Some Mundane
Archeology- By Joeseph Renow
Hello, my name is Joseph. I am currently a graduate student
at Loyola University in Chicago, and I have been following some of your fellow
archeologists around in the hot sun for the last three summers. I am writing to
you today because I was told I might have an interesting perspective to add to
the discussion here. I suppose that I do offer a different perspective on
archeology, having trained as a sociologist and all, but I am less confident
about the “interesting” part. As a sociologist, I typically want to explain how
a particular group emerges, functions, grows, and changes, and asking these
sorts of questions about science inevitably leads me to examine its more
mundane parts. Admittedly my perspective lacks the dramatics that other tales
of science possess, but it is my hope that by examining the more familiar
parts, we gain insight into one of our most trusted institutions.
Below I have taken the time to write about what I believe
are three particularly significant, but also very mundane, practices observed
at the field school this summer. The first practice is that lowly skill of
troweling. This skill is not entirely overlooked by archeologists; many name
their trowels and report a strange fondness for the act. Having never used a
trowel I cannot speak about any pleasurable sensations, but I can tell you
about the epistemic authority embodied in its use. After troweling, I then turn
your attention to a well-known device called a Munsell, which I have learned
archeologists use to resolve a particularly difficult problem found in all of
science (reliability). In philosophy reliability might be a perennial problem, but
in archeology a very simple, ubiquitous, and unassuming collection of
cardboard, colors, and holes keep things moving forward. I conclude my bit here
with a brief discussion of my more immediate interest in archeology (how does
scientific knowledge move through society?). The idea that scientific knowledge
spreads out like radio waves might suffice at an abstract level, but in
actuality it is a truly absurd notion. Scientific knowledge might
retrospectively appear to spread through society, but such appearances are only
made possible through a great expenditure of labor and resources.
The Way of the Trowel:
An Embodied Epistemology
When I think back on what mundane act I was most impressed
with this summer, it is without a doubt the ubiquitous troweling which one
observes while in the presence of archeologists. To be honest, I was surprised
by just how physical (embodied) archeology is. I mean, would it be incorrect of
me to assume that science is thought to be a particularly (if not entirely)
mental practice? We obviously assume some level of a corporeal state, but when
one thinks about scientists witnessing nature, do we often think of all the
examining, discussing, and reconfiguring of dirt one experiences in the company
of archeologists? Just from a few observations one rightly concludes that troweling
is a critical skill. In fact, if one observes long enough one will learn that
without the invention and transmission of several embodied skills, the archeology
we know and love today would look quite different. How the trowel does what it
does is probably better understood by the readers of this blog than anyone
else, but at the risk of sounding silly I want to discuss the practice just a
little further, as I find it somewhat remarkable that something so simple can
at the same time be so critical to the creation of archeological knowledge.
At the field school this summer I was introduced to
troweling immediately. In my set of notes I recall a rank of young recruits,
who after being pointed in the direction of a trench wall, were told to start
digging. When it comes to troweling there is no recipe from which to transmit
the skill into new practitioners; it is a skill that can only be learned
through a great deal of practice. In one of my many conversations with students
at the field school this year, I was told that troweling is something that
everyone has to figure out on their own. Interestingly, the absence of a
standardized formula does not appear to be much of a problem for archeology, as
students are quickly and efficiently converted into highly tuned scientific
instruments. Through blood, sweat, and tears (not how we normally talk about
the transmission of knowledge) new practitioners eventually gain the necessary skill
to create that most wonderful of archeological phenomenon (a feature!). I
suppose I should not be too surprised to learn that such an important
phenomenon is produced through a craft-like skill, but is it wrong of me to
suggest that such an idea runs counter to our idealized understanding of
science? At a time when high-tech is synonymous with progress, would not most folks
find it surprising that a craft-like skill is at the heart of a scientific
discipline? In the end, archeologists navigate that narrow, but all too
important boundary between archeological significance and insignificance
through the use of their trowels. In the hand of a skilled practitioner the
trowel gives shape and qualities to what only moments ago was a handful of dirt.
Archeology has for the moment developed a reliable means through which to do what
it does – how could we expect more?
Munsell Vision:
Disciplining the Human Eye
Okay, so troweling is like a hidden art that makes modern
archeology (partly) what it is, but I want to be careful not to overstate archeology’s
reliance on embodied skills. There are times (for whatever reason) that archeology
is unable to rely upon the embodied skills of its human practitioners. At times
the human element of archeology breaks down or is found to be in need of
repair. A few weeks into the field school this year I noticed just such a case,
a kind of intervention on the part of archeology to overcome what is a very
serious philosophical problem. My field notes tell of a young woman holding up a
small chart next to a bit of soil sitting just at the end of her trowel. The
young woman moves her trowel across several holes which appear to be
systematically dispersed before finally settling on a particular slot. For
those of you who practice archeology on a daily basis you have likely
identified this device as the Munsell chart, which, like the trowel discussed
above, is a mundane and ubiquitous object at any archeological field site. What
is well understood, familiar, and commonplace for archeology, however, is
actually a very interesting device for a sociologist to stumble upon, as it is
devices such as these that hold answers to the questions we like to ask (how do
individuals work cooperatively?).
