The term ‘ethnography of archaeology’ groups together a set of perspectives, methods and approaches that are extremely diverse. Yet all of its practitioners share the belief that archaeology - as a distinctive set of cultural activities – should not be exempt from ethnographic or sociological study.

The very act of ethnographizing archaeological practice is an important one, for it symbolically places archaeology on a more equal footing with the many other human cultures and cultural activities that have been objectified in this way. It acknowledges that, as cultural beings ourselves, we have something fundamental in common with all those peoples who are or have been the subject of archaeological explanations, or from whose lives we have drawn analogies to shed light on past societies. Inclusion of the activities of archaeologists and ethno-archaeologists within the ‘ethnographic present’ – the domain of ethnographic study - is a logical necessity on one level. But on another level it subverts our ideas of the relationship between subjects and objects - the explainers and the explained - and challenges the implicit assumption of the privileged standpoint of the observer over the observed.

Bringing the ethnographic perspective back to bear on archaeological practice means turning around the outward-looking gaze of conventional archaeology and counter-balancing it with a reflective inward-looking glance. It is a manoeuvre that has the power to surprise. This is ‘ethnoarchaeology’ inverted – literally turned inside-out and upside-down. The focus is still on material culture, but on our own rather than that of some distant Other. For there are material symbols ‘in action’ on excavations just as there are in the villages of the Nuer, the Dinka or the Baringo. Indeed, I have argued elsewhere that archaeologists are the manipulators of material symbols par excellence (Edgeworth 1990).

Bourdieu (1988) has pointed out the need for anthropologists to ‘exoticise the domestic’ as well as ‘domesticate the exotic’– to make the familiar and the close-to-home seem strange. It can be difficult to believe that there is a cultural realm worthy of investigation right here in front of our eyes, on our very doorstep, which is almost entirely unexplored by anthropologists. Or that the everyday archaeological routines and procedures that seem so ordinary to us might seem truly extraordinary if viewed from another cultural or temporal perspective – from ‘outside’ instead of ‘in’. The seemingly impenetrable boundaries of our own taken-for-granted expertise could perhaps be described as the new frontier of ethnographic knowledge.

Papers in this session represent some of the first explorations of a territory that is so well known in a practical sense it is hardly known at all on a theoretical level. Much of archaeological knowledge is in the form of embodied skills that can be ‘put into practice’ but not articulated, or tacit assumptions that inform but never figure in conscious reasoning. There are social and political dimensions to archaeological practice which are so much a part of our being as archaeologists that we are for the most part completely unaware of their influence on our perception and our work. It is easy enough to look back at the excavations of Flinders Petrie or Pitt-Rivers and to see them in their social and historical context – much harder to do this with archaeological practices in the present day. To bring to light our own implicit cultural contribution to the constitution of evidence that informs our view of the past is one of the key tasks of ethnography of archaeology.

My own perspective on these issues stems from an ethnography of the excavation of a Bronze Age ring-ditch cemetery, situated in the east of England, which I carried out in the winter of 1989-1990. I tried to ask the question: what are the conditions - social, material, cognitive, practical - which make archaeological interpretation possible in the first instance? The focus of this research was the ‘act of discovery’, which I defined as "the (temporal) relation between (embodied) subjects and an (emerging) object, mediated through the use of tools". It is in these subject-object transactions, I argued, that knowledge of the past is ultimately produced and reproduced. I found that by using an ethnographic perspective it was possible to study not only the cultural agency of archaeologists, in giving form to material patterns, but also the ‘resistance’ of material evidence – and indeed that these two forces were inextricably bound together in the practical context of excavation (Edgeworth 1991, 2003).

Even back then in the late eighties when that project was conceived, the idea of ethnography of archaeology was beginning to emerge independently in different forms in other parts of the world. In the last decade or so there have been twenty to thirty projects in various countries which could be categorised as some kind of ethnography of archaeology. Other projects are currently ongoing or just starting up. Already the field is beginning to have some impact on general archaeological theory. The aim of this introductory paper is to review these exciting developments. In the following pages I outline the present scope and range of application of ethnography of archaeology and try to imagine what its potential and future directions might be.

What is now becoming clear is that ethnography of archaeology can provide a multiplicity of perspectives on archaeological practice, according to the nature of ethnographic projects and the particular stance taken up by the ethnographer. Work carried out at Arroyo Seco 2, a Palaeoindian site in Argentina, illustrates this point. Joan Gero’s well-known study ‘Archaeological practice and gendered encounters with field data’ (Gero 1996) focuses on aspects of archaeological practice previously unquestioned and taken for granted – the reproduction of gender divisions and inequalities through the everyday acts of excavation. In showing how gender bias is embedded in the actual production of archaeological knowledge in the present, Gero shows how implicit cultural values and inequalities inherent in modern western society may be tacitly introduced into our understanding of the past.

