Good afternoon and welcome
to the Joukowsky Institute
for archaeology and
the Ancient World
and the archaeology and
Futurity conference.
My name is Matt Riley,
I'm a post-doc here
at the Joukowsky Institute.
As the organizer of this event,
it's my distinct pleasure
to welcome visitors and members
of the Joukowsky Institute
community to what promises
to be an exciting two
days of presentations
and discussion.
This afternoon we will hear
from our distinguished keynote
speaker, Doctor
Laurent Olivier, who
will be introduced momentarily.
I'll postpone my thank you's
and introduction until tomorrow
morning, but I'd be remiss
if I didn't, from the outset,
thank the Joukowsky Institute
for their extremely generous
support in hosting this event
and acknowledging the efforts
of Sarah Sharp and Jess Porter.
So thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
At this point, I'd
like to let everyone
know that there are
restrooms located
in the basement
of this building.
And for those of you who will
be joining us tomorrow morning,
there will be a
breakfast reception right
outside this room at 8:30.
And our first session will
begin promptly at 9 o'clock.
Also, for those of you who
are active on social media,
we will have two hashtags
used throughout this event.
The first is #jiaaw for
the Joukowsky Institute,
and the second, #futurity,
will be used specifically
for this conference.
I had to ask how to set
that up and how it works,
I do not use Twitter.
Finally, following
our keynote address,
I'd like to invite everyone
to join us for a reception
here at Rhode Island Hall.
I should also mention, however,
that the Haffenreffer Museum
is hosting a special event at
5:30 this evening in Solomon
Hall, directly across the green.
Doctor Anna Sofaer, director of
the Solstice Project at Chaco
Canyon is here, and I'll be
showing a special screening
of her new documentary, entitled
The Mystery of Chaco Canyon.
As you can tell, it's a very
active archaeology community
here at Brown, so if
you're interested,
I encourage you to make the
trip across the green following
this event.
At this time, however, I'd
like to turn things over
to the director of
the Joukow-- excuse
me-- Joukowsky Institute,
Doctor Peter van Dommelen.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you very much.
As Matt just introduced me,
my name is Peter van Dommelen
and I'm the director of
the Joukowsky Institute
as of this year, and then
of course several years
as one of the Joukowsky
family of professors.
At the institute,
we're an institute
of Mediterranean
archaeology, archaeology
and the ancient world, in
the sort of broader sense.
And one of the-- as
Matthew is already
indicating-- we run a very
active program of all sorts
of activities here.
And we are including--
it's not us, the faculty,
running all these
programs, but it is indeed
a very active group of
postdoctoral scholars who
take a leading role in that.
And this conference, therefore,
is one of those outcomes.
We're really pleased that Matt
has pulled this conference
together, on what is an
exciting team, as we can tell.
It's Friday afternoon,
so many people.
In fact, it's one of
the very first days
with nice bright sunshine,
so many people turning up
in this room here.
And it's a really
interesting selection
of speakers that have been
brought together here,
who are lined up tomorrow
and whom Matt will introduce
in more detail tomorrow.
My task for now, which
is a very pleasant one,
is to introduce our
Keynote speaker for today,
who is Professor
Laurent Olivier,
who has traveled to us, to
Rhode Island here, from Paris,
where he is The curator in Chief
of the French National Museum
of archaeology in
Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Professor Olivier
completed his PhD
at the University of
Cambridge in 1985.
And that's not just some
biographical detail,
that is actually very
relevant for a point I'll
come to in a minute.
What I first would
want to say, something
in basic archaeological
terms-- if you're
an archaeologist, when
we try to define people,
it usually goes in terms of
region, period, and so on.
In those basic terms, we could
introduce Professor Olivier
as an Iron Age
archaeologist, a specialist
in funerary archaeology of the
European continent, especially
Celtic archaeology.
And he's also a long-working
commercial archaeology.
That is, in close
conjunction with the wider
public and "the state,"
to put it in bold terms.
These three elements are
significant because they
turn up in different
ways and they underline
his work, that he's perhaps
better known for abroad,
I must say.
In France, people might
perhaps look at it differently.
His reason for being here,
for giving the keynote speech,
is his recent book on
what archaeology is about,
The Abyss of Time, as Matt
describes in the introduction
to the conference.
And this book sort
of is articulated
along two major strands
that are, however,
interwoven in various ways.
So strands of time and politics.
And that interest
in time is something
that's not recent, but
actually was already
in his doctoral thesis
at Cambridge, which
was called The shapes
of time, an archaeology
of funerary assemblages in
the Western Hallsatt Province.
And you can see
how that resonates
with his recent
book, which came out
in 2008 in French, Le
sombre abime du temps, which
was translated in 2011.
But there's also a series of
articles that several of you
might know from him.
His 1999 article in Tim
Murray's Time and Archaeology
book about Hochdorf
princely graves
and funerary assemblages,
"The Past of the Present,"
an article in
Archaeological Dialogues.
And also, more recently,
his contribution
to Alfredo Gonzalez'
book on reclaiming
archaeology, "The business of
archaeology is the present."