The presence of the chart suggests that the reliability of the
human eye to recognize changes in color is not adequate for the demanding needs
of modern archeology. However, with the aid of a Munsell chart, the young archeologists
I observed effortlessly assigned an impressive array of information to many
bits of soil. For philosophy and sociology, this simple, almost invisible
device is quite the hero. For centuries philosophers have argued over the
problems associated with observation, while sociologists have nearly pulled out
all their hair trying to explain how cooperative action is possible. Here,
though, in the heat and dirt of an archeological trench, one can witness how
these seemingly monumental obstacles are overcome on a daily basis by nothing
more than some cardboard and ink. The archeological eye alone (for whatever
reason) does not reliably transmit the amount of detailed information that archeologists
must convey to one another, but with the aid of a small device the unruly (or
untrained) human eye is disciplined into a powerful scientific instrument once
again.
Moving Science: How
Archeology Travels
Well, it is getting late, time to wrap things up here, but
before I go I want to briefly discuss one of the issues I am grappling with in
my dissertation. The general problem I am dealing with suggests that knowledge
which cannot escape the moorings of its birth is doomed to a death of irrelevancy
(often a very rapid death). Using the work of Pasteur to make his case, one
scholar tells us that the problem for Pasteur (like the rest of science), was
how to move his (then) newly created microbes beyond the walls of his
laboratory? For as long as the things he called microbes were unable to leave
his laboratory, they would remain irrelevant; it could even be argued (which it
was) that they did not exist! Of course, most of us know that Pasteur was successful;
his microbes do exist, and now surround us all (no matter how much scientists
in the future might laugh at the notion). How Pasteur successfully moved his
microbes beyond the walls of his laboratory took an entire book to explain, but
suffice it to say, it took a lot of work, and more than a little luck to have the
microbes we have today!
So how does all this talk of traveling knowledge and
Pasteur’s microbes relate to my interest in archeology? Simple really, I think
one could make the case that archeology is a particularly place-bound science,
and if we are in agreement on this point, then it would seem only logical to
suggest that archeology should have greater difficulty moving its knowledge
beyond the fields from which it emerges. Philosophically speaking, how does
archeology move away from its objects of study (field sites), and yet remain empirically
grounded? As it is, this turns out not to be a particularly difficult problem
for archeology, because while it is true archeological phenomena are embedded
in specific locations, archeological knowledge appears to travel efficiently
through society. To be sure it resides in some places more than others, but there
is still a great deal of traveling being done. In the end, moving archeological
knowledge through society has become just as mundane a practice as the use of a
trowel. When archeologists desire to move their research away from a trench in
Southwest Indiana, they do not sit around and ponder how to overcome such a
philosophical obstacle, they simply utilize what you might call an epistemic
infrastructure, a preexisting system of people, ideas, and things through which
the transmission of knowledge is made possible. What is an open question in
philosophy is simply an ordinary practice for archeology.
To bring this point home, a feature often begins as nothing
more than a scratched-in line on a unit floor or trench wall. If the
scratched-in line remains long enough, it will eventually be given an
identification number and a location on a field drawing (something akin to a
social security number and a birth certificate). Treatments and noteworthy
details about the feature are then recorded on sheets of paper (like a medical
record), and on some occasions it even gets its picture taken (like when we
went to school!). At some point later, the feature is carefully dug out and
then placed into some kind of plastic container (no easy metaphor for this one).
From here the story gets a little more tragic, as the still heavy feature is water
tortured into a dramatic new form (the screams!). Eventually what remains of a once
robust feature is dried out and stored in plastic bags, and it is at this point
that our feature is finally mobile enough to be transported through the preexisting
infrastructure put in place to move knowledge around. Philosophers may debate whether
this new object can truly represent the former, but for archeology the
epistemic value of their newly configured feature is not in doubt. For now, I
cannot say more about how the infrastructure in place is capable of both
transporting and grounding scientific knowledge (this is something I hope to
explore further in my dissertation). I can however tell you that the
infrastructure in place allows our archeologists to continue on with the
business of creating more archeology.
I think I will close my discussion with part of a conversation
I had with Dr. Monaghan one morning. We were discussing what exactly I hoped to
achieve with my study when he treated me to a delightful explanation of his
job. His exact words escape me at the moment, but he basically said that a lot
of what he does is logistical. He was not diminishing the conceptual demands of
his job (being a scientist requires a lot of creative thinking); what he was
doing was pointing out the mundane, but very critical aspects of science which
we tend to overlook or ignore when we think of, talk about, and sadly, fund
those responsible for bringing scientific knowledge into society.
