Archaeology took on Science Studies (again) at the collective (4S) Society for Social Studies of Science and the History of Science Society and Philosophy of Science Association Conference this past weekend (November 2-4, 2006) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The working title for the conference this year was: “Silence, Suffering and Survival.” While there has been a long history of engagement between archaeology and philosophy of science, too often archaeologists have not taken active part in this inter-disciplinarian debate. Science studies opens a productive avenue for attending to pressing issues in the actual practice of the human sciences. Archaeology is emerging as a unique player in these studies, straddling as it does the natural sciences-humanities divide. And the discipline was well represented with an international assembly of archaeologists and philosophers.
The session was entitled “Silenced pasts: Archaeological practice and the politics of manifestation”. It was organized by Christopher Witmore, Matt Ratto and Michael Shanks. The session included:
Matt Ratto
The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Amsterdam
matt.ratto@vks.knaw.nl
“Epistemic commitments, virtual reality, and archaeological representation”
Michael Shanks
Stanford Humanities Lab, Metamedia Lab and The Archaeology Center
Stanford University
mshanks@stanford.edu
“Presence effects and archaeological media: case studies in performance arts”
Timothy Webmoor
Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Metamedia Lab and The Archaeology Center
Stanford University
twebmoor@stanford.edu
“Open source archaeology? The politics of collaborative heritage”
Christopher Witmore
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
The Artemis A.W. Joukowsky and Martha Sharp Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
Brown University
cwitmore@gmail.com
“Site-specific media, archaeology and collective (im)mortality”
Alison Wylie
Department of Philosophy
University of Washington
aw26@u.washington.edu
Discussant: intellectual boundary crossing and the legacy of archaeology and the study of science

The session abstract follows:
If we remain true to the etymology of ‘archaeology’ then archaeologists work with ‘ta archaea,’ quite literally, ‘old things.’ But this is no longer taken to be the past as it was. Rather, archaeologists work with what is left of various pasts as they are mixed into the present. As such archaeology is seen to be a practice of visualizing, verbalizing, and vocalizing. Archaeology is a practice of unforgetting.
Still, in practice, to be underlined as process of transformation and documentation, certain interactions with, and aspects of, these pasts are manifest while others fall through the sieve into silence. Whether particular understandings of local ‘heritage,’ the more ineffable qualities of human relations with archaeological locales, or peculiar qualities of things (i.e. the abject textures of detritus or whatever) a great deal is overlooked. Silenced in translation many voices, relations, and qualities are all too often ignored, treated as background noise, and are utterly (re)forgotten. Why do archaeologists speak of some pasts while at the same time they silence others?
This session explores the politics of ‘manifestation’ in archaeology. As such it is concerned with the silencing of pasts and their alteration (‘survival’) in the context of archaeological practice and documentation. Sensitive to archaeological modes of manifestation (i.e. paper-based, analog or digital media), we ask which qualities of, or relations with, the material pasts are silenced? And likewise which aspects ‘survive’ in the process of translation? Moreover what other pasts should be unforgotten? Through a variety of case studies we offer a combination of analyses and examples of archaeological modes of engagement, ‘memory practices’ and understandings for dealing with the articulation of various pasts.
This session brings together sociologists of science and archaeologists to explore a discipline which, spanning both the humanities and sciences, is beginning to set forward looking transdisciplinary agendas through its interactions with things.