And that is actually a
title that very much defines
his thinking, as we had
the pleasure of talking
about the other day
in our seminar here.
And that also sort
of sets the tone,
and that's precisely what
this keynote speech is about.
The final point I'd like to
make is this other strand,
this interest in history,
politics of archaeology.
That's mostly evident
in another recent book,
Nos ancetres les Germains,
"Our forefathers the Germans."
And that's something, you
should take into account,
written by the French.
[LAUGHTER]
I think that's an
important point.
Came out in 2012.
And that is not just any other
archaeological historiography,
but it is a book that
sort of took it's place
right into the middle of
a French political debate
about school books
and [INAUDIBLE].
If you just Google the
French title of it,
you will find a whole
series of discussions
about those things
in the French press.
I won't continue much longer
trying to second guess what
this keynote lecture is about.
I think it's much
better that we hear it
directly from Laurent Olivier.
And therefore, I invite
him to take the stand here.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you very much.
First of all, I would like to
thank the Joukowsky Institute
and its Director, Peter
van Dommelen for their very
kind invitation, as well as
Matthew Riley and Jessica
Porter, who took care of
having me coming here.
So what I'm going to say
may look a bit disturbing
and sometimes irritating.
I'm not coming here telling
you this is the truth,
this is what you have to
believe in, or this is right
and the other way of looking
at things are different.
Just take it as it is.
It's just a weird idea from
the other side of the ocean,
from the real strange country
where people are drinking wine.
So what I would like to
develop it's just other ideas.
Ideas about archaeology
from a different angle,
which are based on something
very, very basic, which
is the relationship that
archaeology enjoys with-- I
don't know how to cut it--
with things, with materially
in some way. archaeology,
as a discipline
of things and places.
So what is archaeology about?
archaeology is the study of the
past from the material remains.
So this is not really the
study of the past itself.
This is the study of what
remains from the past
and what remains
from the past are
remains which are present in to
the present, into our present.
When we are looking
at the Roman period,
we are looking at the Roman
period today, as it is today.
And this is the reason why
it's possible to dig a whole
and to find stuff in the ground.
Since it's here, it's with us.
When you look at
materiality of past,
here you have a
picture which has
been shot at a certain
hour in the day,
at a certain moment in time.
It was an instant.
At that time it took several
minutes to take a picture,
but it was an instant.
And for us, it's
floating in time.
We see it's an old picture.
We don't know exactly
where it has been
shot-- it's in Paris, in fact.
It's along the Seine River.
We see it's old, we
recognize the strange hats,
the strange clothes
of the people.
But we are absolutely
unable to date it.
Time is floating, time is
becoming probabilistic,
from an archaeological
perspective.
So time, in history, is a
point in time, it's an event.
And time in archaeology is
rather a probability of dating,
as you well know.
We can date this picture
since we can estimate
what is before, what is after.
It's relative time
of archaeology.
It's a first thing.
And the second thing
is that what remains,
presently of that, are
just accidental remains.
You know?
The people have long
disappeared, of course,
their clothes as well.
The building as well.
Everything has disappeared.
What's remains is
just debris, in fact.
It's junk.
It's accidental.
So again, we're working with
the materiality of the past,
but it's not really the
materiality of the past.
It's what is decaying
from the past.
And so this is also
another distance
that we are enjoying
with the past itself.
So in fact, as I said, past
things were made in the past,
but they are found
in the present.
This is why, in fact, when
we are gathering things,
we are putting together
things which were belonging,
originally, to different past.
And this is the reality,
the reality of the present.
So it means that keeping
and preserving remains
from the past is nothing
else but bringing together
pieces which were originally
made it the indifferent past.
In other words, the
present-- and it's something
what I'm going to develop
later on-- the present,
archaeological I mean,
relatively to the question
of materiality.
So present is not
what is happening now.
Now, archaeologically
here, it is
happening absolutely nothing.
We are just here together, but
we are not digging any hole,
we are not painting any wall.
And when this
meeting will be over,
nothing will remain from that.
So it exists
historically, but it
doesn't exist archaeologically.
What exists archaeologically
are all the remains
from all the past, which are
all together in this moment.
So this is why, in fact,
the past is not in the past.
This is a dream,
this is an illusion.
The past is entirely and
exclusively in to the present,
within the present as
an archaeological thing.
So the past, in fact,
is not the past.
And the past, when
it was the past,
it was not the past either.
Not at all.
When the past was
a material entity,
it was nothing else as
the present as it is now.
It was in a different
time, but it
was, as well, the collection,
the assemblage of all the
remains from all the
different past, which
were [INAUDIBLE] altogether.
So in fact, it's an illusion.
And to say that, for
instance, in the Roman period,
it was the Roman time.
It's maybe true in
[INAUDIBLE] term.
It was under the
reign of such emperor,
or it was after this revolt,
or after this conquest.
But archaeologically,
during the Roman period,
it was not especially
Roman, it was also
a different assemblage
of all the past duration
which were there.
From the paleolithic
time, to the neolithic,
to all the periods
which were together.
