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Andrew Reinhard. Archaeogaming: An Introduction to Archaeology in and of

Video Games (New York & Oxford: Berghahn, 2018, 236pp., 22 illustr., pbk,
ISBN 978-1-78533-873-1)

Article  in  European Journal of Archaeology · November 2019

DOI: 10.1017/eaa.2019.49

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 612
although the poor state of preservation of
the bone assemblage limits the scope of a
valuable contribution. The paleoanthropo-
logical and archaeothanalogical approach is
precious because it adds substantially to
what is known from the many La Tène
cemeteries in western Switzerland that
were excavated in the nineteenth century
and the first half of the twentieth century.
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Crubézy, E., Masset, C., Lorans, E.,
Perrin, F. & Tranoy, L., eds. 2000.
Archéologie funéraire. Paris: Errance.
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Eicher, A. 2009. Rituels funéraires chez les
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Oxbow Books.
Hubert, J., ed. 2000. Madness, Disability and
Social Exclusion: The Archaeology and
Anthropology of ‘Difference’. London &
New York: Routledge.
Andrew Reinhard. Archaeogaming: An Introduction to Archaeology in and of Video Games
(New York & Oxford: Berghahn, 2018, 236pp., 22 illustr., pbk, ISBN 978-1-78533-
873-1)
Andrew Reinhard is the director of
publications of the American Numismatic
Society and a PhD student at York
University in the UK. He is also the creator
of a web blog called Archaeogaming. Since
this is a new archaeological field, Reinhard
published Archaeogaming: An Introduction to
Archaeology in and of Video Games to
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available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2019.49
European Journal of Archaeology 22 (4) 2019
Murail, P., Bruzek, J., Houët, F., Cunha, E.
2005. DSP: Un outil de diagnose sexuelle
probabiliste à partir des données métriques
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Maizy (Aisne), Brenouille (Oise). Revue
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Southwell-Wright, W.A. 2013. Past
Perspectives: What Can Archaeology
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Disability Studies. New York: Palgrave
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Steele, D.G. 1970. Estimation of Stature from
Fragments of Long Limb Bones. In: T.D.
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Disasters. Washington D.C.: National
Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian
Institution, pp. 85–97.
CHLOÉ BELARD
Archéologie et Philologie d’Orient et
d’Occident UMR 8546, CNRS – Ecole
Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
doi:10.1017/eaa.2019.46
introduce its theory and practice. Each
chapter introduces a different aspect of
archaeogaming. ‘Real-World
Archaeogaming’ (Ch. 1) discusses video
games and related hardware as archaeo-
logical artefacts that can be studied using
more traditional archaeological methods,
such as excavation. Like in the rest of the
 Book Reviews
book Reinhard often relies on personal
experience, for example his participation in
the Atari Burial Ground dig in
Alamogordo, New Mexico (USA).
Chapter 2 switches the perspective and
explores how video games are played
by archaeologists. Despite the heading,
‘Playing as Archaeologists’, the chapter
does more by also discussing how archae-
ology is featured in video games, i.e. games
that feature archaeology in some capacity,
public reception of the profession, archaeol-
ogists as non-player characters, etc. In
‘Video Games as Archaeological Sites’
(Ch. 3), Reinhard makes an argument to
define video games as archaeological sites
and proposes possible avenues to study
them as such. The last chapter, ‘Material
Culture of the Immaterial’, crosses over
again into the physical world and is the
most multi-disciplinary part of the book.
For example, his discussion on museums
in games and about the gaming world
touches on museology and heritage studies
(pp. 167–72), while his consideration of
fans bringing games’ worlds to life by
making and wearing costumes (cosplay)
shows the potential of linking archaeology
and sociology (pp. 185–88).
Reinhard’s book Archaeogaming has
already garnered some generally positive
attention and, as an archaeologist and
gamer, I might be expected to be positive
about the book. The book indeed has
many positive aspects, e.g. introducing a
new field to archaeology, the author’s
strong interdisciplinarity, and the attempt
to open up the gaming world that, despite
its ever-growing market share, can be
quite arcane for the uninitiated. However,
the book raises some problematic issues
which I will touch upon in this review,
and that I believe should be borne in
mind for the future development of
archaeogaming.
