The excavator: creator or destroyer?

The excavator: creator or destroyer? Our special section on heritage in the June issue took theconventional current view that excavation is destruction. A morecreative vision is offered. A generation ago Mortimer Wheeler Brigadier Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH, CIE, MC, FBA, FSA (September 10, 1890 Glasgow – July 22, 1976 London), was one of the best-known British archaeologists of the twentieth century. articulated the basic principle that 'all excavation isdestruction'. This has come to be accepted as a fundamental articleof faith, and underpins the conservation philosophy expounded in thespecial section on Heritage in the June 1993 issue of ANTIQUITY (67(1993): 400-445), which may be summarized in a syllogism syllogism,a mode of argument that forms the core of the body of Western logical thought. Aristotle defined syllogistic logic, and his formulations were thought to be the final word in logic; they underwent only minor revisions in the subsequent 2,200 years. : all excavationis destruction; destruction is wrong; therefore all excavation is wrong.I would like to respond with a contrary view that excavators do notdestroy archaeological sites; they create them.Although the impact of archaeologists is minimal when set against themultitude of direct or indirect impacts of modern society, the simpleacceptance of the concept of destructive excavation can be seen in theprejudice against excavations held by many cultural heritage managers.In Australia, for example, the size of most excavations has rapidlyshrunk shrunk?v.A past tense and a past participle of shrink.shrunkVerba past tense and past participle of shrinkshrunk, shrunken shrink from half the site, to 10%, to very small (50 cm x 50 cm) holes-- if excavation is allowed at all. There is little consideration givento different scales of excavation required by different research aims.Excavation is seen as exceptional, with an associated feeling that it isimportant to leave parts of sites untouched for future excavation, whichcan then 'test' the work of current researchers. While thereis certainly some value in the ability to re-excavate sites, there areseveral problems with this argument. A policy of sampling small portionsof sites rather than excavating on a larger scale has an implicitassumption of site homogeneity HomogeneityThe degree to which items are similar. or uniformity; that one small part willbe representative of the whole. While this may be true for the coarserscales of analysis common in much Australian hunter--gathererarchaeology, it involves a model of site formation and function whichneeds to be demonstrated rather than assumed. A belief in uniformity andhomogeneity is also essential to the idea that future excavations can'test' previous work by using the material from one part of asite to demonstrate that the collection of material from another partwas 'wrong'. If our successors are able to excavate so muchbetter than we can, they may never be able to relate the finer scale oftheir excavations to the coarser scale of ours. They will have blackholes of uncertainty in the centre of their site-plans, and will curseus as much for digging small portions of sites and destroying spatialpatterns as for digging the whole.This discussion so far has presupposed that sites are identifiableand bounded entities. But, while individual as a place, a site is onlyone representative of a class. While some are so unusual that they mustbe treated as special cases, many sites conform to Verb 1. conform to - satisfy a condition or restriction; "Does this paper meet the requirements for the degree?"fit, meetcoordinate - be co-ordinated; "These activities coordinate well" general patterns.There are many examples in Australia of absurd limitations where onlypartial excavation of one of many equivalent neighbouring sites ispermitted, with the result that we have inadequate information on onesite, with no data on its internal patterning of discard, and nopossibility of deriving this information without digging another. It issurely better to treat the whole set of features as the samplinguniverse, and to dig at least one completely, or on a scale commensuratewith the extent of the site.Preserving sites for future study presumes that archaeological skillin the future will be better than the present (or how could future worktest that of today?). Skills and techniques of field archaeology canonly be improved by training, practice and experience; we need toexcavate continually in order to assess critically the earlier fieldresearch. Knowing our skills to be limited, we must practise prac��tise?v. & n. Chiefly BritishVariant of practice.practis��er n. them inorder to improve: even if this is at the expense of some of our sites.That is not the only paradox. Much heritage and conservationphilosophy is predicated on this responsibility of the Present to theFuture. If we interpret this to mean we should not excavate sitesbecause they must be preserved for future archaeologists to work on, andif our equally patient successors hold the same attitude, they willleave all sites for the more distant future, and so on ad infinitum ad in��fi��ni��tum?adv. & adj.To infinity; having no end.[Latin ad, to + .One can, however, argue that the Present is as important as theFuture: we owe it to people of today to obtain as good an understandingof past events and processes as possible. We have not only aresponsibility to allow future people opportunities for primaryresearch, but also one to supply them with a well-founded and clearbasis for their programmes of study. Sites are not stable. They will notremain unaltered, even if we refrain from investigating them. Apart fromimmediate and direct human threats, there are less easily controlledforces at work -- water, wind, rabbits and other agents of destruction.Perhaps we have an obligation to excavate.The arguments against excavation might be acceptable, if the heritagevalue of unexcavated deposits, of unknown age and composition -- orindeed presence -- could be assessed by any other means. Theseconsiderations, including the conflicting agendas of indigenous peoples,are beyond the scope of this discussion, but we should not forget thateven the concept of a past, a long and complex past, has only come aboutthrough excavation.Which brings me to a broader issue. The past as we perceive it isculturally determined. Our view of it, knowledge of it, or understandingof it is structured by the social and historical context we live in andthe data available to us. The majority of people in Australia todayaccept the structures of the human past provided by archaeologists: thearchaeologists' past(s) is founded on their constructs of excavateddata. While material is buried in a soil matrix, invisible and unknown,it only has an untapped potential for providing information about thepast. The extraction or mining of these sites releases different partsof this potential. Sites excavated by a small, deep test-pit will supplydata for a basic chronology chronology,n the arrangement of events in a time sequence, usually from the beginning to the end of an event. , while those excavated over a wider areawill also provide data for synchronous behavioural explanations.Clearly, the style and nature of the excavation not only locatesartefacts and ecofacts, but provides them with a defined context: not anabsolute but a artificial one. The skill of an excavator ex��ca��va��torn.An instrument, such as a sharp spoon or curette, used in scraping out pathological tissue.excavator (eks´k is seen in anability to identify original contexts and give them definition, orotherwise to create a viable, useful and coherent set of relationshipsfor found objects. The nature of these constructs allows, limits ordetermines the possible interpretations placed upon them.In short, archaeologists create archaeological data out of sites. Theprevious (unknown) physical structure of a site is changed --irrevocably ir��rev��o��ca��ble?adj.Impossible to retract or revoke: an irrevocable decision.ir��rev changed (or destroyed) -- and a new (formally defined)abstract structure is given to them. Some potential information will belost in the process, but other data are extracted and given meaning andsignificance. The analogy is perhaps to the sculptor, who destroys ablock of stone to find a statue within, who discards or loses some ofthe material to isolate and define one previously hidden model. So weshould see the excavator extracting one of many possible structures ofmaterial, with coherence, with meaning and with value, from an otherwiserelatively meaningless block of deposit.In terms of the processes that make and change sites and knowledge,the excavator should be seen not simply as a destroyer destroyer,class of warship very fast relative to its length, generally equipped with torpedos, antisubmarine equipment, and medium-caliber and antiaircraft guns. The newest destroyers are equipped with guided missiles as their chief offensive weapon. , but as aparticular agent of transformation, which creates our structuredarchaeological record The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. .