Rethinking the conversation: a geomythological deep map
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 20/05/2016

“Deep maps do not explicitly seek authority…but provoke negotiation between insiders and outsiders, experts and contributors, over what is represented and how. Framed as a conversation and not a statement, they are inherently unstable, continually unfolding and changing in response to new data, new perspectives and new insights.” (Bodenhamer 2015)

In this way, the deep map can become a conduit for rethinking geomythological research and representation. Traditionally, geomythology has been the study of landscape stories
through the purview of geoscience (Piccardi and Masse 2007) with little regard for myth’s own voice. Bounded in the epistemic bias of orthodox perspectives storytelling has been dismissed as an inferior feature in the landscape; a source to be critiqued or stood behind as a bridge for public engagement but not as a partner to be afforded equal value. This paper challenges that stance, suggesting that an alternative is possible wherein
established archaeological practices are overthrown in favour of a more interdisciplinary methodology (Kavanagh 2015) through conceptual deep mapping. For ‘the world as it is’ in which we live does not stand still, it does not pose for a paper-held cartographical portrait; it is forever in flux. This refers both to the aesthetic topography and to the social structures it supports, as well as the intellectual data it can yield. To therefore map a landscape is more than geography, it is to facilitate a palimpsest of cultural narrative which struggles to be contained within the rigid parameters of a conventionally academic bracket, as so often
seen with historic landscape characterization. One solution to this, is not to even try. Instead to bring together the polyphony in a manner that is at once playful and scholastically sound without overt agenda. This is offered by way of introducing a ‘work in progress’ short film that responds to geo-archaeological fieldwork in collusion with art, music and myth to represent one stretch of coastline across time, space and disciplines with the aim of not
compromising integrity and to re-establish the very foundation upon which normative perspectives reside.

K.E. KAVANAGH (Independent)

Bodenhamer, D.J., Corrigan. J. and Harris, T.M. (eds). (2015). Deep maps and spatial narratives. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Kavanagh, K.E. (2015). Of myth & man: Essaying the space-between in geomythological theory. Unpubl. M.A. Thesis. University of Wales, Trinity Saint David.
Piccardi, L. and Masse, W.B. (eds) (2007). Myth and geology. Geological Society, London, Special Publications No. 273