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Comments on archaeology into the 1990s

Ian Hodder

To cite this article: Ian Hodder (1989) Comments on archaeology into the 1990s, , 22:1, 15-18,
DOI: 10.1080/00293652.1989.9965482

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Published online: 19 May 2010.

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Comments on Archaeology into the 1990s
IAN HODDER
Department of Archaeology, Cambridge University, England
There is of course much in the two books of
Shanks and Tilley and in their paper with
which I agree. They have clarified and pro-
vided an important theoretical basis for a
number of contemporary trends in archae-
ology. The areas of agreement include exam-
ination of the social construction of
archaeological knowledge — who writes the
past and why. The areas of agreement also
include experimentation with different ways
of writing the past, dialogue and critique
between different constructions of the past,
and an emphasis on a plural, negotiated past,
as exemplified in the contributions of fem-
inist archaeologists.
However, this area of agreement within
post-processual archaeology is not to be
opposed too simplistically to a rigid, un-
changing processual 'straw man'. Although a
certain extremism has been adopted by die-
hard processualists such as Binford, most
processual archaeologists have attempted to
incorporate post-processual ideas to some
extent. Perhaps the clearest examples of the
latter trend are provided by Flannery &
Marcus (1983), Renfrew (1983), and Earle &
Preucel (1987). Many archaeologists would
today be circumspect about using simplistic
optimization models, and many would
accept Shanks and Tilley's call to incorporate
analyses of structures, webs of meaning,
communications, and the importance of his-
tory.
As Shanks and Tilley argue, we should not
place too much emphasis on them as authors.
Their writings are part of a broader trend and
atmosphere of change within archaeology.
There is movement in many of the directions
that Shanks and Tilley and others have called
for. Within these broader post-processual
trends there is a readiness to accept much of
what Shanks and Tilley suggest for an
Comments on Archaeology into the 1990s 15
archaeology of the 1990s. But often the ver-
sion of these trends which Shanks and Tilley
offer is found unacceptable and extreme. I
wish to argue that the partial unacceptability
of the Shanks and Tilley position results from
a failure to deal directly with the nature of
dialectical thought. They often take an
extreme position, favouring one side of an
argument and failing to note that both sides
of a dichotomy are dependent on each other.
To emphasize one side of a dichotomy at the
expense of another may have some strategic
advantage but it does not necessarily lead to
constructive development or to adequate
deconstructive critique.
As a first example, consider the opposition
between present and past. For many people,
the point at which they reject Shanks and
Tilley outright is when they claim that the
past is simply a construction of the present.
The real sticking point is when they say, as
in their paper in this volume, that any
attempt to reconstruct a real past is impos-
sible and that we should not attempt to
recover original meanings. Of course, many
archaeologists would accept that we need to
examine and criticize how the past is con-
structed in the present, but Shanks and Tilley
place an all-embracing emphasis on the
present.
What is this 'present' which they so reify?
Shanks and Tilley need to take into account
their own emphasis on meaning as relational,
constructed out of differences: for our notion
of 'present' is only constructed in opposition
to terms such as 'past'. And from where does
our notion of present derive? From the past.
Shanks and Tilley refer to Derrida. Our
terms and ideas in and about the present are
already 'written' for us in the past. Shanks
and Tilley are right to say in their paper that
'the meaning of the past does not belong to
 16 Ian Hodder
the past but to the present', and that 'archae-
