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Yvonne Marshall

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Alberti & Marshall — Local Theories and Conceptually Open-Ended Methodologies

Benjamin Alberti & Yvonne Marshall

Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19:3, 345–57 © 2009 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Researchdoi:10.1017/S0959774309000535 Received 1 April 2009; Accepted 20 May 2009; Revised 30 July 2009

Animating Archaeology: Local Theories andConceptually Open-ended Methodologies

We use ‘ontology’, here, to mean the possibility ofgiving credence to other worlds, not simply as a noblerelativizing but ultimately hypocritical gesture but

as a means to force the production of new materialconcepts. We argue that ‘ontological breakthrough’(Henare et al. 2007) in archaeology is possible if indig-enous theories are taken seriously as ontologies ratherthan epistemologies and combined with insights fromWestern theories of materiality that reveal ma er asontologically relational and inherently indeterminate.Animism, then, is not a resource for theory but asource of theory.

Archaeological references to ethnographiesserve to enhance or measure the accuracy of ourinterpretations, and have proven a productive sourceof analogies for past life and as illustrative materialfor theoretical debate, especially around the notionof ‘object agency’ (e.g. Gell 1998; see Brown & Walker2008). The philosophical underpinnings of animist

beliefs and practices are rarely treated as theory intheir own right, but rather as mistaken epistemolo-gies. In contrast, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (2006,16) has argued that to avoid such ‘epistemologicalpick pocketing’ we must treat non-Western theoriesin a ‘symmetrical’ way to western theories ( sensu

Animists’ theories of ma er must be given equivalence at the level of theory if we are tounderstand adequately the nature of ontological di erence in the past. The current modelis of a natural ontological continuum that connects all cultures, grounding our culturallyrelativist worldviews in a common world. Indigenous peoples’ worlds are thought of as

fascinating but ultimately mistaken ways of knowing the world. We demonstrate howontologically oriented theorists Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Karen Barad and Tim Ingoldin conjuncture with an anti-representationalist methodology can provide the necessaryconditions for alternative ontologies to emerge in archaeology. Anthropo-zoomorphic‘body-pots’ from rst-millennium northwest Argentina anticipate the possibilitythat ma er was conceptualized as chronically unstable, inherently undi erentiated, and

ultimately practice-dependent.

Here we have a peculiar ontology which we couldde ne (as a) para-ontology, an ontology which is yetto be thought.

Giorgio Agamben, ‘What is a paradigm?’

Introduction: from culture to ontology

It is apparent that accounts of ‘non-modern’ worldso en insist on wholly other ways of being and ofconceptualizing reality. As archaeologists, then, howdo we access and write about worlds that could ‘be’entirely incommensurable with our own world ofexperience? What theoretical and methodologicaltools are necessary for the task? Even to speak ofmultiple ontologies can seem oxymoronic. ‘Ontology’is supposed to carry the weight of the real world, to bethe ground of action and understanding for archaeo-logy as for other social and natural disciplines; and soto pluralize it sounds like a trivialization, or a ‘post-modern’ discursive trick. Conversely, the plural risksthe suggestion of synonymy with ‘culture’. Both ofthese very real possibilities are symptoms of preciselythe elision of ontological concerns by epistemologicalones engendered by modernity (Henare et al. 2007;Latour 1993; Rollason 2008; Viveiros de Castro 2003).


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Latour 1993). Similarly, anthropologist Tim Ingold,and feminist philosopher and physicist Karen Barad,

both introduce us to ‘relational ontology’ as a morefundamental account of the inherent dynamism andma ering of the world than conventional Westernconceptualization allows. We nonetheless suggest thatthe globalizing tendency of both theorists is problem-atic. We need to challenge this tendency by refusingto grant priority to any particular theoretical positionand by adopting methodologies that are responsiveto alternative ontologies. A methodology grounded inthe potential for alternative worlds to become manifestin archaeological material is adapted from Henare etal.’s (2007) call to ‘take seriously’ apparently anoma-

lous claims in ethnography about the congruence ofmeaning and thing.In this article we explore the theoretical pos-

