Continuing the legacy of humanistic archaeological practice

I remember very clearly the first lecture in archaeology that I attended at The University of Queensland well over a decade ago (thank you Andy Fairbairn and Pat Faulkner for your insight and humour in those early days). My expectation of what archaeology was, compared to my knowledge today of what it actually is, are worlds apart. Nevertheless, the simplistic definition of archaeology remains unchanged both in my mind and to the discipline more widely; it is the study of the lifeways of past people. In Australia we are seeking to understand the lifeways of past Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and those who have arrived on these shores since. To understand past people, we must also interact actively with their descendants.

While the definition of archaeology can be simplified, the avenues through which we delve into past lifeways are vast and constantly evolving. This evolution is experienced locally and internationally, and methods of information diffusion are often rapid. Technology has the ability to take us along many avenues (or down numerous rabbit holes). Few would dispute the exciting nature of the ever-advancing technology around us and the rich information it feeds into our discipline and other related fields. Opportunities abound. But with opportunities come risks, and the main risk I see with advancing technology is the potential dehumanisation of archaeology and cultural heritage management in the future.

Archaeology has not always included (or welcomed) the input of the very people it has sought to study and understand. But thanks to the tireless work of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members (and other Indigenous people from around the world), archaeologists and cultural heritage practitioners alike, Indigenous Archaeologies has developed as a recognised practice (e.g. Atalay 2006; Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. 2010; McNiven 2016). This inclusive methodology acknowledges the importance and positive impact of Indigenous Knowledge, or Traditional Knowledge, and associated techniques in a standalone position. Traditional Knowledge does not (necessarily) work as a confirmation of Western Knowledge; it is a recognised approach in and of itself.

As well as acknowledging the value of Traditional Knowledge, the Indigenous Archaeologies approach also advocates for Indigenous people to control the research. There are numerous benefits in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people defining and leading the course of research into their ancestors and ancestral communities and I won’t seek to touch on them all. But, on a broad scale, it forms part of a wider decolonising process (Nicholas 2010) whereby identity and heritage are linked and independence over understanding and narrating the past acts as an important method of self-determination for Indigenous people. Moreover, when communities lead the process, they can ensure damaging archaeology and cultural heritage research is avoided (a commonly referenced example is the misused Havasupai DNA samples; see Reardon and Tallbear 2012), instead focussing on research that will benefit the community being researched. A key feature of the Indigenous Archaeologies approach is the inclusion of Indigenous ways of knowing, including oral tradition and spiritual knowledge, into both research design and published outputs.

Recently, in my PhD research (Weisse 2021), I explored the approaches available to determine the provenance of poorly provenanced or unprovenanced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestral remains held in collecting institutions such as museums. The ancestral remains are of varying anatomical makeup; some are full skeletons, others perhaps just a cranium, others still may be bone fragments or strands of hair. For these poorly provenanced and unprovenanced individuals, the descendant community remains unknown, despite thorough archival research and physical osteological analysis. Destructive Western scientific techniques, like DNA or isotope analysis, cannot be performed on the ancestral remains because community consent can be neither sought nor obtained. Indeed, some communities would not consent to the destruction of ancestral remains regardless of the likelihood of successful provenance.

Traditional Knowledge—for example oral traditions, spiritual connections and details of burial style—is an approach that should be considered for these ancestral remains. Provenancing and repatriation, when performed ethically, can reaffirm Indigenous cultural and spiritual knowledge systems, shifting power away from Western science, and allowing self-determination for Indigenous people. The importance of accepting Traditional Knowledge more broadly in the provenancing of ancestral remains is challenging for those with a Western scientific worldview (e.g. McGhee 2008). Nevertheless, I would argue that Traditional Knowledge methods and techniques should be considered for all ancestral remains before any destructive forms of analysis are employed, rather than as an alternative. Traditional Knowledge and spiritual knowledge very much humanise the provenancing process and allow Indigenous voice and leadership in what is a highly sensitive area. As such, I would promote Traditional ways of identification of the provenance of ancestral remains above all other techniques, with Western technology (DNA and suchlike) as a last resort.

It is through consultation, engagement and meaningful collaboration with communities that robust, holistic, humanistic understandings of the past have the capacity to evolve; this is why engagement is essential in archaeology and cultural heritage management. Indigenous and Western ways of knowing are at times contrasting; at other times they form complimentary knowledge. Nevertheless, whether the knowledge systems are aligned or misaligned, a Western knowledge system should not be privileged over Traditional Knowledge systems. Yet, with advancing technology we risk prioritising Western knowledge to the exclusion of Traditional Knowledge.

In consulting archaeology, for instance, there is an ever-increasing volume of information available through desktop assessment. Everything from environmental information, historical data, forms of past and present imagery, and even site predictability can be accessed or generated digitally. Of course, this information is important and feeds into understandings of landscapes and past peoples. But increasingly it becomes the information about past peoples and landscapes. The more reliance there is on technology, the less engagement there needs to be with the community.

As an example, site predictability programs are being developed and progressively added to the collection of the tools available for desktop assessments (e.g. Kennedy 2022). Site predictability itself isn’t a new concept—archaeologists have been using the appropriate data on hand to predict where sites are likely to be found in the landscape from the commencement of the discipline. Today, technology has been developed that allows much more sophisticated and accurate predictions to be made. Practitioners can pinpoint site locations based on numerous measured criteria, mostly in the form of topography/landform data. With the advancement of this technology comes a strong reliance on these data, and increasingly such modelling has become the main source of information about site location.

Yet can predictability programmed in this way really account for the unpredictability of human behaviour? What level of detail, story or intricacy of past life may be overlooked by the focus on environmental determinism that underpins so many site predictive models? Humans, for numerous reasons, are highly unpredictable; a nuance that cannot necessarily be accounted for in predictive modelling. Most certainly there are key features of a landscape that are requirements for human occupancy. However, if we narrow our definitions of sites to these places alone, we run the risk of overlooking sites that fall outside the models. We run the risk of missing the very richness and subtle variability that gives meaning, and provides exciting new knowledge, to our discipline and more importantly to communities. So, while technology like predictability modelling is a highly useful tool, I contend it must be used sparingly. As practitioners we must ensure Western forms of technology do not take over consultation and engagement with communities. The recognition of systems of Traditional Knowledge must be given priority, even when those Indigenous axiologies challenge our own paradigms.

In a contemporary archaeological setting, the thought of representing people without any meaningful input from them, or their descendants, is difficult to comprehend. This is because we have methodologies like Indigenous Archaeologies that advocate for humanistic practice involving the leadership, immersion and inclusion of the communities in which and with which we work. These communities have the right to lead research about themselves and their ancestors. With advancing technology, we have the opportunity to add meaningful information to many different avenues of enquiry, but we must continue to allow communities themselves to control their narrative(s). This means Western forms of knowledge are aids to the creation of the story, where it is invited, but that the breadth and depth of the interpretation of the past must be controlled by the living descendants of those who created the data. Human nature embraces inquisitive minds and knowledge. We must ensure we continue to use our knowledge to engage as ethical archaeologists and cultural heritage managers into the future.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).