The work of Charles Goodwin, a colleague of Gero at Arroyo Seco, follows a different course. Goodwin is primarily a sociologist, not an archaeologist. His paper ‘Professional vision’ (Goodwin 1994) juxtaposes archaeological modes of vision with ways of seeing employed by attorneys and other professionals in the famous trial of the four policemen who beat up Rodney King. How do experts in different fields make significant patterns stand out from the background or mass of potentially significant evidence? Goodwin compares the example of an archaeologist using a trowel to delineate an emerging archaeological feature with the example of a defence lawyer using various tools and techniques to highlight details in video evidence. Such juxtapositions illuminate both ways. They help to shed light on everyday procedures and routines of excavation as embodied skills that are central to the organisation of the profession. At the same time the analysis demonstrates that observation of how archaeologists go about their work can be used to increase our understanding of other quite different areas of cultural activity, and thereby of human action and perception generally.

Subsequent papers by Goodwin, drawing from ethnographic studies of excavations in the USA, develop this form of comparative analysis further. In his more recent ‘Action and embodiment’ article (Goodwin 2000), he compares the use of Munsell Colour charts by archaeologists engaged in recording a site with the totally different social context of two Latina girls playing in a hopscotch grid. Both kinds of grid, he argues, are ‘semiotic fields’– providing a material framework for orientating action, language, gesture and perception. Goodwin goes on to develop a general theory of human action in which a dynamic and crucial part is played by the material environment and the objects and artefacts within it - a theory, incidentally, which might be of considerable use in the archaeological interpretation of material remains.

Themes of the social production of knowledge developed by Gero and the embodied archaeological skills/perception examined by Goodwin are explored further by anthropologists working on Ian Hodder’s early Neolithic site at Çatalhöyük in Turkey (Hodder 1997, 2000). Carolyn Hamilton’s paper, ‘Faultlines: the construction of archaeological knowledge at Çatalhöyük’ (Hamilton 2000), examines the structural breaks and tensions that may arise in the practices of excavation and recording. In a remarkable experiment in reflexivity, Hamilton deliberately engaged archaeologists in interactions about their work and her reflections on it, effectively feeding the results of her research back into the developing excavation strategy, so that her work helped to shape the very practices she was documenting. Working alongside Hamilton, Nessa Leibhammer studied the visual conventions and representations archaeologists use on site (Leibhammer 2000). More recently, Michael Ashley Lopez has also addressed the gap between visual representations and the actual experience of seeing (Lopez 2000).

The movement of Ian Hodder and other post-processual theorists away from a world largely circumscribed by text towards the practical realities of excavation and an encounter with something that is very definitely not-text, is connected with the perspective afforded by ethnography of archaeology. The concept of interpretation ‘at the trowel’s edge’ (Hodder 1999) is a case in point. When archaeologists are actually working on excavating material remains, their attention tends to be focused on the practical task in hand. The unfolding relation between worker and material evidence is difficult to apprehend when one is a part of that very relationship. A radical shift in stance and perspective is required, to look at the relation from outside-in (see Edgeworth 1991, 2003, for detailed case studies of archaeology ‘under the moving blade of the trowel’, all seen from the perspective of an ethnographer studying archaeological practice rather than the very different point of view of an archaeologist studying material remains). It is true that the keeping of site diaries by excavators achieves a kind of reflexivity. But the skills of practical reasoning deployed in material encounters that are mediated by use of the trowel, by virtue of being tacit and taken for granted, are not normally accessible to subjective reflection alone. Without doubt, Hodder’s most successful approach to the problem of reflexivity is to bring in anthropologists to study, participate in and contribute their findings back into the working practices of archaeologists.

Ethnographers of archaeology at Çatalhöyük have covered the social context of the excavation as well as the excavation itself. A very important and influential article is David Shankland’s ‘Anthropology of an archaeological presence’ (Shankland 1997) which examines the impact of the archaeological project on local communities at the nearby village of Küçükköy (see also Shankland 2000). Expanding this theme, the Turkish anthropologist Ayfer Bartu worked with the many different groups involved in the Çatalhöyük project, from tourists to Goddess worshippers to government officials, as well as local people and archaeologists themselves – see her paper ‘Where is Çatalhöyük? Multiple sites in the construction of an archaeological site’ (Bartu 2000).

