Archaeology’s Destructive Legacy: Burning it All Down to Better Support Scholars of Color
Abstract
This essay examines the ways in which (Classical) archaeology’s inherently destructive nature is deeply intertwined with and informed by its destructive foundations. Despite the traditional prevalence of white scholars in our syllabi, in our conference panels, and in our institutions, archaeologists of color have made it exceedingly clear in the last several months that this is our discipline, too. However, staking a claim in a discipline founded on ableist, masculinist, and white supremacist ideologies has not been without its challenges. Recent and oft-repeated calls for “burning it all down” has led not only to incidents of “punching down” from tenured professors at (often precarious) students on social media, but also to often misguided attempts to diversify departments and classrooms which in actuality perpetuate the structural racism we are trying to dismantle. By juxtaposing the destructive natures of both archaeological method and the discipline at large, I suggest how professors can apply principles of archaeological fieldwork to their mentorship of students of color.
Citation: Hill, Nadhira “Archaeology’s Destructive Legacy: Burning it All Down to Better Support Scholars of Color.” The Jugaad Project, 1 June 2021, thejugaadproject.pub/archaeologys-destructive-legacy [date of access]
In both the courses that I've taken and the ones that I've taught on archaeology, one of the first things that is always emphasized is that archaeology is, first and foremost, a destructive practice. At one extreme, there are excavators like Heinrich Schliemann, who notably used explosives and employed hasty techniques in order to speed up his excavations at the Mycenaean site of Troy located on the northwestern coast of modern-day Turkey. At the other end are the practices that we use today which, although far more careful and systematic, are not that different from Schliemann’s. While the degree of destruction that has resulted from modern excavations compared to that from Schliemann’s excavations of Troy is very different, in both contexts, the same refrain I once heard in my introduction to archaeology courses continues to ring true: once something is taken out of the ground, or out of its original context, you can't put it back. Indeed, whenever we think of archaeology, we often think of some form of removal: the removal of soil from the earth in usually neat, rectangular trenches; the removal of artifacts from the ground once they have been properly recorded; and the illicit removal of objects from their cultures of origin. Archaeology simply cannot be done without taking our trowels and pickaxes to the earth, and removing artifacts from their contexts in order that further study and interpretation can take place
Image 1: Some of the tools that are used on an archaeological field project, including ones meant to aid in the removal of soil and artifacts, such as trowels and dustpans. Olynthos, Greece, 2017. Photo by author.
I know this process from my own experiences as both an excavator and pottery team member on a number of projects. When I worked as a volunteer on the Athenian Agora Excavations, I spent most of my days digging in trenches, collecting material in colorful plastic buckets that would be transported up to the pottery washing station at the end of each day. On occasion I might spend a day sitting in the shade washing and sorting pottery, which I learned could also be a destructive practice. Indeed, on almost every archaeological field project, volunteers are carefully trained how to properly wash the paradoxically virtually indestructible but also sometimes very delicate pottery sherds. In general, we were instructed to scrub gently, usually with a toothbrush or other scrubbing implement, so as not to remove any surface decoration. Whenever in doubt, we were encouraged to clean the sherds with our fingers. Because archaeology is so destructive, those who work on archaeological projects must always take care that they aren't causing further, irreparable damage to a site or its artifacts that might prevent further study and interpretation. Everything must be carefully planned out and all work, especially work carried out by newcomers to a project or to archaeological fieldwork in general, must be supervised.
Image 2: Tubs used to wash pottery. Olynthos, Greece, 2019. Photo by: author.
Archaeological fieldwork teams are usually made up of people from a range of backgrounds, with various amounts of fieldwork experience, at different levels of education and, sometimes, especially on excavations in the Mediterranean, based in a variety of disciplines in addition to Classical Studies. Projects are typically run by tenured faculty and early career researchers. Both undergraduate and graduate students are recruited in order to flesh out teams. Undergraduates usually volunteer on archaeological projects in order to get their feet wet, so to speak, and to learn archaeological methods from more experienced team members. Graduate students, depending on their prior experiences of fieldwork, may also join a project in order to learn basic methodology. However, in general, graduate students join archaeological projects on which they can pursue topics that they can later write about in a thesis or dissertation. Often, graduate students are assigned roles that align with their interests, and which tend to lead to more substantial research projects and publications.