And so it's another reason
why, in fact, the present
is something which is rather
multitemporal, since when you
look at things, things--
in order to exist--
have to be maintained.
It's like this building.
As you have seen, maybe
in visiting the building,
it's an ancient construction
from the 19th century.
So the walls are 19th century.
But in order to exist now, it
has to be kept and maintained.
Displays have to be
refurbished, and in 20 years,
if we want to maintain it
as a place for teaching
and listening, we would have to
change the walls, the ceilings,
the floor.
And so on.
So in order to be kept alive--
and it's also something
difficult to think-- in
order to be kept alive,
archaeologically things
have to be transformed,
they have to be changed.
It's like in my house.
I'm living in an
18th century house.
But if I want to
keep it as a house,
if I want to keep the kitchen
as a kitchen, it was too bad,
but I had to change everything.
In order to keep my kitchen as
a kitchen, I had to change it,
I had to transform.
If I would have kept the
kitchen into the state
of the 19th century, I would
have created a museum, but not
a kitchen anymore.
So in fact, it's a thing
which is difficult to think.
But in archaeological
term, things
in order to be maintained,
in order to be kept alive
have to be replaced, have to
be reproduced all the time.
And this is the
reason why, when you
look at archaeological
feature, here down you
have an aerial picture of a
Celtic farm in Northern France.
As you see, it's a
superimposition of structure.
They have been created in order
to maintain the farm as a farm,
in the Gaelic period.
This is why, in fact,
the present doesn't
exist in archaeological term.
In archaeological
terms, the present
as an archaeological
event, is a reproduction,
is a reiteration of things.
And if you don't do
so, in fact, nothing
happened archaeologically.
And this is what happened
most of the time.
Most of the time
nothing happened,
in archeological terms.
Just try to remember,
as people, when
is the last time that you have
created an archaeological event
when you weren't excavating?
Probably a long time ago.
It's a long time ago that
you have repainted a wall,
that you have dug a whole
in order to plant a tree.
These are archaeological events.
The rest are
historical events, they
are not archeological in fact.
So the present is made,
again, is multitemporal.
On the left corner, you have
a picture of a pavement.
It's a picture I shot
in Cambridge, in the UK,
but I've seen in
the street you have
perfectly comparable pictures.
This is the skin of the
present, and if you look at it,
it's made of a lot of pages,
at lot of tiny fragments.
It has been repaired,
it has been fixed.
So the present, as a
surface, as an event,
is made of all the
past events which
are still remaining
today, which are still
with us at the moment.
So, in fact, the present is
not only what is happening,
but more secretly,
I would say it
is made also of all
the past things which
are still active today.
And again, from an
historical perspective,
it's something
which has no sense.
But it has, in
archaeological terms.
The picture that you
see in the left corner
is called the Camino
del Ray in Spanish.
It's in New Mexico.
And in fact, today,
it was the old trade
that the Spaniards--
you know, they
built at the end of
the 16th century,
when they were looking
for the city of gold
that they never
found, of course,
they found the Pueblos-- but
this road was created by them.
It's a royal road, the
royal Spanish road.
And to date, it is still
active, it is still active.
But as you can see it, it's
impossible to recognize.
it's just a track in a
field, a tractor track.
This is its way to be kept
alive, to be maintained.
So this is a thing that
we see very prominently
in archaeology, is that
an ancient features are
still active in the present,
but in a very hidden way.
This is not to the
royal wall anymore.
It's still active under
another appearance.
It's still disguised
in some way.
So in fact, what is happening
is that past things, [INAUDIBLE]
are terminated, [INAUDIBLE]
from the past is over, forever.
Past things are still
working in the present,
they are still active.
And it's difficult to
describe this process.
What is it?
I would describe it as some
sort of material memory.
It's something which is
difficult to understand,
since memory is supposed to be
something only shared by human.
But obviously, when
you look at things,
you see-- I don't mean
that things have a soul,
or memory, or
anything like that--
but anyway, we
have to acknowledge
that something is
maintained over time,
something is reproduced.
Constraints, such false
linear constraints,
are still active today.
And this kind of thing is not
something purely inactive.
The past is still
working, in some way,
into those the present.
So in other words--
and again, it's
something which goes against
our conventional understanding
of history-- the present is
not really a of all time.
The present is also more than
the continuation of the past.
This is the action of the
past into the present,
in archaeological terms.
So this is the
reason why, in fact,
when you are studying the
materiality of the past,
you're studying the different
duration of the past which are
still working in the present.
The present is the physical
accumulation of past duration
and our job is about that.
And, in fact, Benedetto
Croce, the Italian historian,
he wrote once that "any story
is a contemporary story."
He meant that, when you're
doing any history, any study
of the past, you're doing
it from the point of view
of the present.
And I think we may
translate that perfectly
into archaeological term and
saying that any archaeology is
basically an archaeology of
the present, in the sense
that the present encapsulates
all the duration of the past.
But we see-- and it's not only
some abstract point of view--
we see the present, we
see the past-- sorry,
excuse me-- from the
present, from the materiality
of the present.