The overall project at Çatalhöyük is conceived of as an exercise in post-processualism and an experiment in reflexive archaeology (Hodder 1999). Ethnographies of various aspects of archaeological practice have played a critical role in this enterprise. It is also the case that work at Çatalhöyük has played a major part in developing new forms of ethnography of archaeology. However, it is important that ethnographies of archaeology are not equated solely with the site of Çatalhöyük, or for that matter with post-processualism alone. If the method is to be used only in the study of the production of post-processual archaeological knowledge, it becomes caught in an inward spiral. The potential of the method is actually far wider than just as an instrument of reflexive practice for this one particular site and school of thought. It needs to be applied in a variety of ways across the whole range of sites and working traditions in archaeology today.

The excavation project at Leskernick on Bodmin Moor, UK (Bender, Hamilton and Tilley 1997) experimented with various reflexive methods including the keeping of site diaries by excavators. In subsequent seasons the project sociologists Tony Williams and Mike Wilmore developed an anthropology of the ‘artificial community’ of academics working on the site (Williams 1999?, Wilmore 2000). They also looked at archaeologists’ many-layered perceptions of the landscape within which excavation takes place. This is an important step. Every site has its own unique atmosphere or ‘spirit of place’, but connections between landscape and site tend to be severed during de-worlding processes of recording and post-excavation analysis. Ethnography of archaeology can play a significant role in re-capturing the richness of our experience of landscapes and re-connecting it to our understanding of archaeological sites. A new book on the Leskernick project will be published soon and this will include chapters on ethnographies of the archaeological site.

At roughly the same time as the experimental work at Çatalhöyük and Leskernick, Blythe Roveland was developing similar ideas and reflexive methodologies at Pennworthmoor 1, an Upper Palaeolithic site in northern Germany (Roveland 2000). Instead of bringing in teams of anthropologists or sociologists, however, Roveland directly addresses the issues (and the difficulties) of being an ethnographer of one’s own practices.

Another important site for new ethnographies of archaeology is Monte Polizzo in Sicily. Here Cornelius Holtorf and others have been working as participant-observers of fieldwork practices and discourses. In ‘Notes on the life history of a pot sherd’ (Holtorf 2002), he tracks a pottery sherd from the site on its journey through various post-excavation procedures. With some humour and irony, Holtorf proposes that the life of the artefact - normally taken to have ended when it was lost, broken, thrown away or otherwise deposited in the archaeological record in the distant past - started in the moment it was discovered by archaeologists. By turning the standard life history approach on its head and by focusing on the events and transformations in the life of such a humble, mundane object in the present day, Holtorf develops a startlingly new perspective on material culture and archaeological practice.

The processes of excavation, from this point of view, must be considered as part of the life history of an archaeological site. Rachel Giraudo, a participant-observer at the Monte da Igreja excavations in Portugal, presents a case study in the life history of a site and its artefacts (Giraudo 2002). John Carman takes the point further, and into a new field, by proposing an archaeology of the material traces of archaeology itself – see his paper ‘Excavating excavation’ (Carman forthcoming).

Such is the irony of ethnography of archaeology, in bringing the outward-looking gaze back to bear on archaeology itself, that images can be as effective as words in conveying some of the principal themes. Jonathan Bateman’s photographs of the material culture of archaeology and Tony Williams’ images of (archaeological perception of) landscape at Leskernick can both be found on the worldwide web. So too can Ashish Chadha’s film, ‘Rummaging for pasts: excavating Sicily, digging Bombay’, which juxtaposes scenes from the excavation at Monte Polizzo in Sicily with old footage (discovered in a roadside junkyard) of ceremonies and rituals of middle-class India of the 1970s. Visual media will no doubt play an increasingly important role in ethnographies of archaeology.

A recent criticism of ethnography of archaeology is that it explores only one side of the encounter that takes place between archaeologists and material remains (Lucas 2001, 15). It is true that ethnographers of archaeology tend to use constructivist metaphors in order to understand how archaeologists ‘shape’ their evidence and ‘fashion’ knowledge of the past. But this does not preclude the critical capacity of material evidence to surprise, contradict and challenge the interpretations that archaeologists make of material evidence in practice. Indeed, the ways in which archaeologists both ‘shape’ and are ‘shaped by’ emerging material remains are bound together in an unfolding practical dialectic in the everyday events of excavation. Various papers by Tom Yarrow are pertinent here. Based on ethnographies carried out in both Britain and Sicily, his work examines ways in which the material world - in the form of the tools that are used, the evidence that is dug up - can literally shape the movements, perceptions and interpretations of archaeologists (Yarrow 2000b, 2002).

