A Theoretically Committed Archaeology is a Civilised Archaeology

Abstract

Systematic theorizing in archaeology today is widely regarded as a thing of the past. The two principal reasons why theory has become so diluted are those theoretical positions addressed also by Lucas and Witmore: (1) the black-boxing tactics of scientific archaeology, where the inner workings of its apparatuses are thought to be so simple or particularistic that their outputs or the societal effects thereof need not be problematized, and (2) the ontologisation of archaeology’s epistemology and the related idea that any indigenous ontology is a better epistemology. Both are good examples of theorizing to the point of systematically and uncritically excluding any theoretical system in conflict. Against this backdrop, I read the article by Lucas and Witmore as a call for a return to the systematic thinking of the basic questions concerning the definition and pragmatics of theory in archaeology: what is it that we talk about when we use the word theory, and why do our theoretical commitments matter? Theoretical archaeology has been around for as long as the discipline has existed, but archaeologists did not always use the word theory (e.g., Müller 1897, pp. 689–702). To add to the confusion, the history of explicitly theoretical archaeology is that of theoretical atomization characterized by a shift from epistemological matters pertaining to scientific explanation in the new archaeology, to an emphasis on the social concerns in the interpretive archaeologies, and, more recently, to the extension of theory to also pertain to the speculative realm of objects. I want to use this opportunity to talk about archaeological theory as a system of thinking. I try to do so in a way that is historically sensitive but also cautious of the definitions of ‘systematic’ and ‘thinking’. In doing so I am also, at least implicitly, addressing the fault lines of contemporary archaeological theorizing and the opportunities we might have for thinking across the disparate realms of ontology and epistemology. In archaeology, systematic thinking means engaging in (at least) four types of theory. I use the term component to stress their systematic entanglement: 1. The empirical component. With empirical I refer to the type of low-level inferences and generalizations or the straight-forward creation of ideas from the sensuous observation of a given body of archaeological material without much theoretical intervention or critical reflection. What the empirical component then suggests is not a naive empiricism but an empirical sensitivity; that some sort evolutionary or cosmological closeness – however translative – is to be expected between impression and object. In my reading, the empirical component is the same as Lucas and Witmore’s fidelity: theories characterized by unfinishedness and slowness as well as the patience to resist the urge to