The first aspect that struck me while
reading the book was Reinhard’s
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613
convoluted writing style, at times includ-
ing unfitting analogies, which is difficult
to follow, at least for a non-native
English-speaking reader. Overall,
Reinhard seems to be committed to a
posthuman agenda (Díaz-Guardamino &
Morgan, 2019), but his use of related
jargon, whose meaning and relevance to
archaeogaming are not adequately
explained, makes the arguments difficult
to follow. Many statements seem to be
more about impressing the reader rather
than conveying any content. On p. 30
Reinhard enumerates what objects are,
partly relying on other authors, when sud-
denly the short sentence ‘An artifact is
forever’ is interspersed. There is nothing
surrounding this statement explaining
what Reinhard means or how he comes to
this conclusion. It is also an odd statement
for an archaeologist who should be aware
that most materials are perishable, leaving
archaeology with the gaps in the material
record it tries to research. From an arch-
aeological standpoint, the exact opposite
seems to be true.
Reinhard also makes several assump-
tions as to what ‘we’ do or do not do. For
example, he states, ‘We often fail to per-
ceive how these permanent spaces [i.e.
cities] appear to the temporary visitor
[…]. We fail to consider fully how a
migratory population builds and dwells for
a short time within a permanent space.
For this groups of “transhumans”, nothing
is permanent […]’ (p. 104). Here it is
quite unclear who this ‘we’ is, glossing
over differences in the groups Reinhard
perceives himself to be a part of. This
could be a misunderstanding facilitated by
vagueness. Added to that, the assumption
that these spaces are permanent is contra-
dicted by Reinhard’s emphasis that
nothing is permanent and that everything
is in constant flux (e.g. pp. 89, 103). It
would be better to phrase the presumed
permanence of cities as a perceived one,
 614
because some people may perceive their
living spaces as permanent. However, fre-
quently people understand spaces like
cities as impermanent. Almost everyone
knows stories of places (real or fictional)
that ‘ended’, e.g. Pompei, Troy, Sodom,
etc. Such places are still active in some
sense, perhaps precisely because their ‘end’
transformed them into something else.
Furthermore, Reinhard’s use of the term
‘transhumans’ for migratory people should
have been explained since it is a word with
a prior definition and its use in this
context is potentially problematic.
Such lapses would not be worth men-
tioning if they were rare, but many exam-
ples can be found throughout. Most
pervasive is Reinhard’s insistence on the
similarities between in-game worlds and
the real world. The statement ‘Both
natural and synthetic world are real. There
is no “virtual” here’ (p. 111) is only true in
the sense that both worlds exist; however,
it ignores the fact that synthetic worlds are
‘crafted by a developer’ (p. 97). Games
represent ‘amputated’ worlds in which
activities are restricted and possibilities
limited. For example, most ‘worlds’ in
games are flat planes without subsoil
depth or depositions of previous inhabi-
tants. Most do not have any actual previ-
ous inhabitants. Settlements in games are
deliberately placed by the developer. Real-
world settlements might be placed deliber-
ately as well; however, this fails to
acknowledge a fundamental difference. In
the synthetic world the settlement is
created only for players, while in the real
world the makers of a prehistoric settle-
ment did not have twenty-first century
people in mind when they built their
houses. That means the reasons for the
existence of a settlement in the real world
always has to be a matter of interpretation
by the modern observer, while in the syn-
thetic world the reason is always ‘for the
player’.
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European Journal of Archaeology 22 (4) 2019
It seems that Reinhard is implicitly
aware of this problem, because he makes
much of procedurally (i.e. algorithmically,
randomized) generated game worlds like
Minecraft or No Man’s Sky. However,
procedurally generated games only invert
the problem, as other than starting/writing
the algorithm no agency is responsible for
settlement placement. Conversely, in the
real world there are manifold agencies
involved in creating settlement patterns, a
process that was not started by a single
agency. It is also worth remembering that
in games like Minecraft only very limited
gravity exists so that the algorithm creates
floating islands. Settlements are placed ran-
domly after the landscape is created
without regard for the shape of the land-
scape so that half of a house is on the float-
ing island and half on the ground. This is
an important difference to the natural
world, where the natural environment,
amongst others, is often a significant factor.
Similar issues can be encountered else-
where in the book. For example, Reinhard
observes that in the game The Elder
Scrolls V: Skyrim ceramics differ accord-
ing to in-game ‘races’ and regions, improv-
ing in quality compared to older versions
of the game series. He likens this develop-
ment to archaeological ceramic chronolo-
gies (p. 48). While there may be an aspect
of this in terms of real world technological
developments, it ignores that the creators
of these pots are outside the presumed cul-
tural frame of the ‘users’ of these pots;
pots are non-player characters (NPCs),
which were never meant to be anything
other than cultural markers, and the
‘change’ they undergo has no other reason
than the technological improvement in
visualization outside the game world. In
short, there is very little room for inter-
pretation. In the real physical world, pots
change and differ for a variety of inter-
twined reasons, for example, class, social
function, personal taste, etc.