An innovative ethnography of archaeological practice is to be found in Yarrow’s unpublished dissertation, ‘Excavating knowledge: the relational capacities of persons and things on an archaeological dig’, based on work carried out on an excavation close to the famous Mesolithic site of Starr Carr in Yorkshire, UK (Yarrow 2000a). Given that ethnography of archaeology is such a new field, it is perhaps hardly surprising that much of the best and most original work is in the form of unpublished dissertations (several of which have been mentioned here). While many published papers are based on just one or two weeks’ fieldwork, dissertations and theses are usually founded upon a much more substantial period of research. In such a small but growing field, it is very important that this work gets cited along with texts by more established authors.

Yarrow’s work is significant in another sense. In carrying out ethnographies in the world of contract or commercial archaeology as well as on university research digs, he escapes from the circularities of academic arguments that are based solely on academic practices. The overall scope of ethnography of archaeology could perhaps be widened in other directions too. Studies tend to be focused on fieldwork and particularly on the act of excavation itself. But ethnographies also need to cover other realms and levels of archaeological practice. Holtorf’s ethnography of finds processing mentioned above is a rare example. Another is Jonathan Bateman’s paper on ‘Immediate realities: an anthropology of computer visualisation in archaeology’ (Bateman 2000). The use of computer technology has transformed all aspects of archaeological practice. Rather than treat archaeology as if it was an enclosed world, Bateman explores those areas in which the material culture and practices of archaeology intermesh with those of the wider society.

The practices of archaeology are of course culturally and historically situated and ultimately have to be understood as such. Boundaries between archaeology and the wider world are not only diffuse but also shift and change according to circumstance. This can be illustrated by considering the use of hired labour on archaeological projects. It has long been standard practice for archaeological expeditions going out from richer into poorer countries to employ locals as the basic excavation workforce. Hired labourers from local communities move from one cultural world to another on a daily basis, learning archaeological skills though not necessarily embracing the set of beliefs and values they represent (see the paper by Denise Gomes in this session for an account of working with the Parauá in Amazonia). The interface between the archaeological project and local communities inevitably has political dimensions. No wonder, then, that ethnographers are increasingly finding such cultural interfaces of great interest. Lisa Breglia, an ethnographer working on a Maya archaeological site in Yucatán, Mexico, has called into question the ethics of how archaeologists use ethnography in their dealings with local people. She has strongly argued that a new kind of ethnography of archaeology should emerge from the collaboration of archaeologists and ethnographers – focusing on the cultural intersections between archaeological projects and local communities. The results of this work should feed back into a more ethical archaeological practice (Breglia 2002).

Timoteo Rodriguez takes the important step of looking at archaeological practice in the Yucatan from the point of view of Maya people living nearby – see his paper ‘Maya perception of ancestral remains: multiple places in a local space’ (Rodriguez 2001). To local people who farm the land all the year round, the archaeologists are the ones who are the outsiders or foreigners. We are so accustomed to looking from the ‘inside-out’ that it comes as something as a shock and a revelation to be suddenly confronted with a view that is truly from the ‘outside-in’. For so long completely ignored or overridden, such views are actually of immense value to ethnography of archaeology and to archaeology in general.

What is it like to be the subject of an ethnographic or ethnoarchaeological study? It can be an interesting and positive experience. But being the ‘object’ of observation and analysis can be an uncomfortable feeling too. Our willingness to submit other peoples to this experience should be counterbalanced by a willingness to undergo the experience ourselves. Indeed it is only when we apply the same perspectives to our own activities we so freely apply to the activities of others that the relationships of power embedded in the ethnographic method can be brought to light. Thus Gustavo Politis presents a thoughtful critique of Gero’s ethnographic study of gender bias at Arroyo Seco 2 in Argentina from his perspective as the director of the site (Politis 2001). Politis suggests that Gero’s interpretations of bias in excavation procedure are themselves biased by the assumptions and expectations of the ethnographer (an observation, incidentally, that could be made of just about all ethnographies of archaeology, which do not claim to be any more theoretically neutral than the activities they describe). He goes on to argue that the high profile of Gero’s article is a reflection of power structures that exist within the global structure of archaeology itself, specifically the dominance of European and North American discourse over voices from other parts of the world. Ultimately, however, Politis recognises the positive value of ethnography of archaeology and recommends the experience of being constituted as the ‘other’ to all ethnographers and ethnoarchaeologists.

