Reflections on Reflexive Methods in Archaeological Research

I've basically decided that I want to contribute to the class project as an ethnographer. I think I'm prepared literarily for this undertaking, since I've read extensively on cultures of science and technology, on the social construction of scientific facts, and on communication within and between scientific disciplines. (My senior thesis deals with the social construction of a laboratory.) However, most of my research experience is in history. So the prospect of interviewing archaeologists, who are themselves familiar with ethnographic methods, is a little intimidating. Fortunately, Brigitte, who is probably much more experienced in ethnographic field work than I am, is also considering this role in the class project. Her expertise is reassuring.

My inexperience aside, I do have another scruple with participant-observation: I am not sure what to do with the information I uncover. If I find flaws in the research behaviors of my classmates, when, if ever, should I notify them? Carolyn Hamilton met this same problem in a 1999 preliminary study at Çatalhöyük. Her early analysis of the production of archaeological knowledge revealed a number of "faultlines"--areas where the methodological bricks that were built into the research project to encourage interaction and reflexivity "slumped in." She concludes a presentation of her early findings at the Theoretical Archaeology Group in Liverpool by noting,

"If the aim at Çatalhöyük is to produce a research structure with a strength set in stone, able to withstand all pressures and pulls, then the emerging project is flawed...If the production of knowledge is viewed as a process, and if the aim of the project is to be responsive to change, the faultlines are a guarantee of flexibility, contingency, provisionality and multiplicity."

I'm still trying to track down a copy of Ian Hodder's book Towards Reflexive Method in Archaeology: The Example at Çatalhöyük, so I do not yet know how quickly Hamilton's findings were used to change some of the "methodological bricks" that were proving problematic.

In analyzing our own methodological bricks, I am faced with the same options that Hamilton met. I can point out faultlines (or cornerstones) as I see them, or wait until the end of the semester to produce a comprehensive critique of the architecture of our methodology; to be more of a participant or more of an observer. I think the former option would benefit the class product, but it might detract from my own final product.

Çatalhöyük's "mutable immobiles"

Image from http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/jghsillustration/

Since reading John Swogger's treatise on the transparent, mutable illustrations for the Çatalhöyük project, I decided to evaluate the efficacy of these images. Perusing the Çatalhöyük Project's website, though, I did not come across any of the "intermediary" images that Swogger hoped to make widely available. Even on his own website, all images are finished images. Undoubtedly, the extra effort in making the intermediate pictures available, and of encouraging a viewership, was detrimental to progress at Çatalhöyük.

The power of an image, as Swogger failed to recognize, is not the amount of pure, a-textual information that it contains, but its deceptively simple appearance. An illustration is easy to ingest, easy to remember, and easy to replicate.

Bruno Latour explains the rise of modern science with the development of inscriptions, or what he describes as immutable mobiles. Using the example of La Perouse, an explorer for Louis XV, who travelled to China to acquire a map to bring back to France to settle a dispute over the land's geography, Latour notes:

"If you wish to go out of your way, and come back heavily equipped so as to force others to go out of their ways, the main problem to solve is that of mobilization. You have to go out and come back with the "things"if your moves are not to be wasted. But the "things" have to be able to withstand the trip without withering away."

John Swogger's mutable images can't mobilize. They require too much effort for viewers to go out of their ways to understand their meaning, and too much energy to transfer to new contexts.

The Manahatta Project

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/eric_sanderson_pictures_new_york_before_the_city.html

Eric Sanderson is a landscape ecologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society. For the last decade, he has been busy reconstructing the landscape of Manhattan Island as it was when Henry Hudson arrived in 1609. Using a British Battle map from the eighteenth century, Sanderson was able to locate topographical features that are now hidden beneath New York City's built landscape. Once this physical map was completed (and matched to a modern map), Sanderson added a biotic layer. He constructed "Muir Webs" that connect the native species of the island by their common habitat requirements. At this point, Sanderson was able to make probability maps for any given block in Manhattan today. These maps suggest what plants and animals were likely to have inhabited a particular region, and also what particular areas were best for the Lenape to used for particular purposes. Sanderson was therefore able to test particular hypotheses that were untestable without understanding the historical ecology of the island. For instance, Sanderson used a model for wildfire (from the U.S. Forest Service) to estimate the effect of Native American fire on the landscape.

The Manahatta Project is inspiring for our own class project, since we are also reconstructing a past civilization. Sanderson's approach has convinced me that we should work on our reconstruction from the bottom up: beginning with the physical, abiotic landscape, adding in the living layer, and then superimposing the Incas' built world. I am looking into the historical ecology of the Cuzco region, and am trying to determine what would be a reasonable project for the 1.5 months I would have to complete it...