ology is a making of a past in a present', but
they would also have been right to invert past
and present in these phrases and say that 'the
meaning of the present does not belong to
the present but to the past', and that 'archae-
ology is a making of a present in a past'.
There is no past and no present — only an
eternal construction of the one in relation to
the other, as part of a dialectical process.
If the mutual relationship between past
and present is not recognized, a number of
contradictions emerge and it is for these con-
tradictions and inconsistencies that Shanks
and Tilley can often be criticized. They say,
for example, that archaeologists construct a
past out of a present while at the same time
arguing that we should recognize the past as
different and other. But how can the past
be different from the present if it is entirely
(except for some 'resistance') constructed in
the present? This overt contradiction would
be avoided if it were accepted that the
present is constructed in the past and in the
archaeological remains of the past.
A second example of the implications of
failing to deal with the mutual dependence
between past and present is the relationship
between theory and data. Shanks' and
Tilley's argument that we should place less
emphasis on coherence and correspondence
in relation to the data and on 'testing' is a
logical result of their emphasis on the present
as opposed to the past. Of course all data are
indeed theory dependent; but this is not to
say that data are only theory dependent.
Theory is also dependent on its opposite
(data), not only in the trivial sense that we
think through examples but also in the rad-
ical sense that we think through words, sym-
bols, and sounds which are all of the world of
experience. The material symbols excavated
by archaeologists are always already organ-
ized, and in either a direct or mediated way,
they create thoughts in us.
If the mutual interdependence of theory
and data is not recognized, contradictions of
the type evident in the work of Shanks and
Tilley are difficult to avoid. On the one hand,
they claim that testing and correspondence
with the data should not be the bases for
securing the validity of archaeological-
knowledge claims. On the other hand, their
own studies of Neolithic mortuary rituals or
pottery decoration rest to a large extent on
careful consideration of data, correspon-
dence of data in relation to theory, and
coherence of theoretical argument. In the
practice of their work, the dialectical
relationships between theory and data,
present and past, are abundantly clear. Yet
in their vision of the 1990s Shanks and Tilley
do not mention the collection of new
archaeological data, the need for major new
excavations, new field surveys, and new pre-
histories. As much as we need to develop
critical theories, experiment with new wri-
tings, and otherwise engage in the present,
we also need to contribute to contemporary
thought by thinking through new archaeo-
logical data.
A second dichotomy which can only be dis-
cussed adequately when conceived as tho-
roughly dialectical is that between agency
and structure. By placing an overall emphasis
on the present, and by approving ideas about
engagement, intentionality, and material
culture as active, Shanks and Tilley attempt
to centre the subject while at the same time
claiming a decentering, with the subject
located within structures. They place an
emphasis on the structures of power within
which archaeologists write and work. In this
instance of the relationship between agency
and structure they have perhaps come closest
to incorporating a fully dialectical position.
In practice, however, an understanding of
the duality is not achieved.
Structures produce and enable agency.
Indeed, in the acts of writing Shanks and
Tilley use structures on which they depend
but which they criticize as undemocratic.
They criticize scientific archaeology as too
authoritarian and argue instead for a demo-
cratic politics of archaeology in which the
authoritarian power structures in archae-
ology are broken down.

