Mark D. McCoy's Maps for Time Travelers is an intriguing romp through the world of all things geospatial in archaeology. The stated goal of the book is to provide a “crash course, with minimal jargon,” on how archaeologists utilize geospatial technologies like “GPS, satellite imagery, digital maps, and other instruments … like drones at 3-D laser scanners … to create a better, more complete picture of the ancient world” (p. ix). The book certainly meets this goal and, in fact, does quite a bit more than that, covering a wide range of topics that include antiquarians and the rise of the field of archaeology, GIS and 3D spatial modeling, and the challenges facing archaeologists today who are employing these techniques from the air and on the ground.
The book's narrative arc provides a bevy of hard facts and methodological discussion of archaeology, but it does so in such a way that readers forget they are learning about a scientific endeavor. Part I considers the history of archaeology (paired with the emergence of the time-travel fiction genre in writing), as well as the basis and justification for archaeological pursuits, which (McCoy reminds us) are about finding things out rather than just finding things—à la Indiana Jones and his ilk. Part II provides a deep dive into the various geospatial technologies that have been developed outside of the field over the years, and how these have been harnessed for the specific circumstances and research questions of archaeology. In Part III, McCoy introduces us to three important areas of inquiry in archaeology—migration, mobility, and travel; food and farms; and living in the past—while explaining how our frames of reference surrounding these topics have shaped and have been shaped by our understandings of the spatial world. Within these sections, McCoy does a masterful job interspersing archaeological case studies from around the globe to demonstrate his points and provide context and detail on geospatial applications in archaeology. We land now and again back in the Hawaiian Islands, where McCoy has spent most of his career applying different kinds of geospatial analyses in his archaeological investigations.
My primary complaint is that, in keeping with his time travel theme, McCoy sprinkles in a number of niche references to the genre of time-travel fiction, such as Doctor Who (the BBC series that started in 1963), Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), and The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (1895, and the basis of the 1960 film). These references will resonate strongly with a segment of potential readers, but at times, they feel exclusionary to a wider public with different gender/race/class/educational identities (note that I am intentionally refraining here from making my own assumptions about the primary consumers of time-travel fiction). I also predict that such references will fall flat with many younger readers (such as many of our current undergraduate and graduate students). I understand why McCoy has used these references: they clearly resonate and excite him, and my hope is that even a novice to archaeology or the time-travel fiction genre can grasp that these elements are more for literary flair than to demonstrate content. That said, time travel is an evergreen subject. Dated references notwithstanding, it does not overly bog down McCoy's underlying message, and it is, in fact, a very clever way of thinking about what geospatial applications in archaeology are allowing us to accomplish.
My other related criticism is one directed more generally at the field of geospatial applications of archaeology (and I include myself as a practitioner within this subfield)—namely, the lack of engagement with traditionally overlooked and underproblematized identities. This comes down to, essentially, issues inherent in thinking about the world from a Cartesian (that is, Western) perspective. There are fundamental limitations to the landscapes and timescapes made available to us via geospatial technologies, and I strongly believe that “geospatial archaeologists” need to continue exploring different ways of thinking about the milieu in which one lives/lived/will live. McCoy talks a bit about how we may begin to incorporate Indigenous ontologies, citing the groundbreaking work of Métis scholar Kisha Supernant, although I think a more concerted section on collaborative geospatial research, community-based and participatory GIS, and counter-mapping would have been well positioned here (he does reference counter-mapping briefly vis-à-vis the Dakota Access Pipeline, and he references Sonya Atalay's 2012 critical volume—Community-Based Archaeology—in the Notes; for another recent example, see Advances in Archaeological Practice 9(3), Special Issue, “NDN Communities and Remote Sensing Technologies,” edited by Kristen Barnett and Matthew Sanger, 2021). To arrive at more inclusive understandings of the past, we also need to incorporate nonnormative, feminist, and queer approaches to archaeological inquiry in order to see where they might intersect with critical emergent approaches to geospatial analysis.
In this book, McCoy has very cleverly packaged the questions “What do archaeologists do?” and “Why should we care?” in a way that is both informative and entertaining. Archaeology has long suffered from misinterpretations by the public, and we should look to books like this to fill the void. We need more such works that can appeal to a broad audience while also seamlessly underscoring the purpose, practice, and relevance of our field. In sum, McCoy has accomplished quite a feat, interweaving the subjects of archaeology, geospatial technologies, and their interplay into a narrative that is at once funny, informative, clever, and compelling. I will certainly be assigning chapters of this book to my introductory archaeology course in the near future.