sibilities of an archaeology which takes ontologicalalterity seriously. We begin by discussing some ofthe key commonalities and di erences in argumentsfor new kinds of ontology put forward by Viveirosde Castro, Tim Ingold and Karen Barad. We thenconsider how their ideas might enable new ways ofthinking biomorphic vessels from rst-millennium

northwest Argentina (Figs. 1–4). What emerges is thepossibility that the local ontology was one in whicha background of ‘indi erence’ in bodies and ma erprovoked di erentiation through the materializationof speci c bodies and ‘body-pots’. Once materialized,

however, bodies and body-pots required constantmanagement to maintain their speci city in the face ofa general instability of ma er. ‘Agency’ is then an e ectof the relations that produce the di erentiation andstabilization of speci c material forms, not their cause.

Archaeology, animism, and ‘object agency’

Traditionally de ned as a generalized belief in an‘animating’ spirit or soul (Tylor 1993 (1871)), theresurgence of interest in animism has included itsreformulation as a type of relational ontology (e.g.Descola 1996; Ingold 2000; Alberti & Bray, this issue).Ethnographic accounts of other peoples’ worlds aresimultaneously the main provocation and the chiefresource to think about ontological alterity througharchaeology. The nature of their inclusion has beencrucial in se ing limits to what can be said, and par -allels the type of credibility a orded such ostensible‘beliefs’ (see Alberti & Bray, this issue). Animismhas been incorporated both as a source for modelsof past life, an analogical usage, and a resource forarchaeological theory. The notion of ‘object agency’illustrates how productive such incorporation has

been and its con uence with contemporary materialitytheory. Also revealed, however, is a potential barrierto understanding the world as quite literally ‘other’,as the notion itself relies on a ‘leap of faith’.

The incorporation of a focus on animism inarchaeology has paralleled an interest in exploringethnographic analogies that challenge taken-for-granted concepts, such as personhood (e.g. Fowler2004), gender and sexuality (e.g. Weismantel 2004),and materiality (e.g. Parker Pearson et al. 2006). Thisethnographically rich work has been enormously pro-ductive of theories and analogies for archaeologicalconsumption — i.e. as ‘fuel’ or ‘leverage’ for under-standing past lives (Fowler 2004; Thomas 2004, 241).

Broadly we agree with Thomas (2004, 241) when heargues that ‘the most important role of ethnographicanalogy lies not in lling in the gaps in our knowledgeof prehistoric societies but in troubling and disruptingwhat we think we already know’. Nonetheless, models

based on the identi cation of material correlates andthe application of analogies are likely to recover varia-tions of particular epistemologies (worldviews), ratherthan ontologies (worlds) precisely because of thetendency to reduce others’ ontologies to epistemolo-

Figure 1. Map of northwest Argentina showingextension of La Candelaria and San Francisco culturalmaterial around the Eastern Valleys or Yungas.

BRAZIL

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Arroyodel MedioArroyodel Medio

Is this correct or are the two darker-shaded areas the Puna Valleys? - Dora


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gies in the present. In other words, epistemologicalconcerns posit culture or belief as a lens through whichwe ‘know’ a singular the world, whereas ontology isconcerned with what it is we consider ‘the world’ to

be. The di erence is one between ‘how we know’ and

‘what there is’ — we tend to assume that the la er is auniversal given and the former culturally variable. Assuch, analogies will likely remain fascinating episte-mological alternatives to a Western worldview (whatwe ‘know’), rather than alternative ontologies (whatis real to us), if a uni-natural model remains dominantin archaeology (see Viveiros de Castro 1998; 2003).Despite the value of agentive notions of ma er andthings, we argue that ‘object agency’ exposes a lackof commitment to other peoples’ worlds and theories,acting as a cognitive trap that prevents archaeologistsfrom launching a fully ontological inquiry. The issueis what status archaeologists a ord others’ claimsand how we allow such notions to in ltrate or a ectour theories.

