Critique of Archaeological Reason
Introduction to the website
Goals
Giorgio Buccellati - February 2016
A companion to the printed volume
(1) Parallel developments
(2) Integral developments
(3) A demonstration of "digital thought"
(4) An open forum
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A companion to the printed volume
The initial impetus for this website was to provide an enhanced documentary apparatus for the printed volume A Critique of Archaeological Reason (CAR). There were two reasons for establishing such a website. On the one hand, I wanted to retain for the book a discursive style more in keeping with the nature of an essay. On the other, the size of the printed volume being already quite voluminous, the website seemed like the best option to allow for a more complete bibliography and set of notes.
In the process, four other important goals emerged.
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(1) Parallel developments
The website develops important topics that in the printed book are not treated at length. These topics are of two types. The first includes topics that are parallel to the central argument pursued in the book, e. g., areas of research that illustrate given methods in dealing with substantive data. Such is the case, for instance, with the question of identity. The method with which this issue is treated relates to the question of inference (which as such is central to my essay's argument), but does not directly broach such question of inference per se. It is only an illustration of its significance and addresses the question as to how it can operationlly be put in practice – and to this extent it is of interest and finds its proper place in the website.
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(2) Integral developments
The second type of topical expansion differs from the first in that these topics go to the very heart of the argument developed in the essay and are integral to it. However, given its nature as a "critique," the book looks at these topics upstream of their operational dimension. It cannot, in other words, bring out details of how one can address the interpretation of data or the articulation of theory. Thus the brevity of a mention in the text of the essay does not correlate to a limit in direct pertinence. It is brief only because of limits of space. The brief space given in the essay is deemed sufficient to address the relevance of the issue in terms of a "critical" assessment, but the topic as such is by no means merely parallel in an ancillary sense.
For example, I consider the trace analysis of paleolithic tools or the definition of iconology as prime models for the approach I advocate with regard to grammar and to hermeneutics respectively. But it is not in the nature of the essay to discuss either topic in detail. Thus there are extensive bibliographical entries in the notes and the bibliography (Wynn, Panofsky), and even more extensive treatments in the form of excerpts or themes.
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(3) A demonstration of "digital thought"
Both types od developments illustrate well the nature of digital thought, in that they show the close correlation between the narrative dimension of an argument (in the form of the printed essay) and the multi-linear threads that link to specific points of the same argument (in the form of the website).
Digital thought is in fact one of the main topics of the book, particularly as it applied to the archaeological dimension. To this is devoted the website of ancient Urkesh as a whole. In the process, the Critique website emerged more and more as another avenue through which to show the special quality of multi-linearity which the book describes in detail.
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(4) An open forum
Since the website will remain open indefinitely, and will thus be available for updates and refinements, it will continue to serve as a point of reference for the central arguments developed in the book.
In this regard, it will be more and more a collaborative effort, as it has been already, where contributions by colleagues and students will continue to be welcome, following the modality indicated in a separate section.
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