Reconciling Science and the Imagination in the Construction of the Deep Prehistoric Past

Traditionally, archaeologists when writing about the past, favor expository narratives in which the persona of the archaeologist-writer as well as his or her prehistoric people-subjects remain anonymous or – at best – in the far distant bird's eye view. And how else, you might ask, can you write about the deep past where all that remains are fragmentary remnants of their lives. Writers and film-makers who create fictional narratives about the intimate dramas of prehistoric and early historic people and give them voices are regarded as seductive and engaging for the public, but are not respected as expressions of scientific knowledge or legitimate interpretations of archaeological data. I will introduce some of the ways in which, as an archaeologist-writer, I am exploring an alternative way of writing about prehistory in which the imagination that conjures up sentient prehistoric actors is entangled with the empirical scientific data of archaeological excavations. I draw especially on my current research in the challenging world of pre-literate Europe and Anatolia. For inspiration I draw upon the concepts of database narratives (Lev Manovich), recombinant histories (Steve Anderson), and Microhistories (Carlo Ginzburg).

Speaker: Ruth Tringham, UC Berkeley

Room 100