A few brief thoughts on Paul Graves Brown's interesting post:
I guess the use of the term 'contemporary past' in Buchli and Lucas (2001) simply refered to the
(post-processual) idea that to the archaeologist all of the past is contemporary (ie it exists only
insofar as stuff survives into the present, whether material sherds or immaterial memories), and
that therefore all archaeology is 'about' the present.
More recently, a parallel use of the term 'contemporary archaeology' to define a very recent time
period - like the historian's definition of 'contemporary history' (ie 20th-century) - has emerged.
Many people are working across both two usages, and I wouldn't see either as internally
contradictory - although the logic of first usage might involve breaking down any firm distinction
between 'historical' and earlier or 'prehistoric' archaeologies (and would include all the scarabs and
shabtis of Paul's Egyptologist, for example).
One interesting emerging dimension of the use of the term 'contemporary archaeology' is that it
appears for some researchers to be associated with a sense that their work on C20 or C21
materials is less 'historical' in focus than the term 'historical archaeology' would suggest - more of
an explicitly archaeological take on anthropological material culture studies. Others (myself
included) might suggest that part of archaeology's contribution to such work is to historicise it,
rather than to use archaeology to construct a kind of ethnographic present.
As far as I recall, the use of the term 'contemporary' for the CHAT conferences was partly to
encompass both of the meanings above (the first including issues of heritage, politics and
archaeological practice, the second including the very recent past or even the archaeology of the
contemporary world), but mainly because it made quite a good acronym.
DH
On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:07:25 +0100, lineone <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Was talking to an Egyptologist last night who objected that the term
>"contemporary past" was a contradiction in terms. I can see what she
>means. Did we adopt this term because the millenium stopped us talking
>about 20th century archaeology? can there be a contemporary past?
>
>I just wondered.....
>
>P G-B
>
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contemp-hist-arch is a list for news and events
in contemporary and historical archaeology, and
for announcements relating to the CHAT conference group.
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For email subscription options see:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/archives/contemp-hist-arch.html
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For CHAT meetings see:
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