World Archaeology

ISSN: 0043-8243 (Print) 1470-1375 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20

Assessing ethnoarchaeology’s contemporary

relevance

Ajay Pratap

To cite this article: Ajay Pratap (2016) Assessing ethnoarchaeology’s contemporary relevance,
World Archaeology, 48:5, 710-713, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2017.1334584

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2017.1334584

Published online: 20 Jul 2017.

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WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY, 2016
VOL. 48, NO. 5, 710–713
https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2017.1334584

Assessing Ethnoarchaeology’s Contemporary Relevance

Ajay Pratap
Department of History, Faculty of Social Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

As someone who conducted ethnoarchaeological fieldwork with Paharia shifting cultivators of Santal
Parganas, India, by participant observation for two years in the early 1980s (Pratap 1987, 2000), I find
that the four articles that make up this special section of World Archaeology, taken together, provide a
fine view of the status of ethnoarchaeological intervention in many parts of the globe. They create a
space for a re-examination of ethnoarchaeology as a method and some of its theoretical under-
pinnings. Overall, I get a sense from them that there is a need to salvage ethnoarchaeology, which as a
method is capable of delivering insights into human-material culture relationships, that would other-
wise be unavailable to archaeologists. However, and again by virtue of being a practising ethnoarch-
aeologist, I do feel somewhat disappointed that archaeologists should be shying away from engaging
directly with indigenous peoples and their critically societies, especially at a time when the United
Nations General Assembly has long since voted by an overwhelming majority for upholding the rights
of Indigenous peoples (Oldham and Frank 2008).
Reading Lyons and Casey’s paper, I feel that ethnoarchaeology has always found its relevance
within archaeology based on the assumption that issues concerning subsistence-economies,
principle of social organization, ritual practices, aesthetics and beliefs that characterized societies
in the past are no longer available per se for direct observation, and hence there is a need for
archaeological engagement in the field with ethnography. For this reason alone, ethnoarchaeol-
ogy cannot lose its relevance. The reintroduction of the archaeological subject (in the form of
material culture studies), or a redefining of archaeology as a study of materiality and materiality
alone, does not in my view serve to offset by much the need for ethnoarchaeology or ethnoarch-
aeological fieldwork.
In a globalised world tending towards cultural homogenization there is a genuine need to increase
the pace, range and extent of ethnoarchaeological studies, to grasp better such issues as gender, ecology
and the environment as these are played out in contexts that are fundamentally different from those of
the Western societies that currently dominate the production of archaeological theory. Also, there is a
need for a refocusing of ethnoarchaeology onto such topics as art and craft, which have received much
less attention in India as compared with discard which was regarded through the 1980s into the 1990s as
the brave new world of archaeology (Mohanty and Misra 2002). Obviously, this is not the case for all
geographical regions, but as periodic works of synthesis (e.g. David and Karmer 2001) repeatedly show
there are a number of lacunae in ethnoarchaeological coverage. On the Indian sub-continent, for
instance, the theoretical orientations of most ethnoarchaeologists have at times left little room for a
sustained study of tribal art and craft (with some notable exceptions, e.g. Miller 1985), and as a result the

CONTACT Ajay Pratap drajayprt@yahoo.com Department of History, Faculty of Social Sciences, Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi 221 005, India
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 711

