Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 2017, Page 37

ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS36
argue has become a geo-environmental force and human footprints too extensive
to be overlooked geologically. Since its introduction discourses around matters
of the Anthropocene have grown widely and affected most disciplines within
humanities, social- as well as natural sciences. Archaeology is no exception and
many studies have focused on archaeology’s responses to the challenges posed
by this new era, and how archaeology may contribute to its definition. This
article may be seen to follow this line of research, looking particularly at how
the characteristics and conditions of this new age may affect the practice of
archaeology. The central questions asked are: What would an archaeology of the
Anthropocene look like? How do traditional tropes of a deep culture-history
and linear time comply with obstacles posed by the Anthropocene? Or, does the
Anthropocene drive archaeology beyond its traditionally confined context and
conventional modes of practice?
The article is based on a study of drift beaches and drift matter (marine debris)
in Iceland and northern Norway – a material, which underpins the notion of
Anthropocene and conspicuously manifests both obstacles and promises for an
‘Anthropocene Archaeology’. With reference to this material the article discusses
the above mentioned questions, and suggests some needed rethinking of the
archaeological tradition. A general reading of archaeological responses to the
Anthropocene, suggests that its introduction rather reinforces traditional tropes
and conventions of archaeological practise. These mostly emphasise archaeology’s
significance in terms of, a) its insight into development of human/nature relations
through time, b) its access to deep culture history and ability to bring forth
knowledge of past action and adaptation, and c) its ability to locate and date the
beginning of the Anthropocene through stratigraphic reading. While these are
all important contributions building on archaeological knowledge and expertise,
they may in many instances also be argued to further traditional understandings
of nature-culture relations, of linear time, and of culture-history as the only
meaningful telling of the past. Building on this critique this article suggests that the
very different climate of the Anthropocene also calls for different archaeological
approaches. While human agency has furthered the serious developments leading
to the ‘birth’ of the Anthropocene, and human action is needed in response to
this, the Anthropocene is also by nature a more-than-human phenomenon that
calls for less anthropocentric approaches and for acknowledgement of non-human
agency. Thus, with reference to the characteristics and post-human drift of
marine debris, the article elaborates on what this means for an archaeology of the
Anthropocene; a) how the post-human life of things may suggest the need for
alternative and more-than-cultural approaches to the archaeological past, b) how
the ‘random’ drift and return of things, as well as their persistency and endurance,
opposes notions of the past as past and of time as sequential, and c) how the hybrid
and uncensored nature of the drift beach underlines alternative understandings of
nature in Anthropocene, and of culture-nature relations.