This is the reason
why, when we're
looking at the past,
in fact, materially we
are doing nothing else but
looking at the present.
So in fact, in
archaeological terms,
the present is not
what is happening now.
It is what is kept going and
being as things and places.
In other words, the present
contains the materiality memory
of a diversity of pasts,
which are still acting today
as archaeological features.
This is exactly what
it is acting now.
So looking at the
present is therefore
looking at some sort
of living material
memory, the memory of the
material world, in some ways.
So as you can see
or feel, I believe
what we are kept into
some sort of contradiction
as archaeologists,
a contradiction
that we have to solve.
Since its very foundation,
archaeology always
has, for ambition, to tell
something about the past.
To tell how was the past
was, to reconstruct the past.
From its very beginning, it
has some historical ambition
to tell what was happening
before, what was happening
in the ancient times.
And whereas, when we are looking
at the materiality of the past,
you see that, in
fact, we are dealing
with another kind of material.
It's not an historical material.
It's not text.
The remains don't tell
us what really what
was happening in the past, they
are telling us something else.
They are appearing
some other kind
of meaning, which is more
on the side of memory
rather than on the
side of history.
So this is the
reason why I believe
that, in fact, when we're
doing archaeology, in fact,
we are exploring this
material memory of the world.
So again, it's going against
the basic understanding
of the past.
It means that when we
are specializing ourself
and we're doing just
Egyptian archaeology,
Greek archaeology, Celtic
archaeology for myself,
or being specialized in
the Roman period, in fact--
I wouldn't that we are doing the
archaeology in the wrong way,
but on the other hand, we're
cutting the perspective
of the multidirectional past.
What is interesting is what was
happening before those periods,
their pre-history.
And what is interesting
also is what
was happening after those
periods, their post-history,
in some ways.
And archaeology encompasses
all those durations.
When you're doing Celtic
archaeology, for instance,
it would be
meaningless to forget
what was building in the
Bronze Age and the Neolithic,
as it would be
meaningless to forget
the transformation of
those remains up to us, up
to our contemporary times.
So this is another
reason why, when
you kept archaeological
features or sites,
you see that, in fact--
this is a picture that you
have on the right side.
It's a section across a series
of ditches, as you can see.
And those ditches, in
fact, were features
which were built but the
Romans in the South of France.
It's features to set
up field systems.
And looking at more detail
at the stratigraphy,
you see that there is
a couple of ditches,
They have been field and
they have been re-dug.
And at a certain moment of time,
they were completely field,
they were not visible anymore.
Some sedimentation
occurred, and those ditches
were recreated again.
They come to life, back again.
And today you see, of course,
nothing of those ditches today.
But their limit, their special
constraint are maintained.
And you see, at the moment,
it's a line of tree,
or it's a line of bush.
There are still field limits.
So in a sense, what is
basically important to study
is not only this event
of the Roman period.
What happened in the
first century AD?
The creation of
the field system.
OK.
But what is interesting
also to study and to look at
is what was happening after.
And this strange
process under which
past events come to play
again, after a certain period
of latency.
And again, this
is something which
goes against the conventional
understanding of history.
In history, causes follow
sequentially each other.
In archaeology, not.
You see that a cause
could be very remote
and can come back after
several centuries, or even
several millennia of latency.
This is the kind of process
we are dealing with,
which are archaeologically
not understandable
under classical or
traditional historical terms.
Such a situation, if you begin
to take that into account,
I believe is the
evidence of a turning
point in [INAUDIBLE] that
are driving the understanding
of archaeological evidence.
I believe that at the moment--
I don't know when it has begun,
it has begun at least
several years ago--
but we are in a moment where
the traditional understanding
of the past is
changing, it is moving.
What is changing is the
traditional relationship
we enjoyed with the past.
As we can see, we can approach
the past from a different angle
and from a different manner,
which is more dynamic.
The understanding of
the historical processes
also is questioned.
It doesn't work as it worked
in history, or in anthropology,
or ethnography.
It works in another way.
We have to explore that.
And also what constitutes
the evidence of the past
is challenged.
The past, as I've
stressed very heavily,
is not only the things that
were made into the past,
they are also present things.
So I believe what
is happening now,
at the moment-- it is
very tiny at the moment.
We are very scared
to feel those things.
But what is happening
at the moment
is not specific to archaeology.
It is happening also with
the other disciplines
which are dealing with
the past and with time.
And it has happened, some
years ago, in history
and this, what we can call
this epistemological term
or this theoretical [INAUDIBLE]
term, may be called presentism.
So what is presentism?
It's an idea which has been
proposed some years ago
by a French historian, who's
name is Francois Hartog.
And Hartog is a specialist
of a ancient history,
of Greek history.
And Hartog was
studying the writing
of history and especially
the relationship
we enjoy with the past, the
present, and the future.
And what stressed Hartog,
he says that, again, we
don't know when it has
begun, but at the moment,
we are not enjoying the
same sort of relationship
with the past that we
enjoyed in the last century,
in the early 20th
and 19th century.
At the moment, the present
is cut from the past
and it's something between
which was very, very
evident at the turn of-- around
the middle of the 20th century.
