Landscape Archaeology and Phenomenology
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:08:21 -0800
I love to write, so I'd like to share what I've been working on for the past day or two. Below is a paper I wrote for my landscape archaeology class, concerning the discipline of phenomenology.
PLEASE NOTE: I have deliberately removed the works cited section so that no one attempts to lift this paper for their own use. Do not copy this paper and post it elsewhere. Do not use this paper as a source for your own research. Please remember, this is not a publication, it is a personal blog. I am only a student.
Landscape Archaeology and Phenomenology
Between the 1950s and 1970s, the discipline of archaeology underwent profound changes. From the traditional archaeology of the 1950s and the processual archaeology of the 1970s, was born a new movement, titled “post-processualism.” Post-processualism addressed archaeology in the present tense, treating it as a cultural performance, rather than an investigation (Fleming 2006). This new movement, which was related to the broader movement of postmodernism, focused on a relativistic view of archaeology and was highly critical of the scientific method that processual archaeologists held dear. Convinced that humans were largely absent from prior archaeological investigations, post-processual archaeologists focused on new contemporary approaches, freeing themselves of the bindings of traditional theory. Though such new thinking is welcomed in the field of anthropology, by sacrificing empirical methodologies, post-processual studies yielded axiomatic skepticism. By the 1990s, post-processual archaeologists began to concentrate their studies in landscape archaeology, largely due to the influences of anthropologists like Barbara Bender, Christopher Tilley and Julian Thomas.
Barbara Bender was convinced that the foundation of landscape archaeology, as laid by William George Hoskins in the mid-20th century (Johnson 2007), was “nostalgic” and “…sought to mummify the countryside, presenting a history that pickles the past, negates the present, and excludes large numbers of people…” (Bender 1998). She crusaded for a humanistic landscape archaeology that didn’t stiffly refer to the past as unelaborated history. Bender emphasized the need to explore the landscape, take in the views, consider noisesheds, etc.; yet ignored the foundational elements of landscape archaeology, such as Hoskin’s “need to get [his] boots muddy” by walking the landscape - which he purported over 50 years earlier (Johnson 2007). Whether or not post-processual archaeologists identify with Hoskins, he is credited with advocating a more comprehensive understanding of landscape history (Fleming 2006).
In his book, The Phenomonology of Landscape published in 1994, Christopher Tilley accused archaeologists of addressing the past in a dispassionate fashion, in which the landscape under study was “clothed with thiessen polygons, site catchments, regression lines, trend surfaces and gravity models…” To counter this impersonal approach, Tilley introduced the “phenomenological perspective,” which involves the understanding and description of things as they are experienced by a subject. In other words, people should not be “divorced” from the landscape; rather, the landscape is experienced in practice and in life activities on a daily basis.
In Tilley’s landscape phenomenology, the body serves as a way of relating to, perceiving and understanding the world. He exhibits this modern approach in his study of Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales, where numerous chambers and stone monuments were constructed during the Mesolithic and early Neolithic eras. Tilley observes that the architectural morphology of the monuments is quite diverse, and thus, defy traditional modes of classification. However, these monuments exhibit a structured and repetitive relation to topographic features (Tilley 1994). Tilley uses phenomenology to offer a unique insight as to why the monuments were erected in their locales, by declaring that the locations were chosen due to their “viewsheds.” In order to understand viewsheds, an observer must understand the position of his/her body in relation to the site (and strive to understand how those who constructed the site also positioned their own bodies in relation to it), and note what he/she can and cannot see from this fixed position. Then, the observer must hypothesize whether or not what he/she can or cannot see has significance to the locality, and how it might relate to similar sites in the vicinity.
Tilley notes that the nearby rock outcrops make the monuments visible and invisible to one another. From these observations, he concludes that because of the monuments’ visibility (or lack thereof) from others like it, they must have “…acted primarily as symbolic references and ritually important ceremonial meeting-points on paths of movement…” To Tilley, these various monuments secured the relationship between nature and culture. (Tilley 1994).
In 2006, anthropologist Andrew Fleming swooped in with a hearty critique of Tilley’s landscape phenomenology. He pointed out that Tilley’s work was not empirical, and the likelihood that a “trained” phenomenologist would draw the same conclusions whilst studying the same landscape independently, was extremely low. He goes on to accuse Tilley that an archaeologist need not be familiar with phenomenological approaches to accurately observe the environment in relation to the site. Furthermore, Fleming saw little reason why an observer - not trained in phenomenology - would be divorced from the environment, and thus fail to understand the cultural connections to a given environment at the time the site was constructed. This detachment, Fleming claims, has been asserted by Tilley, but not demonstrated (Fleming 2006).
Fleming also states that Tilley fails to recognize that landforms change through time and that what is seen as a barrow, beach or rock outcrop today may not have been fully formed or existent in the time the site(s) under study were constructed (Fleming 2007). He goes on to point out that what may be visible/invisible at present, has the capacity to be dramatically different in the past. Therefore, Tilley cannot use viewsheds alone as concrete evidence for why a monument was erected in a particular location. Fleming’s critique may also be used to discredit other phenomenological assumptions about particular sites, if such studies rely solely on one or more non-empirical methods.
Tilley’s phenomenological work illustrates objective intentions, but falls short of this goal by yielding subjective interpretations of the landscape, which cannot be applied universally to the discipline of archaeology. In his chapter of Archaeological Theory Today, titled Archaeologies of Place and Landscape, anthropologist Julian Thomas notes that he does not believe engaging the material traces of the past gives access to past experiences. Thomas postulates that “mathematical or cartographic space is secondary to and derived from the everyday space that we inhabit.” He urges archaeologists to construct in the present, an analogy for past worlds of meaning (Thomas 2001).
In lieu of these suggestions, Thomas takes Tilley’s work into consideration, and states that no one can get inside the heads of past people through an act of empathy. Thomas does, however, admit that phenomenology advocates an encounter between archaeologists and sites, and that by doing so produces an allegory of present-day understanding that “stands for” past meaning.
From Twitter
Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:01:10 -0800
- 11:20 I favorited a YouTube video -- Sky Diving Mission Beach Australia youtu.be/WF5Rd-HC310?a #
- 11:35 I favorited a YouTube video -- AJ Hackett In Cairns, Australia! youtu.be/TTwWSOuEnYA?a #
- 16:06 I have been officially accepted into the Cultural Resource Management (archaeology) graduate degree program at UAA! #
I'm Officially IN!
Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:16:36 -0800
HOORAY!
I have been officially accepted into the graduate degree program for Cultural Resource Management (archaeology) at the University of Alaska, Anchorage!
I just read the unofficial email about it - and despite my sore ankle - I literally leapt for joy! Then, I ran out of my office to call my family and Ben to tell them the good news.
A year ago I started taking classes (equal to a Minor in Anthropology) toward this program. I am SO glad this work has paid off and I've really enjoyed my classes thus far too!
I have a lot of work to do!
