Archaeology and Intentionality: Understanding Ethics and Freedom in Past and Present Societies

210 Pages·2022·29.519 MB·English

by  Artur Ribeiro

Archaeology and Intentionality
Archaeology and Intentionality explores perhaps one of the most overlooked
topics in archaeology, that of intentionality. In archaeology, most explana-
tions of human behaviour rely on intentionality, and this book fills a sur-
prising gap in the literature.
By identifying the historical trajectory of the notion of intentionality,
this book reframes our understanding of what it means to act intention-
ally and how archaeologists provide explanations concerning past (and
present) societies. In general, this book presents a strong framework for
archaeological research, one that fits to current archaeological practices
and research around the world. This framework considers that past actors
were not unconditional free agents, who could act however they wished, nor
were they absolute prisoners of the economic, biological, and environmen-
tal circumstances in which they lived. From the standpoint of intentionality,
it becomes clear that human agency is not about what you can or cannot
do, but about what you should do, that is to say, actions are above all ethical.
In a world where wealth inequality runs rampant, where humans have dam-
aged the environment beyond recognition, and where technology advances
at an alarming rate, it is important that we recognize our intentions and the
ethical responsibility that accompanies those intentions. The book high-
lights how archaeology is the perfect discipline to understand those inten-
tions and why they manifest.
Addressing several problems in archaeological theory and connecting
archaeology, philosophy, and social theory, this book is for students and
researchers interested in archaeological theory and how it informs practice.
Artur Ribeiro is a research fellow at the University of Kiel, Germany. His
work focuses on prehistoric Iberia and the philosophical traditions of Central
Europe.

