Archaeologies of Ontology

Abstract

Bruno Latour and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro provided the initial impetus for explicitly ontological research in archaeology. Their impact on archaeologists, however, has been quite different. What I call the “metaphysical archaeologists” trace their genealogy from Latour, though they are now equally influenced by “new materialism” and the “new ontological realism” ( Gabriel 2015 ). They have introduced an alternative metaphysical orthodoxy to archaeology. In contrast, Viveiros de Castro and colleagues have authorized the return of the grand ethnographic analogy to archaeology, particularly in the case of animism. A second, quite different tendency inspired by these same anthropologists is to engage with indigenous ideas as theories to reconfigure archaeological concepts and practice. I suggest that a point of convergence between the metaphysical and the latter anthropological approaches exists in their focus on the concept of alterity.

Taming the Ontological Wolves: Learning from Iroquoian Effigy Objects

“…In contrast, some anthropologists and archaeologists use the term as a slightly modified version of culture (cf. Hallowell , 49–50; see Alberti ; Kohn ). Yet the precise relationship between culture and ontology is rarely specified.…”

“…Such projects, particularly the latter, reportedly come with a price for anthropologists and archaeologists who are content with the status quo; we are told that they carry seeds of revolution that threaten to upend, remake, or even explode our discipline. For instance, echoing Viveiros de Castro's sentiment, archaeologist Benjamin Alberti (; see also Alberti , 172–75) recently referred to these explorations as “archaeologies of risk and wonder.” Given the gravity of these new frontiers for archaeology, it is surprising how few archaeologists have stepped back to critically assess these potentially radical ways of being and seeing with other, older disciplinary challenges (but see Harris and Robb ). Alberti () provided a useful synthesis of archaeologies of ontology, setting out the key theoretical issues that divide different uses of the term (cf.…”

Anthropological Archaeology in 2016: Cooperation and Collaborations in Archaeological Research and Practice

“…At risk of overgeneralizing, niche construction theory shares some commonalities with another growing trend in anthropology, sometimes called the ontological turn. Drawing on the work of Philippe Descola, Eduardo Viveros de Castro, and Bruno Latour, among others, anthropologists and archaeologists question the human‐centric construction of our world with new perspectives on indigenous ontologies, animism, and relationality (Alberti ; Bauer and Kosiba ; Fowler ; Kohn ; López‐Bertran ; McAnany and Brown ; Weismantel ). While these two trends sit on opposite sides of the epistemological spectrum, niche construction theory and some new ontological approaches are committed to thinking about the recursive, historically contingent relations of humans and other‐than‐humans in a process of “becoming.” Their mutual focus on the agency of animals, plants, and landscapes undermines human exceptionalism as the principal driving force in the construction of our world (“our” broadly defined).…”

La Arqueología y la Antropología cultural: entrelazamientos pretéritos y presentes

“…A través de la práctica arqueológica, se procuraría explorar y reconocer el grado de agencia de las materias y los materiales, de los objetos/cosas/artefactos, y de los espacios/lugares/paisajes/entornos. Igualmente se constata una influencia reciente del "nuevo realismo ontoló-gico" (Gabriel 2015;Alberti 2016). Los nuevos entrelazamientos y entrecruzamientos son explíci-tos en numerosos trabajos publicados en la última década en el ámbito de la Arqueología, en trabajos que, desde distintos planteamientos, sitúan en los "objetos", en las "cosas", o en los "ensamblajes", su foco de interés ( .…”