Giorgio Buccellati 1998

“Review of: Aviram, J. and Shanks, H. (eds.) [1996], Archaeology’s Publication Problems, Washington D.C., Biblical Archaeology Society”,
Near Eastern Archaeology, 61/2 (June), pp. 118-120.
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In this book review, the author discusses some major topics about archaeology and addresses several questions on how to perceive and define basic problems in this field. Already in the incipit, the author presents a pars construens and a pars destruens on the reviewed publication: “The authors deal with Syro-Palestinian data, but in fact the problem extends to the Near East as a whole, and beyond it, it seems, to all cultural regions of the world. I will, in the first instance, express full agreement with the communis opinion to which the various authors give voice as to the nature and causes of a state of affairs which is universally decried. But I will also express a fundamental disagreement: the nature and causes identified are real, but envisage merely the surface of the issue. Rather, a much more radical problem is at issue, one which affects the very nature of the discipline” (p. 118).

Afterwards, the author presents six major themes emerging from this publication: 1) the excavator perceived as a determined editor; 2) a statute of limitations of the discipline; 3) the high costs of the field work; 4) the nature of the record, asking whom publications are addressed to; 5) the importance of epistemology; 6) the role of statistics in archaeology. The topic then moves on the publication itself, asking what must be published and what can be avoided: usually, it is said that archaeologists have to publish everything (i.e., all data coming from the field); however, this is only the staring point, since a selection of data necessarily implies an inference made by excavators, sometimes “predict[ing] the nature of the evidence” (p. 119). Nevertheless, the author stressed how a correct approach on the archaeological datum must to distinguish between the two basic concepts of emplacement and deposition: “The primary task that an archaeologist performs, as no one else does, is the stratigraphic analysis of cultural remains. But what we identify in the ground is properly only the emplacement: discrete features and items, with specific boundaries and recognizable types of contact. Only such emplacement is demonstrable, not deposition” (p. 119). An outcome of a publication based on inference instead of data is the delay in the publication itself: “The primary reason for the delay in archaeological publications is the fact that excavators strive to publish first and foremost depositional inferences, rather than emplacement data” (p. 119).
     Thus, the author proposes to publish firstly not depositional inferences but emplacement data [see on this topic the approach of the Urkesh Global Record].

The second point discussed in this review deals with the technique and method of the archaeological field (and lab) work, two aspects which are strictly correlated: “There is, in my view, an excessive reliance on technology, as if by itself it could get reports published. But technique, without method, is as useless as it is deceptive” (p. 119). Hence, “techniques should be subordinated to proper methods” (p. 120): the author suggests the application of a interelated network of data, processed in an electronic format and easily accessed and connected through hyperlinks (as it is aimed on Urkesh website).

The last consideration is about the concept of grammar: &#147Electronic data processing should provide a tiered approach, leading through a capillary system from the higher nodes to the most minute detail; this has to be structured according to a rigorous ‘grammatical’ understanding not only of typology (where much has been done), but especially of emplacement and stratigraphy (where hardly anything is available in print). It is indicative that themes proposed at congresses pay little if any attention to stratigraphic issues. The discipline seems quite content in this respect, as if methods were fully articulated and could be taken for granted” (p. 120).

[Map on p. 120 shows the location of Tell Mozan and of other major sites in the Khabur region].