Anthropology News • December 2009

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I N F O C U S

Indigenous Archaeology Expands the FieldThe Benefits of a New Perspective

Joe Watkins U Oklahoma

Though there have been ency-clopedic explanations of indige-nous archaeology as an anthropo-logical subdiscipline, it is impor-tant to recognize the poten-tial of indigenous archaeology to impact the future of the field on a broader scale. In its very basic sense, indigenous archaeology is applied archaeology. It promotes the inclusion of indigenous ideas and precepts within the practice of archaeology, not only as a means of making archaeology relevant to contemporary indigenous groups, but also to expand the concepts that archaeology uses to explain the past. Indigenous archaeology challenges approaches that are shackled to a linear, chronologi-cally-based Western explanatory model or rely solely on material culture as a means of explicating human cultural expressions.

Indigenous archaeology devel-oped in the 1990s out of a concept of “archaeology done with, for, and by indigenous peoples” (Nicholas and Andrews, At a Crossroads: Archaeologists and First Peoples in Canada, 1997). The book from which this footnote was drawn is one of a spate of volumes aimed at examining the relationships between archaeologists and the people whose material culture is the object of their studies. Some of the volumes offer commentaries on archaeology and its relation-ships with indigenous peoples (see Swidler et al, Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground, 1997), while others provide examples of projects that have included indig-enous groups and archaeologists in partnerships (see Dongoske, Aldenderfer and Doehner, Working Together: Native Americans and Archaeologists, 1999).

Indigenous archaeology is more than just a North American phenomenon. As Smith and Wobst discuss in Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology, it has taken root in all areas of the world. It transcends geographical limitations and, as Nicholas notes in Native Peoples and Archaeology, “is strongly

oriented to identifying and hope-fully addressing the limitations and biases of Western science … through a strongly postcolonial orientation that runs parallel to or intersects with Marxist theory, cultural relativism, feminist theory, and other explicitly indigenous constructs.” As anthropologists continue to develop more applied programs, and knowledge of indig-enous archaeology expands, prac-titioners in the field can help indigenous groups become more actively engaged in world issues that deeply impact them, such as climate change and cultural heri-tage management.

A Collaborative ExampleHirofumi Kato of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, who has been working with Ainu groups in northeastern Japan on the Shiretoko Peninsula, recently delivered a compelling confer-ence presentation examining these issues, titled “Whose World Heritage and Indigenous Peoples? Issues Surrounding World Heritage in Japan.” On June 6, 2008, Japan formally recognized the Ainu as an indigenous group within the island nation. This means the Ainu are a relatively new indigenous group on the world stage, though they have been known and studied for hundreds of years. Since 2008, the Ainu people have become more involved in international attempts at exerting control over their cultural heritage.

Kato’s project, which he calls “Indigenous Archaeology in Shiretoko,” works according to the following precepts: (1) collab-oration with the Ainu in research activities on an island-wide scale; (2) collaboration with all local communities; (3) use of indig-enous ecotourism as cultural resource management. The program is the first attempt to include Ainu people’s voices in developing archaeological research and conservation plans, based on a partnership between Ainu collaborators and non-indige-nous researchers. It also attempts to more extensively articulate perceptions of and relationships with Shiretoko based on its natural

characteristics (as interpreted by the Ainu), rather than solely focusing on the criteria that make it an important World Heritage Site. It hopes to create a means for all local communities—both indigenous and non-indigenous—to exchange their opinions of the project and to develop a conserva-tion model for the Shiretoko area.

Ultimately, the project seeks to fully integrate the Ainu back into the Shiretoko Natural World Heritage Park. In this manner, indigenous archaeology can help reconnect cultural and natural heri-tage issues in northeastern Japan, much as it has in the Northern Territory of Australia, south-

western United States and British Columbia. Further, as indigenous groups use archaeology to gain an understanding of cultural heri-tage management, conservation opportunities, and how govern-ment and other bodies make use of their heritage, they will continue to gather energy and resources that they can use to exert stronger control over the heritage they seek to preserve. The approaches they take can reciprocally inform archaeologists seeking new ways of understanding the past and its role in the present.

Practitioners of indigenous archaeology are as interested in understanding the methods and ways that indigenous groups approach the ordering of the chronological past in relation to the contemporary and fleeting present as they are in understanding the material culture encountered in archaeological sites. In this regard, the practice of archaeology can benefit from the inclusion of non-Western and indigenous voices as a means of both explanation and expansion. Indigenous archaeology today continues to be guided by the concept espoused by Nicholas and Andrews in 1997, as “archae-ology done with, for, and by indig-

enous peoples,” but it also has grown to include more applied foci that can benefit indigenous people and archaeologists alike.

Joe Watkins, director of the Native American Studies program and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, is interested in documenting the ethical practice of anthropology and anthropology’s relationships with descendant communities and aboriginal populations in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

C O M M E N T A R Y

the codes of many archaeological organizations, such as the World Archaeological Congress.

It is not the allegiance to a set of abstract principles that draws me to anthropology or makes me confident that archaeology has a future in which I want to partici-pate. It is the fact that anthropolo-gists use, reject and worry about the concept of culture, and that archaeologists continue to study, employ, abuse and reject ethnog-raphy, the comparative method and the authority of science. When you can’t take a paradigm for granted you have to pay attention. Twenty-

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first century archaeologists have lost authority over the past but have the chance to gain authority in the present. In order to face what Alison Wylie refers to as “the risk that ambiguities of evidence and inter-pretation will systematically favor those reconstructions that reinforce existing social and political inequi-ties,” we need to be anthropologists.

K Anne Pyburn is professor of anthropology at Indiana University, director of the Center for Archaeology in the Public Interest, and coeditor of Archaeologies: The Journal of the World Archaeological Congress. This commentary is based on a paper presented at the 2009 SAA Annual Meeting, developed in conversation with the students of P409, Archaeological Ethics.