Entering the Age of Devastation : Archaeology in the Time of the Anthropocene

“Archaeology”, wrote David Clarke in the very first lines of Analytical Archaeology, “is an undisciplined empirical discipline (which is) lacking a scheme of systematic and ordered study based upon declared and clearly defined models and rules of procedures”.  

Fifty-five years later, we must admit that the situation of the archaeological discipline hasn’t really evolved, since the object of archaeology is still quite undefined. Is it really the past and the elucidation of past collective behaviours? Or is it rather the memory of the past, as it is materially preserved within the present – meaning that the past cannot be reached in itself, but only through its “post-history”, as some ever moving reinterpretation? In other words, is the Present the peculiar field of archaeology, as the only place where the Past is laying?

The time of archaeology, that of the material memory of the present, is by no means the time of History. This diachronic time, fundamentally cumulative, is now unfolding under the effect of the Great Acceleration of the Anthropocene, which crushes both past and future into a dead-end present. In these new conditions, archaeology, which restores the memory of people and places, becomes a tool of resistance against the erasure of this memory; it is the weak force opposing the age of devastation introduced by the advent of the Anthropocene, which is destroying humanly habitable landscapes

About the Speaker

Laurent Olivier is Historian and general heritage curator in charge of the Celtic and Gallic archaeology collections at the National Archaeology Museum (Saint-Germain-en-Laye). His research interests include history and theory of the archaeological discipline, as well as the archaeology of the contemporary Past.

The online talk is free and open to all. To register please use the link above.

The Archaeology-Heritage-Art Research Network examines the varied ways in which archaeology, heritage and art converge across a broad range of concepts and practices, from artistic interventions in the museum space to archaeological interpretations which deploy and take inspiration from contemporary art.

Image: Archaeology in the Anthropocene (Laurent Olivier)

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