considérés comme étant ‘judicieux’ et apolitiques, et on observe que l'archéologie adopte des tactiques raffinées qui domestiquent ce qui n'est pas familier et faire disparaître ce qui est difficile et contradictoire. La sécurité intellectuelle des approches démographiques devient plus clair lorsqu'on considère la multiplicité des relations entre l'équipe et les gens du peuple (précisément la variété absente des textes écrits sur le passé) et lorsque les archéologues essayent de banir la vie locale et la politique de leurs discours.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of European Archaeology , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1993 , pp. 151 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © European Association of Archaeologists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

van Andel, Tjeerd H. and Runnels, C., 1987. Beyond the Acropolis. A Rural Greek Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Angel, Lawrence J., 1973. Early Neolithic people of Nea Nikomedeia. In Hermann, Schwabedissen (ed.), Die Anfänge des Neolithikums vom Orient bis Nordeuropa: 103–112. Böhlau Verlag: Köln and Wien (Fundamenta. Monographien zur Urgeschichte, 3).Google Scholar
Bintliff, John M. and Snodgrass, Anthony M., 1985. The Cambridge/Bradford Boeotian expedition: the first four years. Journal of Field Archaeology 12: 123–162.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, 1991 [1980]. Identity and representation: elements for a critical reflection on the idea of region. In Pierre, Bourdieu (Thompson, John B., ed.) Language and Symbolic Power. 220–228. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Butzer, Karl W., 1990. Review of Regional Dynamics: Burgundian Landscapes in Historical Perspective, by Carole, L. Crumley and William, H. Marquardt, eds. Geoarchaeology 5: 191–193.Google Scholar
Carrier, James G., 1992. Occidentalism: the world turned upside-down. American Ethnologist 19: 195–212.Google Scholar
Champion, Timothy, Gamble, Clive, Shennan, Stephen, and Whittle, Alasdair, 1984. Prehistoric Europe. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cherry, John F., 1983. Frogs around the pond: perspectives on current archaeological survey projects in the Mediterranean region. In Keller, Donald R. and Rupp, David W. (eds), Archaeological Survey in the Mediterranean Area: 375–416. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (IS 155).Google Scholar
Cherry, John F., Jack, L. Davis, and Eleni, Mantzourani, 1991. Landscape Archaeology as Long-Term History. Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands from the Earliest Settlement until Modern Times. Los Angeles: UCLA Institute of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Crumley, Carole L. and William, H. Marquardt (eds), 1987. Regional Dynamics: Burgundian Landscapes in Historical Perspective. San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cullen, Tracey, 1985. A measure of interaction among Neolithic communities: design elements of Greek Urfirnis pottery. (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University). Ann Arbor: University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Fabian, Johannes, 1983. Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes its Object. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Fotiadis, Michael, 1988. Kitrini Limni Nomou Kozanis, 1987. Proistoriki erevna. To Arheologiko Ergo sti Makedhonia ke Thraki 1 (1987): 51–61.Google Scholar
Fotiadis, Michael, 1991. Proistoriki erevna stin Kitrini Limni, N. Kozanis. Mia sintomi ekthesi. To Arheologiko Ergo sti Makedhonia ke Thraki 2 (1988): 41–54.Google Scholar
Fotiadis, Michael, 1992. Units of data as deployment of disciplinary codes. In Jean Claude, Gardin and Christopher, Peebles (eds), Representations in Archaeology: 132–148. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel, 1980 [1976]. The History of Sexuality. An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel, 1991 [1978]. Governmentality. In Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter (eds), The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality: 87–104. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel, 1991 [1980]. Questions of method. In Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter (eds), The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality: 73–86. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony, 1985. Time, space and regionalization. In Derek, Gregory and John, Urry (eds), Social Relations and Spatial Structures: 265–295. New York: St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Halstead, Paul, 1989. The economy has a normal surplus: economic stability and social change among early farming communities in Thessaly, Greece. In Paul, Halstead and John, O'Shea (eds), Bad Year Economics: Cultural Responses to Risk and Uncertainty: 68–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Halstead, Paul, 1990. Waste not, want not: traditional responses to crop failure in Greece. Rural History 1: 147–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassan, Fekri A., 1981. Demographic Archaeology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, Michael, 1987. Anthropology through the Looking Glass. Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, Michael, 1991. A Place in History. Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian, 1989. Writing archaeology: site reports in context. Antiquity 63: 268–274.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian, 1991. Reading the Past. Current approaches to interpretation in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kardlias, P. Nick and Mark, T. Shutes, 1991–92. Regional study in the Korinthia – the Korinthia exploration project 1991. Old World Archaeology Newsletter 15: 20–26.Google Scholar
