I can’t remember the
term for the term of a term which one has just suddenly invented at the moment,
but here’s the phrase: Colonialist Armchair Investigation. My longtime
associate Mr. Peter Waksman knows just what I mean I know because he has
alluded to the phenomenon as well, all those times when he’s said that some of
these “Indians never built in stone in New England” Denialists need to get out
of their armchairs and “take to the woods” and take a look around.
But neither Peter nor I were the first to say
something like that.
Here’s what Dr. Bruce
G. Trigger had to say about something like that:
The name of the
region where Peter and I found ourselves wandering about in, looking for
stacked stone features, is known as New England. If I say instead that we’ve
been making observations of Indigenous Stonework at “The Eastern Gate of Turtle
Island,” most people (from their armchairs) would not have a clue where we were
talking about. Right away, one has to use the Colonialist term, the “New
England,” to even begin a discussion of where we are investigating which.
The second category, colonialist archaeology, refers to
archaeology practiced by colonizers in a colonized country. Examples show that
colonial archaeologists often emphasized the primitiveness or lack of
accomplishments of the ancestors of colonized people to justify discriminatory
behavior as well as colonization itself. The United States, New Zealand, and
parts of sub-Saharan Africa are examples of countries and regions that
experienced periods of colonialist archaeology.
Third, Trigger pointed out that states with worldwide
political, economic, and cultural power have produced imperialist
archaeological traditions. He included in this category the archaeological
traditions of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States after
the advent of processual archaeology. Archaeologists working within an
imperialist tradition take for granted the superiority and universal
applicability of their theoretical and methodological approaches. They also
exert a strong influence on research around the world through their writings,
the international nature of their research projects, and the key role they play
in training archaeologists from various parts of the world..."
https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/habu_multiple_narrtatives.pdf
: "Nationalist, Colonialist, and Imperialist
Archaeologies that claim most of the credit for the majority of an
incredible amount of stonework may well be the sort of “Alternative Archaeology”
or Pseudoscience that cherry picks a small bit of documentation for a small
amount of stonework, as if Denialism is science with no need for further
investigation."
Nationalist, Colonialist, and Imperialist Archaeologies are also “Alternative Archaeologies.”
It’s like, Indians of the Hemisphere were doing things with
earth and shell and stone.
Everywhere else but not Here in my Town and all around New
England,
Those Indians didn’t build anything except campfire hearths
with stones until the Europeans came in and “learned them how.”
And except of course for and Gazillions Gazillions of
Projectile Points.
And those hammerstones and net weights.
And all those fishweirs – on dryland no clue how to stack a
stone on another,
But stick some Indians in some water 3000 years ago...
One might ask: What is nationalist archaeology?
"Nationalism and archaeology have been closely related since at least the nineteenth century. Archaeological interpretations and ancient history can be manipulated for nationalist purposes, such as cultivating national mythologies and national mysticism," writes Mr. Wikipedia.
No comments:
Post a Comment