Recent theories of materiality in archaeology,especially in relation to the notion of object agency,clearly converge with ethnographic accounts ofother peoples’ relations to their environment andlocally-de ned notions of agency (e.g. Connoller2004; Ingold 2000; Sillar 2004). A stress on the activerole of material culture (Hodder 1986) has evolvedinto thinking of objects or material as agents (e.g.Knappe & Malafouris 2008). Fairly widely accepted,the idea is conceptually uncomplicated — things do,a er all, make us do things. When referring to thepotential agency of materials or objects, the notionof ‘secondary agency’, popularized by Gell (1998),helped convince people of the analytical legitimacy ofsuch non-human agents. The term implies a distinc-tion between ‘human agency’ and a kind of ‘objectagency’ as its derivative (e.g. Robb 2005). In particularcircumstances certain things can act as stand-ins foragents through a process of abduction. Some objectsclearly do have natural properties that mean they quiteliterally can ‘act on’ people (for example trees fall) andpeople act as if objects could act (for example AlfredGell and his Toyota car). In the la er case, it is seen to

be unimportant whether such beliefs are true; what issigni cant is that people act towards things as if theyhad agency. Non-Western peoples’ beliefs in animacywere a key inspiration for Gell (1998) and continue toimpact archaeology through his work. As Brown &Emery (2008, 302) contend, activity between humanand non-human agents can be revealed once the mod-ern dichotomy ‘that splits the world into people andthings’ has been suspended and we ‘seriously acceptthat some of what we recover in the archaeological

record re ects daily interactions between human andimportant nonhuman agents’.

Even though the potential for archaeologicalinterpretation and theory building on the basis ofanalogies with animist practices is clear, they are

fundamentally limited when it comes to uncoveringpast ontologies because the ‘leap of faith’ requiredto understand ontological di erence is ultimatelynot taken. At root is a confusion of ontological withepistemological claims. As Viveiros de Castro (2003)has noted, other peoples’ ontological commitments(their worlds) have been converted by anthropologyinto epistemologies (worldviews). As such, the incom-mensurability of other peoples’ worlds with ourscan only ever be understood at the level of ‘cultural’di erence; their ontologies can only be more-or-lessmistaken, fragmentary and partial ‘representations’of our singular ‘ontology’, synonymous with ‘nature’.Consequently, what we see in the use of interpretiveethnographic analogies and notions such as ‘objectagency’ is a greater acceptance of epistemologicaldiversity, but not necessarily a means to access otherontologies. In fact, the notion of ‘object agency’,especially in its ‘secondary agency’ form, relies on theresearcher’s conversion of an ontological claim into anepistemological one, allowing us to adopt a relativiststance in relation to others’ beliefs about the worldwithout actually subscribing to such beliefs (a formof ‘hypocrisy’: Viveiros de Castro 2002, 132–3). Thus,our apparent commitment to their beliefs masks theabsence of our belief in their actual commitments.

Procedural equivalence in theory

The potential for archaeology to uncover ontologicalalterity partly lies in sidestepping the elision of onto-logical claims by epistemological ones and realizingthe potential in others’ theories of the world. Viveirosde Castro (2002, 115; 2003) has explored what hap-pens when ‘the native’s discourse functions withinthe anthropologist’s discourse in such a way (that)it produces a reciprocal “knowledge-e ect” on thela er’. He asks:

(W)hat happens when we take native thought seri-ously? When the anthropologist’s aim ceases to be toexplain, interpret, contextualize and rationalize thisthought, and becomes one of using it, drawing outits consequences, and ascertaining the e ects it mayproduce on our own? (Viveiros de Castro 2003, 11)

In apparent agreement, Ingold (2006, 19) argues weshould ‘reanimate’ Western thought on the basis ofrethinking indigenous animism. A subtle di erenceis that while Ingold (e.g. 2006, 19) o ers a corrective


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to our misconceptions of how the world ‘really is’ onthe basis of animists’ accounts, Viveiros de Castro (e.g.2004a) rehabilitates indigenous thought as an intel-lectual resource for problematizing Western categoriesof thought and the notion of ‘a world as it really is’,

whether relational or otherwise. Neither is the answerto privilege other peoples’ accounts of the world, as innativism (which is not Ingold’s project), but rather toengage other peoples’ ontological or conceptual work as‘procedurally equivalent’ to what we do as anthropolo-gists; properly speaking, their theories are anthropolo-gies too (Viveiros de Castro 2003; 2004a, 4; 2006, 16).

