Renovating practices in the history of archaeology
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 08/02/2017

In the last two decades the history of archaeology has changed beyond recognition. Long gone are the days when a look at the past of the discipline was only undertaken on the basis of publications and anecdotal memories and limited to building an account of the main discoveries and events. The much wider variability of perspectives that historians of archaeology are employing today is also related to – and indeed in many cases requires – a change in the methods once used. Taking advantage of archives as a source of information is one of the main ways in which historians of archaeology have renovated their practice. However, their work is usually hindered by the fact that archaeologists are rarely trained for this. This may well, at least partially, explain the huge differences among those of us who search archives for information.
In this paper I will analyse my own experience of working in archives. I have been researching in archives on and off since 1995 and the experience gathered over the years has allowed me to refine several data compilation techniques. I have found that checking and cross-referencing the information I have gathered from archives over the years is one of the most challenging tasks I have faced. Interestingly, however, I soon realised that looking at archives was not only a question of new methods, but also of how questions were posed. Initial questions had to be revised to be able to use the considerable potential of the newly found documentation. In my own research on how politics influences archaeology I found that most of the time the answers were much more complex than expected. Working with correspondence, for example, allows researchers to get a much more intimate knowledge of the individuals under study than with any other method (with the exception of oral history, which is only possible for most recent events). However, this privileged position makes us aware that overarching ideologies are put into practice in banal ways that are sometimes not easy to detect. I will illustrate my talk with examples from my own work in the archives of correspondence relating to archaeologists such as Gordon Childe, Christopher Hawkes and Llu s Pericot.

Author - Prof. D az-Andreu, Margarita, ICREA, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain (Presenting author)