The past is cut
from the present.
We are not the
inheritant of the past.
It's depending also on history.
In Europe, for instance, we
are not very proud of the past.
We don't feel the inheritance
of the European past,
of the first half
of the 21st century.
And the future, the future
is worrying at least.
The future it's frightening.
So this means that,
in fact, we are glued,
we are reduced to a
relationship where
we are just in to the present.
And this is what
exactly describe Hartog.
Presentism is that.
It means that history itself,
the writing of history
has changed.
Writing history, in
the 19th century,
was trying to explore how the
past was building the present.
It was trying to set up
a continuity between past
and present.
And for French history, and
for European history at large,
there was a great hope
after the revolution,
the French Revolution.
This was the hope that, after
centuries of oppression,
mankind was going to
become free and that's we
we're driving towards
a very happy society.
But after the revolution,
you the empire,
which are not so
great, with Napoleon.
Then the kings came back.
That we have another empire.
Then we have a republic.
And so history
was going nowhere.
And in some sense, Marx was
looking for some coherence
in this history.
OK society and civilization
is going nowhere, what matters
is it's a fight between places.
This was some sort
of explanation.
But what became clear is that
the present was not-- the past
was not preparing the present.
So people from present time
were cut from their past.
This specific evolution
of a specific change,
of a relation with time, had
been acknowledged earlier
by artists and by writers.
When you look, for instance,
at all modern art that
begin to develop just at the
turn or the First World War,
you see that.
That cut, that crisis between
the present and the past.
And among those, the German
philosopher Walter Benjamin--
and I think it's a, for
me, it's a major author
for archaeology-- he understand
that this new situation
of the present-- he was writing
in the '30s and his last essay
was written in 1940.
And it's was called "These
on the concept of history."
And Benjamin wrote that
in urgency, you know,
it's very small notes.
And what he
stressed, he stressed
that the situation of the
present, this completely
challenging history, we have
to build a new relationship
with the past.
And what he saw
was that the past
being encapsulated
into the present
has no meaning in itself.
And in fact, it's only
finds it's significance
by being acknowledged
by the present.
And this is, again,
why we have to rewrite
history and archaeology
almost at every generation.
When you look at
the great work which
are written in the
'60s, for instance,
its great archaeology, but
it's archaeology of the '60s.
We have to write an
archaeology of all time.
It's the same
thing with history.
We are looking for
evidence of the past that
may answer some questions
about the present.
This is the reason
why, for instance, we
are more and more
interested about environment
in archaeology and
history, because it's
a problem for today.
It wasn't such a
program into the '50s.
Nobody cared about
the issue we are
interested in at the moment.
So this is the reason
why, in fact, history has
to be rewritten all the time.
But in fact, history
and archaeology
is the meeting of the present,
of the people of the present,
with the past.
It's not reconstruction
of the past from itself.
And so, in that,
Benjamin claims that we
need to build a new
relationship with the past
and to reject what he
called historicism.
And historicism was precisely
the traditional approach
of history, at least in Europe.
That idea that the
past is bearing,
in itself, its own temporality.
And that, in fact, doing
archaeology or doing history
is to reconstruct, to rebuild
this temporality of the past.
He says, this has no
meaning, that kind of thing.
This has only meaning
into the present.
So Benjamin stressed the
idea that this problem
of the relation of the
present with history
is not just some academic game.
This is a political problem.
And for him, in a
very visionary way,
he saw that it was also
the fight against barbary,
against Nazism, of course.
But not only against
Nazism, against the barbary
of the modern Western world.
And when you look at, in fact,
at the archaeology of our time.
What are our time, in term
of archaeological remain?
What is very striking is that
all contemporary history,
the history of the 20th
and early 21st century,
has been dominated by
massive destruction,
at a scale which was
never reached before.
Mass murder, as you
see on this picture
from an extermination
camp in 1945, but also,
less dramatically,
with urbanization, it
has never reached such a scale.
Transformation of
the environment,
we're even talking
about Anthropocene,
which means a change at
a geological scale, which
are happening since what?
Since maybe 50 years?
All of that is completely new.
And all of that are questions
that directly interest us.
If archaeology is the study
of the material transformation
of the world, under
the human activity,
those things are
directly archaeological.
They are more archaeological
than anything else, in fact.
And if you want to
look at that in terms
of intensity, of
course, the paleolithic
is almost nothing actually.
Just pieces of flakes scattered.
When you look at
the transformation
of the physical
world, our time, it's
much more archaeological
than any other time.
And if you want to
describe it, it's
an age of transformation
of the physical world.
And we don't look at that.
It is happening right now,
but we don't look at that.
What is happening,
just at the moment,
is a major transformation of
human occupation of the Earth.
We are becoming more and more
urban, less and less rural.
The traditional rural
civilization is disappearing.
This is something that Alfredo
Gonzalez-Ruibal is studying.
We don't know if
this is temporary,
if maybe in some centuries,
after the collapse
of civilization, we
are going to come back
to more rural civilization--
as has happened
in the early middle age, for
instance, after the collapse
of the Roman Empire-- or if
this is something durable,
if this is a major change, like
what happened in the neolithic.
This is happening right now
and we don't look at it.
And this is deeply
archaeological.
And it is concerning
us, as archaeologists.
Our post-industrial
society is based
on that idea and that
concept of risk society.
This has been developed by the
German sociologist Ulrich Beck.
This is the specific link
that we enjoy with technology.
And Gunther Anders, a
German philosopher, he
wrote that, "mankind is not any
more the subject of history.
Technology is the
subject of history."
This is technology which
is bringing such a change,
as messy the change is.
So technology, in fact,
is producing risk,
the risk of a major event.
And those threats are
put both on people
and on the environment.
And the impact of
industry on our world
is creating very
long term effects.
This is a picture
of Fukushima here.
There are children
from Chernobyl here.
The impact of those
nuclear accidents
is going to be active for
centuries, or maybe millennia,
or maybe a bit longer if
you consider the activity
of the core of the reactors.
All of that will constrain human
occupation for the century,
or even the millennia
which are going to come.
And those things are also
to be taken into account
as archaeological events.
This is archaeology,
transformations
of the physical world.
This is archaeological events.
They are major archaeological
events of our time,
and they need,
they're required to be
understood archaeologically.
And again, we are
not looking at that.
It is happening right now.
There are some
archaeological issue.
"We are overpowerful
since we are powerless,"
wrote the German
philosopher, Gunther Anders.
And he was talking about
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He was talking about
the nuclear bomb.
In fact, what is
the common point
is that no one is responsible
for such an accident.
The guy who pushed
the button, who
dropped the bomb over
Nagasaki and Hiroshima,
he didn't want to do
it, he has no hate
against the Japanese people.
He was just ordered to
push a button, that he did.
The guy who created
Fukushima and Chernobyl
were not responsible for that.
It's just an accident.
So we are not individually
responsible for what
is happening, but
the results are just
beyond any imagination.
The results are-- it's
impossible to describe
what it is, a nuclear accident.
It's impossible to encompass
all its implications over time.
So in fact, in this world, the
past is also losing its value.
In fact, what matters
is a permanent present.
We live in a world
which are absolutely
no comparison with the past.
We are aliens, compared to
the people of the 19th century
and of the earlier period.
So this is the reason
why Gunther Anders called
this time-- and I'm going
to come back to that--
the "time of the end."
And it's another
angle, and we are
coming back again to this notion
of why the present matters.
And this is why, in fact,
in such an environment,
there is no future.
This is what claimed
the punk, no future.
In fact, when we are
suspended under such threats
of massive destruction, the
relationship with the future
is completely altered.
And we are just living
into the present,
this is just what we
are doing at the moment.
So again, what drives
history is technology.
And so, therefore, the
time of history is broken.
We are stuck in some sort of
never-ending present, which
is what the German artist
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht stressed
some years ago.
He called that, this
strange situation, latency.
We are waiting, we
are a bit in between.
This is something that we
really can feel at the moment,
with the new technology, with
the internet, with Google.
What matters is only
what is going on now.
Things which were very
important some years ago but we
are past at the moment
have no value anymore.
What has value is what
is happening just now.
The future isn't predictable,
the past is over,
so again, we are contained
in this time of the present.
So looking at the
present, at the current,
at what is happening now, is
the proper field of archaeology.
This is why I think,
I believe that we
have to explore the
entire field, which
is encompassed by the present.
It means not only all of
the past, all the duration
of the past, but also everything
which is happening now
and which is deeply
archaeological.
In fact, what we
are studying, it's
the impact of human activity
on the natural world.
And what is happening
in the present
are also archaeological
problems.
And in doing that, this
is a political task.
This is not only
something for academics,
this is not only research.
In fact, archaeology
is always on the threat
of being separated
from the social.
And again, archaeology has
no value if this is not
a collective value.
Archaeology cannot be
confiscated by individuals,
by companies.
archaeology has only it's value
if it has collective good.
The collective good of
mankind, in some way.
And so in doing archaeology,
in studying the impact,
the transformation of the
world is having, we are
maintaining our
political role, in fact.
And in not doing it, we are
collaborating to the separation
of the present and the past.
I'm going to come
back to that later.
So if archaeology
is the study again
of the maturity of
the past, then it
is much more concerned on the
present than anything else.
Then human impact on
the natural world,
it's much more dramatic
and long lasting today,
but it has been before our time.
So this is why we have
to look at [INAUDIBLE]
But we have also to look
at the present as a living
memory, the memory
of all the pasts
which are still active today.
So the subject of
archaeology, in fact,
is this very bizarre
relationships
between devastation of
memory and transmission
of memory between
erasure, between oblivion,
and between conservation
transmission.
And I think this is
what we should do.
So archaeology stands
for the people.
This is something which we
should not forget, ever.
Our activity has no
meaning if this is not
done for the collectivity.
And in fact, what you
can see very clearly
is that all modern world is
based on the erasure of memory.
And as you know, it is something
that was peculiar to America,
to this country.