Taking on a special project on an excavation is just one of many ways that a research project can come to be for an archaeology student. Research projects can be found and developed while doing fieldwork, by asking to work with specific material or by having a project handed to you by an advisor. However, they are also developed outside of archaeological fieldwork, such as by visiting a museum where you’re taken with a particular object or overarching idea. Often once a research project is chosen, they tend to evolve and become informed by personal interests and backgrounds. This is particularly the case for students and scholars of color studying the ancient world, where it is not uncommon for research topics to be specifically related to one’s heritage, deal more broadly with questions of race and ethnicity in the ancient world, or fall somewhere in the middle. One result has been the increasing popularity of classical reception studies, in which modern popular culture is brought into dialogue with the ancient world. In particular, I think of Jermaine Bryant’s intertwining of modern hip-hop and ancient poetry and Yung in Chae’s Eidolon article discussing Classics in K-Pop. However, while there is becoming increasingly more space for these sorts of approaches in the discipline, not all innovative approaches are accepted in all spaces or by all members of the discipline. If you aren’t able to find a place where your specialized research fits into the narrow scope of what usually defines “Classics,” then you might find yourself seeking refuge elsewhere, whether that be in another discipline (such as anthropology, history, or comparative literature) or by leaving academia altogether.
This exodus from the field by scholars of color is largely due to a narrow conception of the field that continues to persist. This conception is built upon largely exclusionary, destructive policies and practices which have, until relatively recently, not been critiqued or challenged at length. Indeed, the problems which are deeply foundational to the field of Classical archaeology, and Classical Studies more generally, existed long before people of color showed up in significant numbers. A case in point can be found in the fact that very few people of color appear to be active members of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) or Society for Classical Studies (SCS), likely choosing instead to become members of the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) or the Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA), where they may feel more welcome. It is not possible for me to provide concrete numbers or proportions of white versus non-white members, but it is common knowledge that the annual joint meeting of the AIA and SCS is overwhelmingly white. In a 2017 blog post following that year’s annual meeting, Dr. Katherine Blouin noted that she “was struck by how white the tag-bearing crowd was”. I myself, as a Black female graduate student, have felt alienated in such spaces in the past.
In lieu of actual, recent data from the AIA or SCS, we can compare the data from a 1994 membership survey from the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), in which, according to a recent article by Flewellen et al. “only two out of over 1,600 respondents self-identified as Black. The fact that there were enough Black archaeologists in 2011 to prompt the founding of the SBA demonstrates that concerted efforts to recruit and train Black graduate students have made an impact”. A similar phenomenon has arisen more recently, in which several archaeologists have considered leaving the SAA after the organization “gave a platform to what they consider anti-Indigenous views” and inadequately addressed “the harm caused by the talk”. Within the field of Classical Studies, there have been some efforts to hold space for people of color, especially with the creation of the Asian and Asian American Classical Caucus and the Mountaintop Coalition, an organization whose mission is to advance “the professional goals of Classicists who identify as members of ethnic groups traditionally underrepresented in the field”. In spite of the formation of these organizations, white members of the discipline seem to only have really started paying attention when people of color started speaking up about their experiences of racism, which have been especially amplified on public platforms like social media in the last year. However, not all people of color in the field have been willing or able to speak up because oftentimes speaking up about problems inherent in the field or experiences of prejudice and racism can be dangerous for them. The risk for people of color is much higher than for people who identify or pass as white, and who are in professional positions of relative security. Calls for “burning it all down” have been made largely by the most marginalized and precarious of us in the field, borne out of a frustration with lack of movement and lack of empathy within the discipline. I even joined in the charge myself - and was met with largely unproductive criticism.
