Futures That Could Have Been Otherwise: Time and the past in an Imperial landscape
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-03-03

This paper considers the past in terms of its potential futures, exploring the implications of this perspective for an understanding of time and historical process. Such an archaeology centred on possibilities seeks to trace not only the elements that appear to undergird or guarantee a particular trend or outcome, but the heterogeneous conditions of emergence that could have been oriented toward different anticipated futures. The goal is to confront the spectrum of variability in which past actions were mobilized, possibilities that might challenge, coexist, or conflict with a hegemonic or presumed inevitable narrative. Focusing on the Roman occupation of southern England, the paper explores the meaning of long-term trends in the context of multiple potential futures for the past, engaging with intersections of time traditionally segmented into sequential period divisions. The analysis explores how cycles of settlement use and disuse activated past contexts for interaction, including Neolithic and Bronze Age earthworks and fields, as contingent yet potent sites of social articulation in Iron Age and Roman landscapes, reframing understandings of continuities and ruptures during imperial occupation.

Laura Ghisleni (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee)