Archaeology and Archaeologists乫 Image representation for the Past.

 

Hidefumi Ogawa

Dept. of Philippine Studies

Tokyo University Of Foreign Studies

hide@fs.tufs.ac.jp

 

Introduction

 

My topic is about the problems, which occur when archaeologists imagine the past of his research area.

Let me start with my own experience in the fieldwork, presenting archaeological 乬discoveries 乭 as a limitation of archaeological studies. The second topic will shift on the problems that the Image of hunter-gatherers was constructed as a diametrical opposite of civilization in the dominant paradigm, and the archaeology has significance only when it contributes to the civilization or the myth of nation states. And at the end, I will present the necessity of change in archaeologists乫 recognition or epistemology as a perspective of new possibility of archaeology.

 

1.    Problems of Archaeological 乬Discoveries 乬

 

Please allow me to start from my personal experience in the field. It shocked me that the archaeological method I had learned in Japan was useless. I started to conduct the archaeological research in the Lower Cagayan River, Northeastern Luzon, in 1982, and it has been continued intermittently since then. Especially from 85 to 88, I had lived in a village on the Lower Cagayan River for three years to conduct the research of shell midden sites. The objective of the research is to reconstruct the historical process of interactions between hunter-gatherer and farmer societies using the model built by the data from the ethnoarchaeological research, and verify this reconstructed model by the archaeological materials. On the first stage of the process, I had explored the shell midden sites along the river to find the scattered materials on the surface ground, like broken pottery or stone adze, and plot the site area on the map. After two years乫 site exploration, it became clear that more than 20 shell middens distributed from Aparri on the Babuyan Channel to the upriver for 40km. The types of shell middens vary from small one, 10 meters diameter, to big one, 500 meters long and two meters deep. The results of research were published in English.

 

It caused a problem when I distributed the copies of the report to the foreign archaeologists. Actually, we archaeologists乫 aim is making some discoveries and to inform these to the world. That is to say, a struggle with archaeological works will accomplish the high evaluations of discoveries and the worldwide fame. Even though I discovered the significance of materials, these were excavated in the properties of the Philippines. Whose materials are these? To whom the academic results belong? Then, arises the political issue concerning the archaeological discoveries. The chief staffs of the Archaeological Division of National Museum needed to question me to whom I had sent the copies. But they did not blame me for this in front of me. It was maybe partly because we already had a friendly relationship. Although they didn乫t blame me, I have no rights to continue the discoveries and publish the results under my name without any regret or reflection.

 

My regret that I had sent the copies of report which had hurt Filipino archaeologists乫 feelings badly has changed the way my research work should be since. There are some ways to avoid the political problems concerning the archaeological materials. The way I chose was not to keep the discoveries to myself, but to share the results with us all. I was in a dilemma between study and moral.

I was worried that I wanted to continue my carrier of archaeologist on one hand and I wanted to avoid the political problems caused by archaeological discoveries on the other.

 

After being worried about this, I realized that the private morals didn乫t resolve the political problem. And it would rather be necessary to criticize the nature of archaeological 乬 discovery 乬, then turn to grope for another possibilities of archaeology.

 

Back in Japan, I learned what I needed to do to be an archaeologist was a series of works, such as struggling with archaeological explorations and excavations in the field, making some discoveries, informing the results to the world by the contribution to well-known journals, and then to be recognized as an archaeologist. Even enthusiastic efforts or hard workings in study had been done, if these results would cause the political problems on the archaeological discoveries and hurt the feelings of Filipino archaeologists, the archaeology, as a science itself must to be questioned.

 

2. Image shift to the hunter-gatherer society

 

In this way, the archaeological research method, which is triggered by discovery, has been maintained from the beginning of the study. This conventional method was applied to the Philippines and I was caught in a dilemma between the study and ethics. However, at first, I had no intention of solving this dilemma through studying archaeology. And I could not find the method to solve the dilemma instantly. I set my own ethical restrictions in that I would not release my solo paper and my public announcement concerning this archaeological discovery.

 

However, as I had to write a paper as a scholar, I published a paper that discussed a theoretical examination modeling the economical relationship between a hunter-gatherer society and an agricultural society. And I verified the model using archaeological evidence. In those days, between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the "Kalahari Controversy 乬 had arisen.

 

That controversy had the possibility of exploding the Kalahari model, which was widely accepted as a model of prehistoric and present hunter-gatherer society. By researching this controversy, I gradually understood the limitation of "archaeological discovery".

