Our Extant Past

A bit of Mr. Gust’s most recent posting sets the stage nicely for my own this week.  That, in itself, is interesting when you consider that, though my colleagues and I collaborate on projects, we rarely discuss our more profound inner musings.  Yet there it is.

Chris writes about the “that was then, this is now” phenom that generally applies to all things historio-archeological.  He also writes about the different perceptions that practitioners use when approaching their work.  Well done, and bully for Chris, though I, personally, tend to think of each paradigm less as narcissistic and more as a preference toward a concentrated methodology.  But I digress.

My discussion actually begins with my latest project:  Lakka  Skoutara.  (It’s worth noting that when I say “my,” I mean “our.”  We have divvied up the many different projects as they come available and/or according to our likings.  The project I’m about to share with you is one I am quite excited about.  The reality of our situation is that we eventually end up sharing most everything as we each contribute a certain skill set, or find we have a pause in our own work that allows us to help another.  Thus “my” is “our,” but mine.  To further muddy the waters, all these projects are actually the “property” of more professional people than us, but we take ownership in that we happen to care about them and contribute to them in very meaningful ways.)  From here on out, I really will attempt to stay on topic.

The topic:  Lakka Skoutara.  Lakka (translated “basin”) Skoutara is an abandoned rural settlement in southeastern Corinthia, Greece.  A small team of archaeologists have been recording the structural decline of  houses in this area over the span of a decade.  My current job is not very glamorous, but necessary.  I’ve been working on having the many photographs and slides taken to record this process scanned in order to integrate them with folders of digital pictures that already exist.  These must all be efficiently and correctly catalogued, then matched with the field notes and data that are meant to accompany them but which, to date, do not.  The project will evolve from there.

In an article draft that discusses the significance of this project, the author writes about the architectural features, understandings of settlement characteristics, archaeological signatures, function of these spaces, their assemblage and location in the valley, and so on.  All of this and more fuses together, cries out to us, draws us in, and helps us to reconstruct the ancient past.

That, at least, is the image that is brought to mind.  Would it surprise you to know that these are not ancient structures?  These houses are from the late 19th through 20th century.  Some have much earlier foundations.  Some look ancient, but all are fairly “recent,”  especially when compared to popular notions of archaeology.  That, however, does not change the fact that they are artifacts from the past.

We often don’t see yesterday as “past,” or “history.”  I’ve been mulling over what that means.  Is this because we humans see anything existing within our own lifetime as a work in progress, but view “the past” as something that is old, dead, and decayed?  Do we see our lives, (which, in actuality, means the time that has already passed…note the tense), as present?  Is this because we can “change” them?  Do we see them, from birth to death, as malleable, shapeable?  We say that we can “correct” past mistakes, “re-do” projects in an attempt to make them better, “become” something more than we “were.”  These statements reflect a belief system that promotes our personal past  as not “past/passed” at all.

The ongoing project at Lakka Skoutara suggests otherwise.  It is not uncommon for historians and anthropologists to conduct oral histories and write ethnographies to better understand the people around them. They are able to do this because the resources by which they do so, (people), exist in the present.  They study kinship cultures and local economies to enhance their work, for example.  These methods also work very well in Lakka Skoutara.  They are integral to the findings there, but are done by the archaeologists to supplement their work.  Because this area is rural, there is a dearth of official records of the daily activity of the people of Lakka Skoutara.  Yet people lived here, grew olives and grain, transported their goods to nearby ports, and contributed to the greater economy of this area.  They were active during German occupation.  Their movements reflected the changes of war, peace, and whatever else their environment brought to them.  It is not only their histories but also their material culture that speaks to all this.  What new insights does this evidence bring to understanding the evolution of Greek rural life?

This method of archaeology excites me.  The archaeology of the ancient is limited by nature.  Buildings and material culture from ancient times are coupled with the texts that exist, but the picture they paint is always incomplete.  There is simply too little there to help us to reconstruct the daily lives of the people to be satisfactory.  Granted, that also piques my curiosity and keeps me forever “digging” in whatever way I can to learn and discover more.  I love it.  But it does not offer the satisfaction that the project at Lakka Skoutara does.  The work at Lakka Skoutara incorporates an expanded, multi-dimensional approach that includes a sort of time-lapsed photography, oral histories, material culture, documents, and more.  It erases the tired old notion of archaeologists working in tombs and temple ruins and brings to light the realization that they also work at the intersection of past and present.  Without trying to make a political statement, the work at Lakka Skoutara will yield a wealth of heterogenous records describing the rural populace of this area.  Cities great and small exist in relation to each other and to the rural countryside, and vice versa.  Understanding that interaction leads to a more complex and, to my way of thinking, more satisfying understanding of the past.

This project propels the discipline of archaeology into refreshing new directions.  The work is not completely without precedent, but it is definitely avant-garde, especially in this specific region.  Of course, the implications of Lakka Skoutara are much more far-reaching that what I’ve inkled here, but hopefully they will get you thinking.  How fun to find that, right under our very noses, we have a rich, extant past to discover, decipher, observe, and record in much more complete ways than the ancients left for us!  I believe future historians will agree.