Abstract

SHANKS, Michael  and  MCGUIRE, Randall H.. The Craft of Archaeology. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2016, vol.37, n.148, pp.153-185. ISSN 2448-7554.

The idea of archaeology as craft challenges the separation of reasoning and execution that characterizes the field today. The Arts and Crafts Movement of the late nineteenth century established craftwork as an aesthetic of opposition. We establish craft in a Marxian critique of alienated labor, and we propose a unified practice of hand, heart, and mind for archaeology. The debates engendered by postprocessual archaeology have firmly situated archaeology in the present as a cultural and political practice. Many, however, still do not know how to work with these ideas. We argue that a resolution to this dilemma lies in thinking of archaeology as a craft. This resolultion does not provide a method, or a cookbook, for the practice of archaleology, as indeed the core of our argument is that attempts at such standardization lie at the heart of the alienation of archaeology. Rather, we wish to consider archaeology as a mode of cultural production, a unified method practiced by archaeologist, "client" public, and contemporary society.

Keywords : artisanal archaeology; Arts and Crafts Movement; political practice; alienation.