 Book Reviews
Reinhard’s unwillingness to discuss dif-
ferences between ‘natural’ and ‘synthetic’
worlds blinds him to some of the limita-
tions of real world archaeology in synthetic
worlds. He argues (p. 94) that sites real or
virtual consist of networks and systems
that an archaeologist can break down. He
then states that there is no difference
between Athens and a virtual simulation
of Athens. However, the spatial limits of
the simulation cannot be passed. Thus, a
whole component of the network that real
Athens may offer, i.e. contact to the
outside world, is missing and cannot be
studied. Virtual Athens also adds a layer
of interpretation (by the developer) that
real world Athens does not have.
All of this explains why Reinhard
mostly sticks with games that present
large, open world, sandbox environments.
These games are made to resemble the real
world which is a fact that Reinhard does
not seem to appreciate. Most of his analo-
gies would break down if he were to
discuss them using games like Tetris,
Mario Bros, or Rocket League. The
forced analogies sometimes unwittingly
cross over into the cynical. For example,
Reinhard describes games as ‘sites com-
posed of artifacts working together, an
electrified society of automatons’ (p. 93).
He seems to think that something that is
run on pre-programmed premises, reac-
tions, and processes can be recast as a
‘society’, presumably akin to human
society. This is reaffirmed when he main-
tains that NPCs ‘engage with that space
based on parameters, acting when acted
upon’ and then states that this is ‘little dif-
ferent than a human commuter in a rut’
(p. 97). This denies humans any kind of
agency and has some frightening conse-
quences when thought through. No one
has a problem deleting NPCs if they do
not fit the narrative any longer, reprogram
them, or, as part of the game, kill them.
Does he really want to imply that ‘it’s little
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615
different’? These are of course theoretical
issues that have arisen in archaeology most
recently around concepts like symmetrical
archaeology, (primary) object agency, and
the so-called rights of objects. This requires
critique and discussion that has just
recently started (e.g. Díaz-Guardamino &
Morgan, 2019; Ribeiro, 2016, 2019;
Sørensen, 2016, 2018).
The book laudably often touches on
ethics in archaeology and its practice.
However, sometimes it gets somewhat
curious. Reinhard went into a retro gaming
store, but did not purchase anything, declar-
ing (p. 35): ‘it troubles me ethically to pur-
chase the things that I study.’ However, a
major part of the ‘fieldwork’ in the book is a
survey (i.e. study) of the game No Man’s
Sky. One is left wondering how Reinhard
and his team acquired the game if ethics pre-
vented purchasing it? He is also concerned
that the portrayal of looting and problematic
treatment of artefacts in the real world
may desensitize players (pp. 75–86). But
Reinhard does not factor the suspension of
disbelief and the unreality that most games
portray, which prevents them from becom-
ing guidelines for real life behaviour. In an
insightful assessment of how archaeology is
portrayed in popular cinema, Hall (2004:
173) noted that ‘[i]f we read such films in an
overly literal way we will miss their (some-
times unintended) point.’ The same seems
true for video games.
The glossary aiding the understanding
of gaming terms is a commendable
addition. However, some important terms
(e.g. ‘vanilla’, the original version of a
game) are missing. The structure in
which items are mentioned (e.g. list of
games with an archaeologist protagonist
(pp. 62-70)) has no apparent order. The
information given to each game differs:
sometimes it is a partial game description
with some commentary on the character,
sometimes it includes game mechanics,
sometimes it is a list of titles under a
 616
brand (i.e. Tomb Raider), and sometimes
it has company information or history. A
clearer structure to the information given
would have aided reading and following
Reinhard’s argument.
Despite all these critical points,
Archaeogaming represents a valiant effort to
introduce an emerging archaeological field
with great potential. It highlights the need
for further discussion, criticism, and
refinement. As such, the book is defini-
tively worth reading and will be a corner-
stone for the future development of the
field. Chapter 4 especially will be crucial
for the development of new interdisciplin-
ary approaches. There are many good
ideas, such as studying in-game gear rea-
lized by fans, which could provide answers
with relevant implications for other arch-
aeological enquiries, e.g. the degree of pre-
cision of copies, the uses of the created
objects, the potential adoration or vener-
ation of such items, etc. Ironically, this
review is like two phenomena that can be
found in reviews of games on platforms
like Steam. There, games like No Man’s
Sky received mostly negative reviews after
launch, because the developer promised
too much, and fans were expecting too
much. Also, ‘Early Access’ games (i.e.
games that are playable while still being
developed) frequently receive reviews
stating, ‘the game has great potential,
but…’. Both apply to Archaeogaming.
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CHRISTIAN HORN
Department of Historical Studies, University
of Gothenburg, Sweden
doi:10.1017/eaa.2019.49