TAG 2008 Abstracts

Monday 15 December (Afternoon) Abstracts – Monday 15 December (Afternoon) Plenary Session: 1968-2008: The Spirit of Rebellion, Forty Years On Chair: Yannis Hamilakis (University of Southampton, UK) 4:00-6:30pm This year, the fortieth anniversary of the Parisian May 1968 uprising and of the other global revolts, saw a number of events that debated the relevance of social and political movements today. In archaeology, this debate passed unnoticed, a reflection perhaps of what some would characterise as the almost complete de-politicisation of archaeological thinking and practice. This plenary debate provides an opportunity to engage with the issue head on: • What was the impact of the 1960s’ and 1970s’ political and social revolt on archaeological thinking and practice? • How can archaeologists contribute to the study of and reflection on social uprising and rebellion in the remote and more recent past? • More importantly, does current archaeological theory and practice engage with contemporary social, political, and environmental movements? • What is the role of archaeology in the major social and political issues of the day? These are some of the questions that this plenary panel with debate. The panelists are Neal Ascherson, Randall McGuire, Alain Schnapp and Colin Renfrew, and the debate will be introduced and chaired by Yannis Hamilakis. Neal Ascherson is a well-known independent scholar and journalist, a visiting lecturer at University College London, and the editor of the journal “Public Archaeology”. He writes regularly for The Observer, the London Review of Books, and the New York Review of Books. His latest book is “Stone Voices: the Search for Scotland” (Hill and Wang). Yannis Hamilakis is Reader in Archaeology at the University of Southampton. His more recent books are, “Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to Politics” (Left Coast Press, co-edited with Phil Duke), and “The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology and National Imagination in Greece” (Oxford University Press). Randall McGuire, well known for his work on archaeology and politics, and archaeology and class relations in the USA, is Professor of Anthropology at State University of New York-Binghamton. His most recent book is “Archaeology as Political Action” (University of California Press). Alain Schnapp. Professor at the Sorbonne, is a renown classical archaeologist and historian of archaeology, but also a co-author (with P. Vidal Naquet) of one of the main reports on the May 1968 student uprising: “The French Student Uprising, November 1967 - June 1968: An Analytical Record” (Beacon Press). Colin Renfrew, who needs no further introduction, especially to a TAG audience, as he was one of its founders, is Professor of Archaeology Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and a life peer since 1991. 1 Tuesday 16 December (Morning) Abstracts – Tuesday 16 December (Morning) Introduction <TAG 2.0/>: Archaeological Theory in the Gareth Beale and Leif Isaksen (University of Southampton, UK) Light of Contemporary Computing 9:00-9:10am (sponsored by L-P Archaeology) Prehistoric Landscape without Figures: big data, Gareth Beale and Leif Isaksen (University of Southampton, UK) long waves and the formative role of archaeological Though once peripheral to standard archaeological practise, computing computers have begun to reshape both our discipline and the Vince Gaffney (University of Birmingham, UK) way we think about it. Not only is their deployment ubiquitous 9:10-9:30am in academia and the private sector, in less than a decade the internet has become the dominant medium of communication The title of this paper refers obliquely to Robin Osborne's and dissemination. This forces us to reconsider the manner in (1987) influential book on the Greek city and its countryside. which both archaeologists and the public engage with This and other publications of the time responded, in some information and to discuss the opportunities and dangers manner, to the novel landscape databases generated by field which arise from digital archaeologies. survey during the preceding decade. An emergent archaeological awareness of landscape, in a myriad of One of our chief goals will be to challenge the degree to which contexts, can be identified as a pivotal theoretical concept for digital archaeology is synonymous with quantitative methods archaeologists throughout this period and archaeological and their empiricist overtones. This is not intended as a computing, primarily GIS, held a parallel but equivocal role in criticism of either, but rather as an opportunity to reappraise the process. Great claims were made for technology and the relationship between digital approaches and equally strong rebuttals were delivered at various times - archaeological methodologies. usually in reference to the relatively naive theoretical context of the available technologies and the detrimental result of The session is intended to contribute toward an archaeological implementing correspondingly simplistic analyses. response to a rapidly changing and increasingly complex digital world. It will conclude with a panel discussion. Much ink has been spilt on these topics and whilst few today would deny computing a role in the archaeological process it Semantics and the nature of data: remains notable that practitioners and computer-based Archaeological discourses are constrained by the semantics of archaeology frequently retain a subaltern role within theoretical our world-views in a variety of ways. Developments in debate. Over this period, however, there have been numerous computer science have increasingly enabled us to model the step changes in the facility of pervasive technologies to terms, categories and relationships that form these ontologies explore rich archaeological contexts. There has, also, been a but open questions still remain. We would like to address such scale change in the availability of archaeological digital issues as resources so that in some instances, the extent of data, whilst • The limits to (internal) representation and/or not necessarily replacing the lack of figures within a landscape, simulation of archaeological entities may occasionally have a positive formative value in theoretical terms. This paper will explore this issue in relation to work • The challenges of explicitly modelling ontologies currently being carried out within the Holocene palaeolandscapes of the North Sea. • Theoretical implications of combining information from different discourses Ancient Symbols, Archaeological Theory, Modern Media: The potential for qualitative analysis of Representation: written evidence with new technologies Representations of archaeology tell us as much about our Kathryn Piquette (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) attitudes to our discipline and the world around us as they do about our interpretations of the past. Developments in 9:30-9:50am computation have led to an expansion in the scope and This paper aims to challenge the notion that ‘digital prevalence of virtual representations of archaeology. In light of archaeology is synonymous with quantitative methods and these changes we would like to address the following issues: their empiricist overtones’. Two projects centring on written evidence – one completed and another in the planning stages • Visual conventions in the age of Moore’s law: – will be presented in order to demonstrate the ways in which embracing change without sacrificing meaning computer technologies are facilitating the explicit application of archaeological theory and qualitative method to diverse • Conceptualising an interface between a perceptual datasets. The first deals with the use of the qualitative present and a virtual past analytical tool ATLAS.ti for the study of objects bearing the • Ways in which we categorise virtual representations earliest ‘writing’ from the Nile Valley. This brief project report of archaeology (e.g. GIS, Virtual Reality, charts and will highlight ways in which computers can engender holistic graphs, etc.) practice-centred studies of datasets which traditionally have received decontextualised treatment. The theoretical and Open and community access: practical implications of combining information from archaeological and philological discourses will be considered Communication technology, and in particular the World Wide in the context of project planning for the digitisation of Greek Web, has had an enormous impact on social dynamics in the and demotic papyri held in the Long Room, Trinity College developed world and its influence is increasingly felt in Dublin. developing nations as well. We wish to discuss themes such as: With the reductions in time and costs of data capture, reproduction, and dissemination, 2D digitisation of inscribed • The Web as a reinforcing and disruptive mechanism surfaces is becoming standard practice for collections in heritage power structures worldwide. The aim of this mode of representation (in tandem • Open Access rights to public and developer-funded with descriptive and other information) has been to represent research and disseminate meaning content, mainly to specialist audiences. The study and re-presentation of complex social • Multivocality and ‘trust’ in archaeological sources and material networks in which inscribed papyri or any other document types were embedded remains an undeveloped 2 Tuesday 16 December (Morning) area. Recent advances in virtual systems and multimedia may their construction. These joints have been grouped, by type, to be capable of supporting more complex

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