Rhythm and possibility: Making space for ancient futures

Abstract

This essay explores some of the ways in which archeology and possibility studies can enrich each other’s understanding of time, agency and materiality in human behavior. It discusses the implications of linear conceptions of time for our perception of human pasts and futures, and argues for the adoption of rhythm as an alternative mode of inquiry that is capable of liberating the past from our hindsight and making space for the possible as a generative dimension of cultural practice.