Marxist Archaeologies

The public dimensions of archaeological practice are explored through a new method called Marxist refl exivity. This use for Marxism draws a parallel with recent refl exive archaeologies that highlight the impact of archaeologists and archaeological processes on the creation of archaeological records. Though similar in this sense of critique, refl exive and Marxist archaeologies do not often overlap, as each is essentially driven by a distinct agenda and logic. Through a critical review of four public programs undertaken in historical archaeology, this distinction is disassembled.

Modes of Production and Archaeology, 2017

Many readers (and especially those English-speakers under ~50 years of age) primarily employ secondhand knowledge of the writing of Marx and Engels. Basic Marxist concepts that structure analysis (such as mode of production) have been filtered through the writings of anthropologists and understood under different names and are now attributed to scholars of the second half of the twentieth century. We therefore begin by reviewing key concepts from Marx and Engels’ original writings and define basic Marxist terms.

Norwegian Archaeological Review, 2023

The term ‘postmodernism’ was evoked in the past to describe certain changes in archaeological practice and theory, in particular, certain ideas circulating in the postprocessual archaeology of the 1980s and 1990s. However, most of the ideas concerning postmodernism during this period focused primarily on knowledge claims and relied mainly on ideas from poststructuralism. These ideas discussed the validity of metanarratives, the past as a text to be read, and the inherent subjectivity of knowledge claims. Of course, postmodernism is much more than this; postmodernism is also postmodernity, a historical period marked by a logic inherent to late capitalism. According to this logic, postmodernity is a more recent phase of modernity, one where the economy has become decentralized, leading to changes in labour, society, and culture. Some archaeologists have referred to this expanded notion of postmodernity, but few have remarked on its effects on archaeological practice. When viewed at this larger scale, it quickly becomes apparent that archaeology has not moved beyond postmodernity, much on the contrary, it demonstrates that archaeology is more postmodern today than it has ever been.

2006). Rather, in this entry, we will focus our 36 attention on a set of Marxist archaeologies from 37 Western Europe and the Americas. In particular, 38 we will assess three traditions from these regions 39 which have resulted from the direct inspiration of 40 the writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: 41 Marxist archaeology in the United States of 42 America, Marxist archaeology in Spain, and 43 Latin American Social Archaeology. 44 Our aim is to present a succinct but meaning-45 ful panorama of the archaeological traditions 46 closest to the classical Marxists and which have 47 had implications for research about the past and 48 for archaeology in theory and practice (also refer 49 to Patterson 2003). Further, we argue that for 50 many of the Marxist archaeologists discussed in 51 this entry, the work of prehistorian Vere Gordon 52 Childe has been of great importance, in particular 53 his publications subsequent to 1936 (Trigger 54 1984; Politis 1999: 6). 55 There are also other important Marxist archae-56 ologies, less well known in English and Spanish 57 archaeological literature, such as the Marxist 58 archaeological traditions developed in the USSR 59 and China (Trigger 2006); however, there are 60 problems in accessing such research due to lan-61 guage barriers. Interestingly, both perspectives 62 may be viewed as dogmatic approaches due to 63 the official policies of those countries. As such, 64 even if this research was more accessible, we can 65 assume that these projects would not have had C. Smith (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology,

Archaeology and anthropology came into existence alongside each other, and the subsequent development of their relationship has been both complex and revealing. At different times each has claimed affinity with or distinction from the other for rhetorical purposes, so that the two disciplines have been to some degree mutually constitutive. For reasons of space what follows will neglect physical and linguistic anthropology, and concentrate on the British and American contexts: it is acknowledged that this will result in a degree of simplification. Chris Gosden (1999: 10) has quite rightly pointed to the role that colonialism played in forming both anthropology and archaeology, the encounter between Europeans and societies unfamiliar to them fuelling an awareness of, and an imperative to investigate, human difference. However, the conditions that made archaeology possible were rather more extensive. The practice of archaeology rests on the notion that new knowledge can be created, and that material things as well as written texts can provide information about the past, as well as on a conception of time as linear and irreversible. Archaeology was nourished by the demand on the part of the emerging nation-states for a legitimating narrative based on evidence rather than myth, and the vision of deep time that emerged from geological uniformitarianism. Finally, archaeology drew on the ideas of human finitude, technological change, and the relationship between culture and nature that were associated with the Enlightenment (Daniel 1950: 38; McVicar 1984: 59; Thomas 2004: 2).

The application of Marxist theory in American historical archaeology has expanded greatly over the past 20 years. More than just a theoretical tool, the rise of Marxism reflects an emerging consciousness within historical archaeology that its subject matter is capitalism, an interest obviously shared with Marx himself. We propose, however, that historical archaeology has proceeded to study the emergence of the modern culture of capitalism without engaging Marx's critique of the political economy of cultural production in any direct way. Instead, much of historical archaeology reifies past cultural formations in place of maintaining a focus on the dialectical social processes through which those formations emerged. We illustrate how a Marxist

Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, 1997

and Daniel Miller have in common? What are the relationships between McGuire's A MarxistArchaeology (1992) and Zen and the Art of Mo to rcycle Ma intenance (persig 1974)1 If you like the conjunction of paradigms from philosophy and psychology, reflections upon science and the humanities, refreshing reconsiderations of the processual and post-processual debates, and mental gymnastics, you will undoubtedly enjoy a majority of the essays found in this unique book. The goal of this volume is to reflect upon recent theoretical issues in archaeology. The commentators are, in the main, practicing archaeologists educated in the British tradition with substantial backgrounds in social anthropology, social theory, and philosophy. Therefore, some North American-trained anthropological anthropologists may find the scope of this interesting and introspective volume uncustomary and controver sial, perhaps even disjointed and diffused. The work goes beyond the "Old" and "New" Archaeology para digms, modernism. and post-modernism, objectivist and processual versus contextualist and post process ualist approaches, as well as other theoretical (and methodological) dichotomies. A majority of the authors are concerned about the major debates on archaeological theory that have taken place during the past two decades-for example, science and interpretation, and processualism and post-process ualism. Likewise, the papers concern the interr elationships of archaeology and contemporary social theory and draw from philosophy, the structure of science, gender studies, and ethics, among other humanities and social and physical sciences. In sum, the book engages an important question: Has contemporary theory in archaeology moved from constructive, "progressive" dialogues to a series of defensive, intractable positions or "pos tures?" Mackenzie also states that the idea that archaeologists " ... can disengage their personal, social, and political context from their work must also be construed as posturing" (p. 26). There are many fresh voices and divergent opinions presenting some invigorating ideas and challenging theoreticians of archaeological discourse.

Abstract: I present a preliminary comparative analysis of archaeological thought and practice in selected Communist-ruled countries and the use of Marxist-inspired methodology, and its local variants, to research and interpret the social past. The goal is to identify common patterns of governmental influence and control of the teaching and practice of archaeology and interpretations of the social past. The analysis allows for identification of pressures inflicted by the political milieu to control archaeological reasoning and the conditions for professional engagement. Keywords: archaeology, theory, praxis, Marxism, communism, ideology, political ecology

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World, 2013