Archaeology and Intentionality
Understanding Ethics and Freedom
in Past and Present Societies
Artur Ribeiro
First published 2022
by Routledge
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© 2022 Artur Ribeiro
The right of Artur Ribeiro to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ribeiro, Artur Seang Ping, author.
Title: Archaeology and intentionality : understanding ethics and
freedom in past and present societies / Artur Ribeiro.
Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis
Group, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021058866 (print) | LCCN 2021058867 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367726300 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367726331 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003155669 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Archaeology--Philosophy. | Archaeology--Moral and
ethical aspects. | Intentionality (Philosophy)
Classification: LCC CC72 .R53 2022 (print) | LCC CC72 (ebook) |
DDC 930.1--dc23/eng/20220106
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058866
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058867
ISBN: 978-0-367-72630-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-72633-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-15566-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003155669
Typeset in Times
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Contents
List of figures vi
Acknowledgements vii
Preface viii
1 Archaeology and the study of the mind 1
2 Intentionality and the brain 22
3 Past societies and the landscape of action 42
4 The conception of free-will, constraint, and freedom 64
5 Understanding normativism 85
6 Freedom and responsibility 104
7 The tyranny of ontology 122
8 A guide to intentionality for archaeologists 145
Bibliography 157
Index 190
Figures
2.1 The Neanderthal “Kina” on the left, imagined in
today’s modern society 38
3.1 Buried machinery in a barn lot in Dallas, South Dakota,
United States, during the Dust Bowl, an agricultural, ecological,
and economic disaster in the Great Plains region of
North America in 1936 56
3.2 Sum calibration of 1895 14C dates (from 302 settlement sites)
of the Iberian Peninsula 60
4.1 Reconstruction of the population dynamics in
Southern Scandinavia, broken down into three regions:
The Danish Isles, Northern Jutland, and Skåne 79
5.1 The front-facing section of the curse tablet of Alcaçer do Sal 100
6.1 The showing of masks at Kwakwaka’wakw potlatch 119
7.1 Harvey Weinstein is charged and goes under trial for
sexual assault and rape 142
8.1 An updated wheel of theorization in archaeology 154
Acknowledgements
The world produces more research today than ever before yet writing mon-
ographs has become more difficult in our busy day and age, especially when
the standard measure of research quality is the high-impact factor peer-
review article. Given this context, I cannot but express gratitude towards
Johannes Müller, Mara Weinelt, and Konrad Ott for letting me write this
book while I should have been busy with other tasks. Their patience towards
my eccentric research tastes and peculiar approaches to archaeology and
philosophy is greatly appreciated. While many of the ideas contained in
this book were conceived during my PhD writing phase, it was only when
I was employed in the CRC 1266: “Scales of Transformation – Human-
Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies” project at
the University of Kiel that I could actually write it.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to John Barrett, Gustav Wollentz, Robert
Staniuk, and Alexandra Ion for reading and commenting on earlier drafts
of this book. Despite their brilliant suggestions, there was only so much
I could realistically accommodate. Nevertheless, their help has made this
book considerably better than it ever could be. The responsibility for the con-
tents of this book remains nevertheless mine. I also have to thank Gianpiero
di Maida for helping me find and obtain the rights for an image, and I must
thank Martin Hinz for letting me use images from his work. I must also
mention the help my family has granted me throughout the years – without
their support, I would have probably given up on a research career many
years ago. Finally, I must thank Matthew Gibbons, Roy Manas and Alanna
Donaldson at Routledge for transforming the manuscript I wrote into the
book you have in your hands.
Preface
One of the first papers I wrote was a critique of the attitude in archae-
ology of always trying to find “the next best thing” (Ribeiro 2016a). In
that paper, I argued that most archaeology is good, and it is theorists who
always find ways of denigrating the status quo in order to push new fads.
Bear in mind that this was a critique of some ideas I was contemplating at
the time, as well as other ideas developing within archaeology. One of the
big reasons why I published this paper is because many of the methods and
practices in archaeology, from its very beginnings, seem to work just fine,
and changing things for the sake of novelty seemed an unsustainable path
for archaeology. This act of changing things for the sake of change reflects
the fast pace the world is now undergoing. The trend of “fast science” has
found its way into archaeology, and in addition to the practice of fast sci-
ence (Cunningham & MacEachern 2016), we have very fast theory. Today,
it seems impossible to hold on to anything concrete; even the most basic
established facts about the archaeological past can be challenged. Late
capitalist logic dictates that everything has to change, and in archaeology
this means that everything solid has to melt into thin air (Berman 2010
[1982]; Marx & Engels 2008 [1848], 38).
The shelf life of a theory in archaeology seems to be somewhere between
15 and 30 years. Systems theory, hermeneutics, agency theory, practice the-
ory, seem to have lost the spotlight in archaeology after sticking around
for about 20 years. This is not to say that there are no bulwarks that have
held steadfastly throughout the maelstrom of late capitalist logic, or that
certain theories have not survived the test of time, such as Marxist theory,
but the picture of archaeological theory today seems to be one of constant
replacement. This accelerated attitude of replacement can be deleterious to
archaeological theory; many of the ideas on which most of archaeological
theory is based took entire lifetimes, in fact, sometimes multiple lifetimes
to develop, which begs the question, who are we to discard them before
they have even been fully matured? As I write, many people around the
world have come to realize that history is advancing faster than they are,
but this has to stop eventually. It is only a matter of time when this will
happen; at some stage, the world population will stop growing, technology
Preface ix
will not become more advanced, and archaeologists will find what works
and stick with it.
As an unfashionable concept nowadays, I do not expect many people
to agree with how intentionality is discussed in this book. I realize I am
30 years too late and archaeological theory is now preoccupied with other
matters. With that being said, as archaeologists, should we not be “digging
up” the old? I am of the personal belief that archaeology should re-evaluate
old ideas and see what works. This does not mean uncritically resurrecting
ideas for nostalgia’s sake, but look back and recognize what methodolo-
gies, theories, and practices performed well and what did not. I have always
thought of the archaeological theorist not so much as a car or phone sales-
man, trying to convince you to buy the latest sports car or updated phone,
but rather as a mechanic, as someone who looks at what is already available
and see how things can be fixed or improved. It is time we retire “planned
obsolescence” and fight for “right-to-repair” in archaeological theory.
The ideas on intentionality in this book were briefly touched upon in
archaeology during the 1980s and 1990s, during the rise of postprocessual
archaeology, a period when I had no clue I was to become an archaeolo-
gist. By the 2000s, when I went to college, intentionality had already been
(largely) discarded and little to no research has been put into it since. While
I am certain that intentionality has been discussed competently by archae-
ologists around the world, the language I became most comfortable with
was English, and in the anglophone world of archaeology, intentionality
had become rather muted. That is why this book focuses on intentionality as
it is discussed in the anglophone world. Intentionality is not something
I have been thinking about for many years; it was only much later in my
career that I finally stumbled upon it. Additionally, it was not in archaeol-
ogy where I found it, but through studies in philosophy.
When I first started reading archaeological theory, I could not but help
thinking that many of the topics had already been addressed authoritatively
by philosophers. I quickly realized that to make sense of the many theoret-
ical topics in archaeology would require delving into the deep end of the
pool of philosophy; that frolicking in shallow theory would simply not cut
it. Archaeological theory should not simply be an impoverished and less
intellectually demanding version of philosophy – for it to be truly substan-
tial, archaeological theory must engage philosophy at the same level. With
regards to intentionality, there is really no way of sidestepping philosophy.
That is why this book engages with the studies of philosophers such as
Friedrich Hegel, Immanuel Kant, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, to name only a
few. While demanding at first, when we start understanding what these phil-
osophical studies were trying to convey, our thought and our understanding
of the archaeological past becomes clearer.
Central to these studies, and one of the main arguments of this book,
is that intentionality is irreducible to causal mechanisms (see Descombes
2001). Additionally, intentionality is “everywhere”, in the sense that, no