Kotsakis, Kostas, 1991. The powerful past: theoretical trends in Greek archaeology. In Ian, Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory in Europe: 65–90. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McDonald, William A. and George, R. Rapp Jr. (eds), 1972. The Minnesota Messenia Expedition. Reconstructing a Bronze Age regional environment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy, 1988. Colonising Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Parsons, Jeffrey R., 1990. Critical reflections on a decade of full-coverage regional survey in the valley of Mexico. In Fish, S. K. and Kowalewski, S. A. (eds), The Archaeology of Regions: a case for full-coverage survey·. 7–31. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Pasquino, Pasquale, 1991. Theatrum politicum: the genealogy of capital – police and the state of prosperity. In Graham, Burchell, Colin, Gordon, and Peter, Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality: 105–118. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Perlés, Catherine, 1989. From Stone Procurement to Neolithic Society in Greece. Bloomington: Indiana University, Department of Anthropology (David Skomp Distinguished Lecture in Anthropology).Google Scholar
Raeff, Mark, 1983. The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germanies and Russia 1600–1800. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Roy A., 1990. Ecosystems, populations and people. In Emilio, F. Moran (ed.), The Ecosystem Approach in Anthropology. From Concept to Practice: 41–90. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Renfrew, A. Colin, 1972. The Emergence of Civilisation. The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium B.C. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Renfrew, A. Colin, Marija, Gimbutas, and Ernestine, S. Elster (eds), 1986. Excavations at Sitagroi, a Prehistoric Village in Northeast Greece, vol. 1. Los Angeles: UCLA Institute of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Rodden, R. J. and Rodden, J. M., 1964a. A European link with Chatal Huyuk: the 7th millennium settlement of Nea Nikomedeia in Macedonia. Part I, burials and the shrine. The Illustrated London News (April 11):564–567.Google Scholar
Rodden, R. J. and Rodden, J. M., 1964b. A European link with Chatal Huyuk: uncovering a 7th millennium settlement in Macedonia. Part II, site and pottery. The Illustrated London News (April 18):604–607.Google Scholar
Rodden, Robert J., 1964. Recent discoveries from prehistoric Macedonia. An interim report. Balkan Studies 4: 109–124.Google Scholar
Séfériadès, Michel, 1985. Troie I: Matériaux pour l'étude des sociétés du Nord-Est Egéen au début du Bronze Ancien. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations (Cahier 15).Google Scholar
Shanks, Michael and Tilley, Christopher, 1989. Questions rather than answers: reply to comments on archaeology into the 1990s. Norwegian Archaeological Review 22: 42–54.Google Scholar
Shanks, Michael and Tilley, Christopher, 1987. Social Theory and Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, Anthony M., 1987. An Archaeology of Greece. The Present State and Future Scope of a Discipline. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sumner, William M., 1990. Full coverage archaeological survey in the Near East: an example from Iran. In Fish, S. K. and Kowalewski, S. A. (eds), The Archaeology of Regions: a Case for Full-coverage Survey: 87–115. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Tilley, Christopher, 1990. Michel Foucault: towards an archaeology of archaeology. In Christopher, Tilley (ed.), Reading Material Culture: 281–347. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
White, Hayden, 1978. Tropics of Discourse: essays in cultural criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Whittle, Alasdair, 1985. Neolithic Europe: a Survey. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Wiseman, James, 1989. Archaeology today: from the classroom to the field and elsewhere. American Journal of Archaeology 93: 437–444.Google Scholar
Wiseman, James, 1991–92. Archaeology and remote sensing in the region of Nikopolis, Greece. Context 9: 1–4.Google Scholar
Wright, Gary A., 1990. Being there and the archaeologist as author. Anthropos 85: 39–44.Google Scholar
Wylie, Alison, 1992. The interplay of evidential constraints and political interests: recent archaeological research on gender. American Antiquity 57: 15–35.Google Scholar