Shanks and Tilley fail to note that in a true
archaeological democracy their own views
would probably never have got into print.
They are the views of a minority, supported
by an educational elite and by prestigious
academic publishers. Their own 'agency'
depends on highly 'undemocratic' structures
of power and privilege. Even in their own
texts, the authoritarian voice of command is
ever present in their 'programme' for the
1990s which 'must now contain the following
. . . ', and in the essentialist, reductionist,
and irrational 'credo' for the characteristics
of material culture which we 'should' regard
(my emphases).
Why should we accept that material cul-
ture meaning 'must be regarded as con-
tingent and contextually' dependent? It is
not difficult to argue that many meanings
attributed to material culture (for example,
that to drink water can prevent death) are
not contextually varied. Why should we
accept, or even be interested, in Shanks and
Tilley's view? Moreover, what is the auth-
ority of their critical interpretations of their
own writing or the writing of others? Their
emphases on democracy and pluralism con-
tradict their own heavy dependence on struc-
tures of power and authority.
Indeed, to produce a plural, polysemic
past is to presage the loss of archaeological
authority, to create a loss of nerve and a loss
of any ability to speak about the past. Curi-
ously, the misplaced scientific certainty and
rigour of the new archaeology created an
atmosphere in which the agent could act. The
archaeologist could manipulate data and in
so doing act on the world, change it, and
understand it. However, the ethic of much
post-structuralist and post-modern writing is
that many interpretations are possible and
none have any validity except in relation to
present relations of power. All points of view
are provisional. In this atmosphere the agent
becomes powerless, just another fleeting,
meaningless image.
To encourage polysemy is thus necessarily
to enfeeble agency. Shanks and Tilley decry
Comments on Archaeology into the 1990s \1
the emerging professionalism of archaeology
and the increasing definition of archaeology
as a separate discipline. It is hard to see what
can be more certain in the archaeology of
1990s than its increasing awareness of its own
identity. In Britain the recent proliferation
of special interest bodies, such as the Insti-
tute of Field Archaeologists, the Standing
Committee of University Professors and
Heads of Departments in Archaeology, and
the Funding Form, shows an attempt to unify
and lobby in relation to funding, heritage
management, and competitive tendering for
archaeological resources.
The authority of 'archaeological' state-
ments depends on these emerging and chang-
ing structures of power. By ignoring them or
decomposing them we can do nothing and
say nothing. Our critique needs to be con-
structive and productive. Thus, for example,
rather than throwing up our arms at the hor-
ror of government and corporate funds being
pumped into 'hard' archaeological science
which does not address questions, or theor-
etical issues, we could find ways of linking
faunal counts, beatle wings, and pollen
sequences to current areas of theoretical
interest. It is only in this way that current
interest in structures of meaning, polysemy,
agency, or power can hope to become
debated more widely.
It is a final contradiction of the work of
Shanks and Tilley that in trying to engage
archaeology more fully with a wider world
through deconstruction and Critical Theory,
they in fact encourage a debilitated archae-
ology and an increasingly remote and elitist
archaeological theory. They will untimately
silence themselves if the structures through
which they speak are made to disappear and
if their authority as specialists in the archaeo-
logical past is denied. Archaeological theory
is already a minority interest. It will become
increasingly marginalized if, through theor-
etical claims, the construction of the present
through the past is rejected and if the struc-
tures of power through which we can act to
change the world are dissipated. In devel-
 18 Ian Hodder
oping a critical archaeology concerned with
polysemy, meaning, and power, we will need
to depend upon our existence as archae-
ologists and to manipulate, as Shanks and
Tilley have already done, existing structures.
It is an important fact that the most radical
British archaeology in the last decade has
emanated from the most established of uni-
versities and has been published by the oldest
Comments on Archaeology into the 1990s
BJ0RNAR OLSEN
Institute of Social Science, University of Troms0, Norway
In their present paper Shanks and Tilley
summarize some of the main content of their
two major works, as well as proposing a pro-
gramme for archaeology in the 1990s. In the
remarks that follow I will try to omit the
usual genre of archaeological comments, list-
ing positive versus negative points, pro-
ducing a well-balanced (or repressively
tolerant) reading. Instead, I shall explore
some topics which are of special interest to
me and which I think are also directly rel-
evant to the issues raised in their paper.
Hopefully my comments will reflect some of
the significance of Shanks and Tilley's work
to recent theoretical debate in archaeology.
During the second half of the 1980s one
has become increasingly aware of the frag-
mentation taking place within the discipline
of archaeology. While the inspiration found
in structuralism and different versions of
neo- and structural Marxism during the first
half of the decade hardly led to any real
break with the realms of the new archae-
ology, in fact it could be seen as another
quest for new methodologies; the recent
influence from French post-structuralism
and late hermeneutics, as well as different
aspects of Critical Theory, has, together with
the impact of feminist critique and indigen-
and most established of publishers. In order
to avoid simply a new intellectual elitism, we
will need to break down old dichotomies
even if it means having to make our hands
grubby in the real dirt of ages and in the full
range of contemporary structures of power
through which that dirt is excavated and
cleaned for modern consumption.
ous perceptions of the past, taken us to a
point where no bridging in aims and objects
seems possible. Taking into consideration
the development within areas of other disci-
plines like literary criticism and ethnogra-
phy, this might reflect what may turn out to
be a real and dramatic 'epistemological
break' within Western science and philos-
ophy. Trying to omit regressing to the
extremely popular (and rather undefined)
meta-concepts of 'modernism' and 'post-
modernism', I shall start these comments by
making some remarks on this change and
what it consists of in relation to archaeology.
The outset of the current fragmentation
facing archaeology and other human sciences
is in my opinion related to the basic problem
of 'making' versus 'finding' (or discovering)
as constitutive for knowledge — i.e. is
knowledge a representative faculty or a cre-
atively and discoursively formulated enter-
prise? According to the first position,
knowledge is defined as the correct depiction
of reality, that it 'mirrors' the essence of its
subject-matter (Rorty 1979). This philos-
ophy has been constitutive of the realms of
different new archaeologies during the last
25 years (as it was for the 'traditional'
approaches preceding them). Its position is