American identity, not as
American but as modern,
is based on the
oblivion, is based
on the erasure of
other memories.
The native memory, the memory of
other social or ethnic groups,
and reinvention of
a brave new world.
And coming from abroad, it's
very striking how brutal it is
and how empty it is.
In fact, this is a creation
of a material culture
which wants to have nothing
to do with the past.
And again, archaeology
is not about that.
archaeology is
restoring the memory.
It's exhibiting the memory of
the places and of the things.
And this peculiar process
is political again.
It is restoring--
I don't know what
to call it-- the collective
identity in some ways.
And so the discipline
of archaeology
is the discipline which
studies the material memory.
And it should be a discipline,
in fact, of resistance,
which is what I believe.
We resist, in fact.
So how to conclude.
What is at stake, I think, is
what Michel de Certeau called
"the re-politicization
of the past
through the use of memory."
And this is really the task
of archaeology, I believe.
We work for memory.
We have to develop
another politic of memory.
We have to place
the past not aside
of the present, as it is
seen in conventional history
and conventional
archaeology, but the past
inside the present.
When this traditional
approach is
looking for a
sequential time, we
are looking for a
multidirectional time.
We are looking for
not a sequential
but for a periodical time.
When conventional archaeology
or conventional history
is looking for origins,
we're looking for emergence,
we are looking for
transformation,
of a transformation and of a
transmission at the same time.
It's a different
approach of the past.
So in other words,
I believe that we
have to use presentism, which
is a condition, as a tool,
as an opportunity.
Presentism is an opportunity
to explore the past
and to explore the
present and the future.
But you have to use it, I
think, in a political way.
We have to use it to fight
against presentism, which
is basically the
destruction of memory
and the destruction
of the environment.
So in other words, I believe
that archaeology records
resistance or it means nothing.
In fact, if you're not
doing that, we are just,
as we have always
been doing before,
we are just reproducing
the dominant ideology.
People in '30s, they don't
know but they were doing that.
People in the '60s too.
And maybe, at the moment, this
is exactly what we're doing.
we're reproducing the dominant
ideology of the Western world.
Maybe, perhaps, our
political and social role
is not to work for that.
Maybe by our subject,
maybe by our subject
we are requested to be rebels.
Maybe we have to politically
fight against that.
We are thinkers.
archaeology is not digging
in the ground to find shirts.
If it's that, it has no meaning.
archaeology is a way to grasp
the world, is a way to think.
And as diggers--
as archaeologists,
we are thinkers, we
are intellectuals.
And the intellectuals have
to invent another relation
with the world.
They have to-- of course,
there are no the people
who have the truth.
They are not the people who
are the most-- how to say--
the mostly legitimate to talk.
But we see the reality from,
I think, from a very political
angle which is its materiality.
No one is looking at that.
And looking at the
materiality, we're
looking, not at what is said,
not at what at the discourse,
not at the explanation.
We're looking at what is
committed, what is really
happening beyond any ideology.
And in doing so, we
have something to say.
We have something to say
not only about the past,
we have something to
say about the present,
about how the
present is managed,
and we also have something
to save about the future.
And our task is to work
not only for research,
but our task is
deeply a political one
since, in fact, it's rooted
to collectivity, to mankind.
I think this is our work.
And maybe we don't
have the truth.
Maybe we're not sure
of what we're doing.
Maybe we disagree
with each other.
We are not coming from the
same cultural environment,
we are not coming from
the same social classes,
we are not coming from the
same intellectual background.
But we can talk.
And I think that it's much
more important than anything
to exchange ideas.
I thank you for your attention.
[APPLAUSE]
There is a whole day coming
up tomorrow, of course,
with more contributions
and discussions.
I'm sure we could have a
couple of [INAUDIBLE] questions
or reactions to this
keynote lecture.
Thank you for your presentation.
I couldn't help but
think, when you mentioned
that the time in the present,
or the time as the present
as a sort of paradox,
that it reminds me
of the paradox of the
theater, and particularly,
Hamlet's ghost.
His father returning.
Something that is
no longer, that
is dead, that they're
waiting to have come back.
This thing is going to
show up at any moment.
And that paradox is
interesting to me
because it reminded me of
Derrida's Specters of Marx.
And in Specters of
Marx, Derrida's thinking
about the paradox of what
is destroyed coming back
and the past is unfinished
business, of course,
in the way that Marx
characterizes it
in the 18th Brumaire.
And I'm wondering
if you can relate
that idea of this
unfinished business
to your notion of
resistance in archaeology,
and how maybe that resistance
is a kind of return
of the unfinished
business, an archaeology
is the attending to it,
perhaps the attending
to the return of revolution?
This is exactly what Benjamin
stressed with the relation
with the past, exactly.
And he said also,
and I think it's
very relevant to
what you're telling,
but in fact, what we
have to look at it,
it's a voice of the people
with no voices, in fact.
And this is what
archaeology is about.
Matthew, you're working
on slavery plantations.
And you told me yesterday,
or the day before,
that in fact at
the moment, people
want to reconstruct
them in their beauty.