 

Until that time, the image of hunter-gatherer society was introduced from Kalahari Model which made by the research resulting from 乬Man The Hunter" (Richard Lee and De Vore, 1968), .the "bushman" study* in the Kalahari Desert in the late 1960s. This image was characterized by a high contribution by women in gathering activities or the existence of long leisure time. Before the study "Man the Hunter", the image of the hunter-gatherer society was that of a people who were always hungry and wandered from place to place searching for foods.

 

Once the study result of Lee et al was published, this image was changed to that of a flexible "self-sufficient (independent)" egalitarian community. They said that the hunter-gatherer society had a low labor occupancy ratio but people maintained a high life standard and that they were well adapted to natural environmental conditions. It was favorably accepted by archaeologists and was introduced as the model for the prehistoric hunter-gatherer society for everywhere in the world.

 

I question the concept of "independence" or self-sufficiency. Because I am trying to elucidate the prehistoric interdependence of hunter-gatherer society and agricultural society, which had the different subsistence background, the independence is not convincing to me. The concept of independence gives a biased and preconceived notion that the prehistoric hunter-gatherer society had developed without affect from the agricultural society since the Paleolithic era. However, the "independence", to put it in other words, the "purity" of hunter-gatherer society is very convenient to archaeologists who advocate the simple model, which eliminates the noise from the outside world.

 

Lee乫s hunter-gatherer social model was criticized for several years. The point of controversy was exactly the concept of "independence". The revisionist, who criticized Lee's Kalahari Model, insisted that prehistoric bushman had traded with an Indian Ocean trading group on the African east coast and that the Bushman had managed to supply raw materials to them, however, this network was broken off after the Age of Great Voyages, therefore, the bushmen were forced to change their life gradually to adopt the "self-sufficient (independent) life". They said that the prehistoric Bushman had definitely not been independent and had communicated with other societies and that they had traded with the other societies since the prehistoric age (Wilmsen and Denbow, 1990:499-503). Lee himself carefully avoided defining the Kalahari Model of the bushman's society as a survivor of the Stone Age. However, it contains some problems. His theory was consistent with "timeless sense (Shott, 1992:845)" in that he assumed the hunter-gatherer society had not changed since the prehistoric age. Also his model had not considered the historical background of the Bushman.

 

Furthermore, it is possible to indicate the problem of the Kalahari Model as the dominant way of the construction and representation of the hunter-gatherer society or 乬Others乭 by the viewpoint of essentialism. Archaeologists, including me, who accepted the Kalahari Model, intend to look for the independent, isolated and pure hunter-gatherer society in their fiction or the realm of dominant paradigm and use this illusion as a model for the reconstruction of the hunter-gatherer society乫s past. In the background of their way of reconstruction of others乫 past, it is concealed the viewpoint that the interactions between hunter-gatherer society and the surrounding societies shall contaminate the cultural tradition and purity of the society.

 

When the specific model is created by extracting " traditional elements" arbitrarily from the hunter-gatherer society and by applying it to their prehistory eliminating the "contamination" of the outside society, it should be a biased approach which will only result in isolating the hunter-gatherer society from the reality, peripherized in the World System. This way of research must be indicated as our archaeologists乫 problem in that we have studied real hunter-gatherer society by eliminating the "contamination" of the modern society in order to observe and describe it in the timeless sense of 乬ethnographic present 乭. It was an essentially biased observation applied to the hunter-gatherer people as a Savage Others.

 

The essential characteristic of the Kalahari Model reflected a periodic trend, restriction of researchers in the 1970s, and the "dominant paradigm" at that time. After the Vietnam War, the skepticism on civilization, which should bring a bright future, became the primary factor to make us archaeologists to built the utopia model in the 乬non-civilized world乭 that must be a harmony of nature and human. That is to say, that skepticism became the primary factor in creating the new concept of "Noble Savage" in the hunter-gatherer society. However, at that time, this pessimistic model had a firm meaning with an ideological background to reflect on the civilization. The researchers tried to create the ideal world where the people had a good relationship with nature, which was different to that existing in the real world to which the researcher belongs. Finally, they created an image of the 乬independent乭, 乬pure乭 and 乬traditional乭 hunter-gatherer society. And it is now accepted as the common and prevailing image of the hunter-gatherer society. The beginning of this trend can be seen in "Man the Hunter". Also Salins (1972) could be the evangelist to disseminate the new image. The current ecological ideologies, the understanding of peripherized societies having their own natural philosophy, and a discourse of strategic essentialism, which advocated peripherized societies, are all recognized in the 1970s.

