Written by two recent presidents of the World Archaeological Congress (WAC), this book by Koji Mizoguchi and Claire Smith explores archaeology as a social practice that can effect social change and promote human rights. The coauthors frame archaeology as a social practice with a global reach in an effort to make a difference in a world that may feel smaller but no less strange. Their intended audience is graduate students or advanced undergraduates who have been introduced to method and theory in archaeology and are seeking holistic and global perspectives.
In their introduction, Mizoguchi and Smith define archaeology as a practice focused on materiality that is embedded in social contexts, advanced through a series of choices, and realized in diverse permutations across the globe. At the core of this book is the idea that the strength of archaeology lies in identifying and interpreting the ways in which material culture—broadly defined—mediates communication between and among people. Mizoguchi and Smith argue that archaeology is “made to exist in the present by choosing what traces and differences to study, making sense of them, and representing the outcomes in certain (chosen) ways” (p. 14). The emphasis on choices that archaeologists make as part of their practice is a central theme because these decisions manifest particular versions of the past in the present.
Chapter 2 traces the history of archaeological thought, which the authors argue is key to understanding why there are diverse archaeologies practiced around the world today. What sets this apart from other reviews of archaeological theory is the way that Mizoguchi and Smith clearly correlate theoretical developments in archaeology with their contingent social and political contexts. Building on this perspective, the authors construct a model for a global archaeology that emphasizes how countries’ historical, economic, and social contexts shape the ways that citizens practice archaeology (Chapter 3).
Chapter 4 (“Materiality, Memory, and Monuments”) connects studies of materiality to memory as the authors consider the meanings of monuments as tools of power and resistance. Supporting examples are drawn from Australia, North America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. This will help American students in particular to look beyond their borders for examples of how to frame and reckon with monuments as powerful historical devices.
Chapter 5 is an archaeological critique of dominant historical narratives, and Mizoguchi draws on considerable archaeological research to show that tumuli in Japan were burial mounds of different lineages from different periods, and consequently not representative of a unified and glorious past. This chapter stands out from the others because it is the only one that explicitly discusses excavation data from the standpoint of the authors’ theoretical positioning. It is convincing, but I was left wondering what effect the research has had, if any, on Japanese perceptions of identity and memory.
Chapter 6 (“Archaeology and Indigenous Peoples”) argues that anthropology and archaeology were developed at the expense of Indigenous peoples. The authors devote most of the chapter to discussing Indigenous conceptions of space, time, and landscape, with careful attention to issues of knowledge production and intellectual property. These are crucial issues for archaeologists who want to decolonize how they create knowledge about the past.
Chapter 7 (“Archaeology of Contemporary Worlds”) is the longest of the volume. The result is a panoply of social issues in which materiality plays a role and highlights how archaeological analyses might help us think through contemporary problems. It is convincing in its breadth of examples and demonstrates that thinking carefully about materiality helps us understand underlying social structures that can enable discrimination based on sex, class, or race.
Chapter 8 (“The Emergence of Engaged Archaeology”) summarizes different facets of engagement, including public, applied, activist, and community archaeology, among others. The authors' review provides a road map for how different permutations of engagement play out in different contexts among different social actors. These points are a valuable guide for archaeologists who may want to incorporate engagement into their research programs.
In their concluding chapter (Chapter 9), Mizoguchi and Smith make the case that a truly social archaeology has human rights at its core. They argue throughout the book that materiality is central to how humans communicate and build relationships with each other. Furthermore, archaeology as a discipline is shaped by the choices that practitioners make about their research interests and research designs.
The text smartly makes use of short boxes at the end of each chapter that are written by archaeologists from around the world, which I found refreshing. However, there are a couple missteps and one major missed opportunity. Of 18 total boxes, six focus on archaeology in Russia; it is odd to me that in a book about global archaeology, one-third are from one country. Written by academics, researchers, and administrators of national archaeology programs, they certainly teach us about who controls archaeological narratives globally. As Mizoguchi and Smith point out in Chapter 6, there are growing numbers of Indigenous peoples involved in archaeological research; however, their voices are notably absent from the book.
The ability to create and manipulate things is a hallmark of being human. Studies of materiality benefit enormously from archaeological perspectives, as Mizoguchi and Smith show effectively throughout their volume. The frame that holds the book together is the concept that archaeology is indeed social at its core, and archaeologists should be mindful of how and why they make the choices that they do. Mizoguchi and Smith point the way toward humane and humanistic versions of archaeology that balance scientific research with social justice.