The beauty of the houses,
the easy life, how beautiful
and how glamorous it was.
But when you're
digging it, you're
digging the poor
little houses, you're
finding the tiny shirt of the
people who are living there.
And it was something
else, it was the people
with no vote to talk.
And of course, I believe that
archaeology is about that.
This unfinished job of the past.
But maybe, to put it
in some political way
as Benjamin did it, maybe
those people of the past
are waiting for us.
They are waiting for us
to give them a voice.
And maybe you remember
that in the extermination
camps after the war,
people found what they
called the Auschwitz rolls.
It's something very bizarre.
And it was little
pots, and in the pots,
they had put a piece of paper.
And they wanted to
describe-- because they
knew that they were
going to be killed
and to disappear-- but
the memory of that,
the purpose of the camp was
to erase any memory of that.
Again, erasure of memory.
And they had written
what was happening,
to bring a testimony of that.
And in fact, they were
waiting for us to find that.
It was an address to the future.
Find us and tell our truth.
And maybe we have such
a mission with the past.
Maybe it's less dramatic
than that, maybe more common.
But anyway, it doesn't
lose any value.
Maybe we have also to
give voices to the people
with no voices in the past.
So sorry.
Thank you very much, I feel like
you started off really great
for our wonderful
seminar tomorrow.
I guess I'm a little
bit worried of the way
you're talking about time,
almost timelessness, right?
And when I say that right,
because it's almost.
I think in some ways Foucault
sort of developed this idea
as well, that it's kind of
quirky that the West uses
history as a logical model.
I mean, we're one
of the few cultures,
globally, that
actually think things
happened chronologically,
and we have reified that.
But that is also a
capitalist expression.
It's sort of an order
of commodity production,
and it's also a
colonial expression.
So archaeology is very much
about a colonial ordering
and it's a colonial othering.
So when you talk
about the past, I
don't think that we were
as concerned, globally
or the West, with the
past, as we were concerned
with black and brown bodies.
So it's sort of
really interesting
that you sort of put this
panel at the end and say,
it's the people.
And there were black and
brown images up there,
which are not in this room.
And I think that's
really, really important.
And that's really,
really central.
So that when you're
talking about these ideas
about the past,
we're also talking
about capitalism and archaeology
being very much a hand-mate
of capitalism.
And how do you
actually sort of-- I
mean, of course we're part
of the imperial production,
why would we be
different from the '60s?
I mean, that's exactly what
we're doing in this room today.
So I think it's
kind of fantastic
or an illusion to pretend that
we're not going to do that.
How could we not be
products of the West?
But I sort of like your
idea of sort of saying,
what if we stop sort
of trying to create
a hegemonic or monolithic
narrative or history,
and rather see those
multiple histories?
So the concern-- and I
agree with your ending
of archaeology, the
present, the here and now--
it is really about
power and trying
to understand how power works.
And how archaeology has always
been an essential element
of that production of power.
And how it's very
difficult to critique
that because we
ourselves are sort
of the beneficiaries
of that power,
as we are in this room today.
So as I said, it's
a great start,
and I'm really excited and
looking forward to tomorrow
as well.
OK.
[LAUGHTER]
And so what?
I would say.
I would say, OK, and so what?
So we close everything,
you say, and we--
No, I'm not saying that at all.
I think that quite
on the contrary, we
have to-- Gadamer, the German
philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer,
said-- and I think it's going
completely to with your part--
he said that if we want
to produce honest history,
we have also to take in
to account the condition
of our own historicity.
Where we are in,
which is what you
were talking about capitalism
and post-colonialism,
things like that.
What I think we
should, or we could do,
of course we cannot
escape the ideology,
this is absolutely impossible.
But what we can do is to
use archaeology as a tool
to think, you see,
and to use presentism,
to use this material
condition of the present which
is a result of a our
post-industrial society.
Presentism, as a
ontological condition.
To use it as a tool, to
give access to another past.
And maybe to think
against presentism,
to look for some other ideas.
We are just intellectuals.
This is the best we can
do, to dig square holes,
drink beers, and think about it.
[LAUGHTER]
I think that might
actually be a great note.
Just to follow up
and to just sum up
what we heard this afternoon in
a magnificent keynote, I think.
On the one hand, drawing on
one element of Western society
is a whole series
of great thinkers.
But not just abstract ideas
have been floating around,
but at the same time, the
point that Laurent emphasized,
that archaeology, the resistance
in archaeology is politics.
And that, I think, sort of in
this final discussion I think
was already a very good moment.
And given the topics of
the sessions tomorrow--
Archaeologies of/in Crisis
and Conflict, Collapsed Pasts,
Present Urgencies, and
Archaeological Horizons,
and Contemporary Encounters
and Speculative Futures--
I'm sure all those elements
will be coming back.
And since that starts
tomorrow, again
and I'll repeat the timing,
with breakfast at 8:30
and introduction at 9:00,
this would be a good time
to move over to that other
archaeological occupation
and to enjoy the reception that
we are offering to everyone
in the room here, outside.
[APPLAUSE]