 

Back in the Philippines, in the 1970s, using ethnoarchaeological methodology, a new model of prehistoric hunter-gatherer society was built. However, it was strongly influenced by the Kalahari Model. The "exchange adaptation" model, which explains the mechanisms of the prehistoric interdependence between the hunter-gatherer society and the agricultural society in the tropical rain forest area, tried to supersede the isolation model put forward by Heinegeldeln. Mrs. And Mr. Peterson presented this model, when they were researching at Palanan, Isaberra (Peterson and Peterson, 1977).

However, this model was also based on the limited conditions whereby the social mechanism was completed in a closed system without being affected by the outside world. It was based on a model advocating stability from the prehistoric age till the present, with static "equilibrium" maintained without any alteration. It is more natural that dynamic movement destroys the stability and equilibrium of a society and produce new change in the society.

 

On the other hand, Dr. Tom Headland, the revisionist of the Kalahari Model, had struggled to remove the image of the independent hunter-gatherer society, which still strongly exists among archaeologists. Headland had researched in Agta of Casiguran, Aurora on the Pacific coast of the Sierra Madre for a long time. He found that it was impossible for the hunter-gatherer society of the tropical rainforest areas in the prehistoric age to have survived without exchange with agricultural societies to obtain carbohydrates. He researched also prehistoric archaeological sites in the tropical rainforest area prior to the immergence of agricultural technology to attest to his hypothesis. He made clear that there were no archaeological sites of the Paleolithic age in tropical rainforest area except on the Malay Peninsula. However, many archaeologists who study tropical areas not only Southeast Asia but also South America and Africa had opposing ideas. Namely, they still recognized the hunter-gatherer societies as maintaining an "independent乭, self-sufficient" and "pure" society.

 

The hunter-gatherer society has been represented as a "Cruel" Savage or a "Noble Savage". After all, the archaeology represents the hunter-gatherer society as an essential image, which is the 乬diametrical opposite乭 to civilization. However, there is little movement to change the direction of the study by reflection on this representation. It is necessary to pose the question why the hunter-gatherer societies are represented as a diametrical opposite to civilization at the epistemological level and to fumble for a new direction for prehistoric hunter-gatherer social study.

 

3. Archaeologists who contribute to create the myth of "civilization" and "nation State"

 

The essentialistic recognition of others originates in the recognition of the hunter-gatherer society as the diametrical opposite of civilization. At the same time, the history of the hunter-gatherer society has been essentially represented as a mirror of others, which reflects and confirms our own civilization. And Archaeology, which traces the footprint of "civilization", has existed and functioned to contribute to the nationalism and national culture, which have essentially constructed the national history. When an archaeologist goes back to a past and then returns to the present time, he/she reconstructs essentially his/her own national history along with the direction of civilization. Specifically, archaeologists including me who reconstruct the past of foreign countries without considering Japanese prehistoric cultural relationships with the one of the Philippines have a further strong responsibility regarding the colonialistic representation of others乫 past.

 

It has to break through the present situation that the image of the others乫 past is constructed by the inference of a contemporary social context. And it is necessary for the archaeologist to quest for other possibilities in archaeology. At the present situation where own and others乫 past are essentially represented by reflecting the social context of the minorities and the majority within the nation states and relationship between the center and periphery of the world system, the archaeologist will never be free from political dilemma caused by the "archaeological discovery", as I have already experienced.

As archaeology contributes to nationalism and national history, my past faults are bound to be repeated by other archaeologists. Of course, I have no intention of blaming archaeology for my failure.

 

Conclusion

 

Finally, I would like to conclude the aforementioned assertion.

When I had realized that archaeological discovery brought political dilemma, my research method and direction drastically changed. Also, through the discussion of the Kalahari Controversy, I acquired the method of criticizing the archaeologists乫 framework of recognition and the problem of the dominant paradigm from the standpoint of a social constructionists乫 view. Furthermore, I noticed the necessity to build a concrete archaeological social model that allows for the prehistoric dynamic movement of social interaction. These epistemological viewpoints gave me the academic perspectives that I should start to discuss the problems of political dilemma produced by archaeological discovery beyond the private ethical problems affecting Filipino archaeologists. These perspectives can present the new archaeological possibilities both in the Philippine and Southeast Asian archaeology. However, it is accurate to forecast the occurrence of political confrontation between essentialism and social constructionism. I cannot find the solution for this problem yet. By posing this problem, I would like to close my discourse.

 

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