study of ritual and kinship systems through the use of the ethnoarchaeological method has remained chi-
merical (although see Kramer and Douglas 1992).
The organization of labour for the reproduction of social and economic systems in the past
and symbolic systems and their manipulation may also be subjects worthy of ethnoarchaeological
attention. In India, for instance, this would involve a study of symbolic systems in art as well as the
terracotta and other ceramic art traditions, all of which have devolved to us through the period of
urban origins associated with the rise of the Indus Valley Civilization, through early history into
contemporary India. A quick online scan of the literature also shows that on the Indian sub-continent
ethnoarchaeological research geared towards understanding different dimensions of the past,
including Harrapan communities, is both flourishing and has quite a long and distinguished history
(Hasan 1991; Sinopoli 1991; Chase 2004; Sengupta, Roychoudhury and Som 2006). While these
projects are not all equally useful (and they have certainly been undertaken from differing theore-
tical standpoints), the fact that they were undertaken attests to certain deep-seated continuities in
practice even if we have not yet demonstrated entirely satisfactorily what the material traces of
these continuities truly imply.
Thus stated, it should be rather obvious, that the ‘modern’ in modern material culture studies
needs to be qualified, if it is taken to mean as fantastic an idea as signalling the end of traditional
ethnoarchaeology. Hence, from my view of things, in their paper Lyons and Casey could have been
far less sombre. This is so since, for those who still believe in and can demonstrate the relevance of
the method, it suffices to say that scenarios of doom, insofar as ethnoarchaeology is concerned,
are just that. Also, and arguably so, bereft of any other means of engagement with tribal society
other than ethnoarchaeology, archaeology lacks an alternative for building estimates of and
analogues for prehistoric behaviour.
Bill Sillar and Gabriel Ramón Joffré’s competent and richly argued paper touches the heart of
ethnoarchaeological methodology, showing the range of inferences that have been derived in
Andean archaeology from an ethnoarchaeological direction. This suggests that the place for
ethnoarchaeology seems secure within Andean research. However, perhaps their paper also
indicates that preference for one approach of interpretation over others may be a matter of
differing academic cultures born out of the variation in everyday lived realities that confront
archaeologists in different parts of the world. Why, for instance, does ethnoarchaeology look
embattled in Australia and North America, perhaps even in India, and not elsewhere? The fact
that the direct historical method thrives in Andean archaeology helps us reinstate ethnoarchaeol-
ogy’s continuing relevance.
The central point emerging seems to be that, if analogous models for interpreting archaeolo-
gical phenomena must have temporal depth, then the place of a historically informed ethnoarch-
aeology is secure within the annals of Andean archaeology. Sillar and Ramón Joffré, however,
point out the pitfalls usually associated with the use of direct historical analogies and advocate
greater rigour in their use. Their review of literature connected with the subject is very informative
as to the diversity of ethnoarchaeological correlations available within Andean archaeology.
Studies on changing artefact use as well as studies of shrinkage and growth of traditional
subsistence practices through time are included, alongside discussions of Middle Range Theory
and proper technological archiving of field data. The strongest point of their contribution seems to
be the account they give of the varied types of ethnoarchaeology which are being practised,
which makes this article a fascinating read.
Brady and Kearney have set a fine example of how the ethnoarchaeological engagement with
rock art may be used to elicit historical memories as well as what may be termed ‘Indigenous
712 A. PRATAP

views of the past’, which enrich archaeological understanding. In this sense, they have gone
beyond the use of historical material as suggested elsewhere and touch upon a new resource/
method. In the method used here, rock art was used as a basis for engaging in conversations
about the subjects depicted. The memories that flowed from them reveal attitudes, beliefs and
opinions of the respondents from two continents, which helped the archaeologists understand
better the regionally specific ethnographic histories as well as, very evidently, the personal
histories of their collaborators.
Not many archaeologies of rock art adopt such a procedure and Brady and Kearney’s initiative of
engaging with rock art in this fashion may truly be claimed as something very novel. However, we need
to think more widely about the benefit of establishing rock paintings as ‘primary sources’ of group
histories and therefore the fact that, as with all things historical, even emic interpretations may be
expected to vary with changing historical circumstances. Hence, field conversations need to be backed
up with some amount of archival research to see if specific views of rock-art images and attribution of
significance emerge with changing values or remain constant. However, the point about methodolo-
gical openness is well taken, as also the point about the need for ethnoarchaeologists to evolve
ethically.
Cunningham and MacEachern’s essay turns out to be a cautionary tale and carries much the same
‘weight of the world’ as discussed above, however one that is acceptable for the North American
context, occupied as it seems to be with issues concerning ‘data’. How else, for instance, is it to be
explained that the ‘slow’ method of spending two years doing field-work with ethnographic groups,
in a regular ethnoarchaeological kind of study, continues to be popular in some regions of the world
and not in others? The recent redefining of the goals of field-work, and indeed the definition of ‘field-
work’ itself, in the North American context (e.g. Gupta and Fergusson 1997) is reflected in
Cunningham and MacEachern’s promotion of ethnoarchaeology as a ‘slow’ science.
With the rise of indigenous traditions of ethnography and archaeology, in a postcolonial world,
there has been concern with defining newer pastures for field-work (urban locations for instance).
This critique of ethnoarchaeology seems to have become a fait accompli. Like the three other
contributions, Cunningham and MacEachern also offer a way forward for Western research in the
under-developed and the developing world, by suggesting a greater proactive role for the studied
group as well as for ethnoarchaeologists. As for such things as the politics of field-work, and the
fact that data gets influenced extraneously, this is the peril of any field of social science, and by no
means unique to ethnoarchaeology. However, we might still ask: will the North American archae-
ological tradition, well known for its innovative contributions in the field of archaeological theory,
yet re-consider ‘data’ – a product and necessarily a subsidiary phenomenon of theory – and find a
way out for us yet again from becoming totally blinded in the absence of ethnographic analogies?

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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