How to Record Current Events like an Archaeologist
Open Access
- 15 October 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Advances in Archaeological Practice
- Vol. 9 (4), 379-386
- https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2021.24
Abstract
This article shows how to record current events from an archaeological perspective. With a case study from the COVID-19 pandemic in Norway, we provide accessible tools to document broad spatial and behavioral patterns through material culture as they emerge. Stressing the importance of ethical engagement with contemporary subjects, we adapt archaeological field methods—including geolocation, photography, and three-dimensional modeling—to analyze the changing relationships between materiality and human sociality through the crisis. Integrating data from four contributors, we suggest that this workflow may engage broader publics as anthropological data collectors to describe unexpected social phenomena. Contemporary archaeological perspectives, deployed in rapid response, provide alternative readings on the development of current events. In the presented case, we suggest that local ways of coping with the pandemic may be overshadowed by the materiality of large-scale corporate and state response. Este artículo muestra cómo documentar eventos actuales desde una perspectiva arqueológica. Con un estudio de caso sobre la pandemia de COVID-19 en Noruega, ofrecemos herramientas asequibles para documentar amplios patrones de espacio y comportamiento que emergen a través de la cultura material. Destacando la importancia de la ética en el trabajo de temas contemporáneos, adaptamos los métodos de campo arqueológico que incluyen la geolocalización, la fotografía y el modelado tridimensional para establecer cambios en la materialidad que muestran los cambios en la socialidadhumana asociados con la pandemia. Al integrar datos de cuatro colaboradores, indicamos que este flujo de trabajo puede involucrar a un público más amplio como recolectores y colaboradores de datos antropológicos para analizar fenómenos sociales inesperados. Las perspectivas arqueológicas contemporáneas, llevadas en respuesta rápida, brindan interpretaciones alternativas sobre el desarrollo de los eventos actuales, que en este caso pueden quedar eclipsadas por la materialidad de la respuesta corporativa y estatal a gran escala.Keywords
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented MigrationJournal of Contemporary Archaeology, 2017
- KNIT + RESIST: placing the Pussyhat Project in the context of craft activismGender, Place & Culture, 2017
- Crowdsourcing cultural heritage: public participation and conflict legacy in FinlandJournal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, 2017
- Closing the seams: resolving frequently encountered issues in photogrammetric modellingAntiquity, 2016
- “Better to Be Hot than Caught”: Excavating the Conflicting Roles of Migrant Material CultureAmerican Anthropologist, 2012
- Genealogies of Destruction: An Archaeology of the Contemporary Past in the Amazon ForestArchaeologies, 2010
- A new dawn for citizen scienceTrends in Ecology & Evolution, 2009
- Ethics and Ethical Critique in the Archaeology of Modern ConflictNorwegian Archaeological Review, 2008
- The Taphonomy of Disaster and the (Re)Formation of New OrleansAmerican Anthropologist, 2006
- Behavioral Archaeology: Four Strategies1American Anthropologist, 1975