Like any other kind of social anthropology, ethnography of archaeology can be ‘applied’, and does not have to maintain political neutrality. A research project just starting up is Paul Everill’s ‘Invisible Digger’ ethnography of contract archaeology in the UK. Everill intends to explore the motivations and experiences of archaeologists working for commercial units in order to reach a greater understanding of the profession, with a view to better representation in future political action (Everill, ‘Invisible Digger’ website).

The Palestinian archaeologist Nadia Abu El-Haj, in her book ‘Facts on the ground: archaeological practice and the territorial self-fashioning in Israeli society, looks at the connection between the production of archaeological facts in excavation and the dispossession of Arab lands (Abu El-Haj 2001). This is anthropology of colonialism and nationalism as well as anthropology of archaeology. What distinguishes the work of Abu El-Haj from others who link archaeology with forms of nationalism is her movement away from an emphasis on scientific discourse towards a focus on scientific practice. In other words it is not just what archaeologists say that is important, but also and especially what they do. The bulldozing away of layers pertaining to a particular cultural group or peoples, in order to reach levels pertaining to one’s own perceived national or cultural heritage, is an example of an act that may seem innocuous and harmless to the person carrying it out. But to a cultural outsider such an act speaks volumes, and has a symbolism clearly linked to wider political events.

To say that ethnography of archaeology (like archaeological practice itself) is inevitably political is not to say that it should be allied to any particular political cause or point of view. Rather its great advantage is that it facilitates a shifting in and out of different perspectives, encouraging us always to apply (perhaps with some degree of irony) similar perspectives and explanations to our own activities that we do to those of others – to look ‘in’ as well as ‘out’.

The ultimate effect of ethnography of archaeology will be to deepen and change our understanding of the human past. This may seem like a contradiction in terms. How can we learn about the distant past by studying archaeological practice in the present? One way to frame an answer is to think of archaeological practice as a kind of glass through which we can glimpse fragments of the past. Inevitably it is a coloured glass. It is coloured by deeply engrained cultural preconceptions and assumptions as well as embodied skills and rationales particular to a time and place in the development of archaeology – even if it appears transparent to us. We seem to see clearly through it, but the transparency is an illusion. This only becomes apparent when we hold up another glass to it, revealing the tacit cultural dimension of our own practices. We can do this by looking from a distance in cultural space, taking up the vantage-point of someone situated outside the system of values that we take for granted (e.g. the Mayan villager) Or we can look back at archaeological work from a distance in time. Ethnography of archaeology is a new third way - a method that can be used in the here and now. Now of course it is true that this ethnographic lens is a coloured glass too. But at least with more than one lens it is possible to adjust them in relation to each other until a kind of focus on both ‘the past in the present’ and ‘the present in the past’ is achieved.

Just as in the last century theoretical physics radically changed its view of the fundamental structures of the universe by incorporating the relationship between the observer and the observed into its theoretical frameworks and methodologies, so archaeology at the beginning of this century stands on the threshold of a similar breakthrough in its own realm of study.

The field of ethnography of archaeology today is comprised of a wide range of approaches – many of which have developed spontaneously and independently in various parts of the world over the last ten years. It occupies that creative inter-disciplinary space between archaeology, anthropology and sociology of science, and crosses the great divide between theory and practice. There is no linear sequence to its development so far. It could almost be described as part of the zeitgeist, or ‘spirit of the times’, as archaeology moves towards a more holistic vision of its own role in the construction of archaeological knowledge, and therefore towards a deeper understanding of the human past.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abu El-Haj, Nadia, 2001, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and the Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, Chicago, University of Chicago Press

Bartu, Arfu, 2000, ‘Where is Çatalhöyük? Multiple sites in the construction of an archaeological site’ in I. Hodder (ed) Towards reflexive method in archaeology: the example at Çhatalhöyük (ch 8)

Bateman, Jonathan, 2000, ‘Immediate realities: an anthropology of computer visualisation in archaeology’ in Internet Archaeology No. 8

Bender, Barbara, Hamilton, Sue, and Tilley, Chris, 1997, ‘Leskernick: stone worlds, alternative narratives: nested landscapes’ in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63, pp 147-78

Bourdieu, Pierre, 1988, Homo Academicus (translated by P.Collier), Stanford, Stanford University Press

Breglia, Lisa, 2002, ‘In situ collaboration: ethnographers and archaeologists in the field’, unpublished paper given at Symposium on Ethics and the Practice of Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania Museum, 28/09/02

Carman, John, forthcoming, ‘Excavating excavation, a contribution to the social archaeology of archaeology’, in G.Carver (ed), Digging in the dirt, BAR.