James Dixon (UWE, UK) and Lisa Hill (University of Oxford

Is it acceptable to simply ‘be archaeological’ without digging a hole, drawing anything or even taking a single photograph? We think so and aim here to demonstrate how by expanding on the potential for the development of an archaeological ontology that uses contemporary archaeological principles to confront the immediacy of experience.

We believe in the potential for contemporary archaeology to be more of a philosophy than a prescribed method or the “application of social theory to archaeological materials”. Rather, we would like to see archaeological theory as something developed from the direct encounter between archaeologists and things rather than as something developed in isolation and then abstractly applied. This paper uses archaeological reinterpretations of existential philosophies, with influences from contemporary geography and art practice theory, to equip archaeologists to confront their own experiences of the world.

The main body of the paper takes two similar approaches to the central idea:

1. ‘Walking like an Archaeologist’ discusses experiential approaches to landscape. Drawing on ‘non-representational theory’ (Thrift 1996) and the later work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, it seeks to bring the vital and material dimensions of landscape together through practice.

2. ‘People, Politics and Things’ uses the combined notions of Sartrean nausea and existential authenticity alongside recent work on agonistic politics and the author’s own work on the role of urban material culture in the creation of competing social-historical narratives to advance a possible new approach to modern day stuff.

Our focus is upon practice and material, archaeological engagements and what it means to ‘be archaeological’. This is ‘theory with a lighter touch’ (Thrift, 1996) that creates an archaeology in response to the world rather than to be applied to it.