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ABSTRACT
This article intends to explore the theoretical dimensions of backdirt in archaeology. Often ignored and viewed as mere refuse material of archaeological practices, these by-products of excavation lie in the shadow of literature and reports, always present and yet invisible. The goal of the following text is to establish a distinct perspective on backdirt, on its relation with data, and on its capacity to offer renewability of interpretations in epistemic terms. By exploring its theoretical implications and situating it as a historically everchanging concept, backdirt can both shed light on how the materialities of the past have been intervened in before archaeology as well as to become the driving force for a meta-critique in archaeology, a way for archaeologists to study themselves.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the reviewers for their insights, Allison Mickel and Christina Luke for the opportunity to work on a theory for backdirt, Frederico Agosto for reviewing and commenting on the manuscript, and Mariana Diniz for guiding me through the process.
Disclosure Statement
The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Daniel Carvalho
Daniel Carvalho (MA 2019, University of Lisbon) is a PhD student and a researcher at UNIARQ (Center of Archaeology of the University of Lisbon) and LAQU (Quantitative Archaeology Lab of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona). His research interests are artificial intelligence and robotics applied to archaeology, archaeological theory, and contemporary archaeology. ORCID: 0000-0003-3908-5198.