A few weeks ago, I was likened to a “kamikaze” in an opinion piece that was written in a French newspaper. When I was first told about this, I didn't know what to think of it. But as it became a spectacle on social media and as it began to sink in that this was just another instance of pearl clutching in the name of “saving” the discipline from radicals like me (namely, marginalized individuals in the discipline calling attention to its critical failings), I became not just deeply hurt, but enraged. This was not the first time that a non-white member of the discipline had been chastised for speaking their truth and calling for real, actionable change, nor will it be the last. I realized that this problem is much, much bigger than me, or the author of that opinion piece, and that it is so deeply ingrained into our discipline that willful ignorance is the norm. Indeed, the use of the term “kamikaze” is itself a part of this willful ignorance, especially given its negative connotations. In particular, the term has come to be equated primarily with suicide or wanton destruction, eliding the fact that, in its original cultural context of use, the term also relied on the primary vales of loyalty and honor until death in samurai life and the Bushido code. Therefore, the term is used as an insult, painting those of us who resist the status quo as destructive forces who mean to harm the discipline and those who inhabit it. But in reality, we resist because we are devoted to the discipline and want to try to make it better for everyone. If there's anything that I've learned, particularly in the last year, it’s that Classical Studies is not a homogenous group. Indeed, the scholars of color in Classics, and even in Classical archaeology, are not as alone as they once thought. The pandemic has made us more connected than ever before, and given us more ways of amplifying the voices and work of scholars of color in ways that have transcended space and time. In particular, I think of the work of the Christian Cole Society of Oxford University, which has hosted a number of thought-provoking panels over the last several months; the Black Trowel Collective, an organization which provides microgrants to archaeologists of color; and my own budding blog, Notes from the Apotheke, which I created both in order to document my own experiences as a Black graduate student in Classics and to amplify the voices of other scholars of color studying the ancient world. None of these initiatives seem like the work of kamikazes – in the negative sense of the word – to me. Tearing down the people who do this work through micro- and macro-aggressions only further contributes to the destruction of the discipline.
Image 3: The storage-room at the archaeological site of Olynthos, Greece. Olynthos, Greece, 2019. Photo by author.
As archaeologists, we operate within a discipline which by its very nature is destructive, but we do everything we can in the process of removing soil from the ground to preserve the delicate artifacts we uncover in the course of excavation. This process of preservation is continued as we carefully remove the artifacts from their contexts, store them temporarily in plastic bags and containers, gently wash them, analyze them, and determine the best way to store them long-term for future analysis. The same approach should be taken to the students and scholars of color who carry out this work in the field, and continue to contribute to important interpretation and re-interpretation of material culture outside of archaeological fieldwork.
Just as we take care to preserve newly discovered artifacts in the field, how do we make students of color who are first exposed to the ancient world feel welcome and comfortable in our classrooms and departments? And just as there are systems for collection and storage of artifacts in the field, how do we continue to support students of color on their journey from undergraduate to graduate students, to early career researchers, to faculty members? There may be a streamlined path from ground to storage when dealing with artifacts in archaeological fieldwork, but occasionally objects must take a different path, such as when they must be categorized as “special finds” or when they are ear-marked for conservation. How do we support students of color if they decide their journey is to be different from the beaten path?
Finally, as mentioned above, archaeological projects are made up of a wide variety of individuals with different backgrounds and various interests and types of expertise. This is especially the case when it comes to the analysis of material culture, in which case there are often several specialists with whom excavators collaborate. It would be impossible, and frankly unheard of, to be an expert in everything, and certainly no one expects this of any of us. The same is true of our work outside of archaeological projects, such as in roles in our classrooms, departments, and institutions. Who do we call upon to support us when we, as instructors, mentors, collaborators, and colleagues feel out of our depth? It is highly probable that the experiences you face as a professor will not align exactly with those of your students or mentees, and that’s okay. But just as you probably wouldn’t leave artifacts unstudied and collecting dust forever in your storehouse for your excavation, you don’t want to leave your students of color unsupported because you did not seek out specialists who could better support them than you could.
References
Bryant, J. 2020. “Stakes is High: Roman Elegy, Hip-Hop, and the Ovid Movie,” Corona Borealis.
Chae, Y. 2020. “Like Dionysus: BTS,Classics in K-Pop and the Narcissiso of the West,” Eidolon.
Blouin, K. 2017. “Classical Studies’ Glass Ceiling is White”, Everyday Orientalism.
Flewellen, A.O., J.P. Dunnavant, A. Odewale, A. Jones, T. Wolde-Michael, Z. Crossland, and M. Franklin. 2021. “‘The Future of Archaeology is Antiracist’: Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter”, Cambridge University Press.
Wade, L. 2021. “An archaeology society hosted a talk against returning Indigenous remains. Some want a new society”, Science Magazine.
Further Resources
Rebecca Futo Kennedy and Maximus Planudes, 2021, “Changing Classics: What Do We Want? Not What Some People Keep Saying We Want”.
David Meadows, 2021, “Classics in Crisis? (A.K.A. ‘The Discourse’)”.
Maria Franklin, Justin P. Dunnavant, Ayana Omilade Flewellen, and Alicia Odewale. 2020. “The Future is Now: Archaeology and the Eradication of Anti-Blackness,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 24: 753-766.