The taking seriously of native thought, then,means that instead of neutralizing it through theapplication of universal concepts, it is treated asphilosophically challenging, a potential equivalent towestern philosophical doctrines (Viveiros de Castro2003). Viveiros de Castro (e.g. 1998; 2004a,b) applieshis argument that Amazonian thought as thoughtshould impact anthropology and ‘humanity’ by think-ing through the implications of ‘perspectivist’ theory.He uses the label ‘perspectivism’ to designate a ‘typeof cosmology’ common to Amazonian groups, but alsoto intervene in the relativism/universalism antinomythrough a consideration of the nature/culture questionas it manifests itself in Amazonian thought (2003, 5–6;2006, 14). Instead, therefore, of the notion of a unitarynature and many cultures each with its own culturalperspective on that nature (i.e. multiculturalism),perspectivism relies on the notion of ‘transpeci cpersonhood’ in which ‘souls’ (human and non-human)share a common origin and unity, while bodies anda ects are the seat of di erence (Castro de Viveiros1998; 2004a, 3, 6). One’s world (nature) is dependenton the body that one occupies. However, one sharesconcepts with other ‘souls’; therefore, how one seesthe world will remain the same across species. Insteadof multiculturalism and uninaturalism (the dominantWestern model), one gets uniculturalism and multi-naturalism: a unitary or constant epistemology andvariable or plural ontologies.

Perspectivism entails a rethinking of the natureof relations. In a reconceptualization of anthropology’s

fundamental task of comparison, or translation, Vivei-ros de Castro (2004a, 18) shows that to talk of beingrelated in the West implies having something in com-mon; perspectival relationality, in contrast, is foundedon ‘di erence rather than sameness’. The distinction

between the two modes of relation is revealed in theuse of ‘brother’ as the common idiom of relatednessin the west versus ‘brother-in-law’ or ‘cross cousin’in Amazonia. The rst mode implies unity througha common relation to a third term; in the second

mode the relation is one of diametric opposition, i.e.‘the terms are linked by that which separates them’(Strathern 1992, as cited in Viveiros de Castro 2004a,19). The di erence emerges once we consider that theunderlying premise of perspectivism is a background

of commonality, trans-speci c ‘cultural unity’. Estab -lishing a relation is then to ‘di erentiate indi erence’,to ‘insert a di erence where indi erence was implied’(Viveiros de Castro 2004a, 18–19). By contrast, inthe West ‘to relate is to assimilate, to unify, and toidentify’, producing analyses that posit a continuityon the basis of a shared ontology (‘nature’). In theperspectivist model, to relate is to di er: ‘translation(is) an operation of di erentiation — a production ofdi erence — that connects the two discourses to theprecise extent to which they are not saying the samething’ about synonymic concepts. For anthropology,the danger of the Western mode lies in imagining an‘overly simpli ed’ relation between it and its object,resulting from ‘a desire for ontological monism’, thatis, relations of identity such as that imagined by socialconstruction — the distinction between a ‘real’ worldof brute facts and ‘human world’ of institutional ones(Viveiros de Castro 2004a, 16, 20).

A world in ux: ma er’s inherent dynamism

To assume we need to know exactly the metaphysicalunderpinnings of alternative ontological possibilitiesseems to suggest we need to re-ground other peoples’theories in the ‘truths’ of our natural sciences. That isnot our intention. Rather, understanding the funda-mentally relational ontology of the physical world interms of our own, scienti c theories further preparesthe ground for imagining the possibility that otherpeoples’ worlds are as they say they are. In otherwords, pluralizing ‘ontologies’ may not be enoughto break a habit of mind that refuses to grant a literalrather than metaphorical presence to indigenouspeoples’ worlds or the past.

The physical world as objective fact has beentaken as the ground of reality since at least the adventof modernity (Latour 1993; Viveiros de Castro 1998;

2003; see Thomas 2004). The remit of science has beento reveal the immutable yet hidden truths of nature.Tim Ingold (2000; 2006; 2007a,b) and Karen Barad(2003; 2007), as two di erent disciplinary versions of a‘Western theoretical animism’, challenge the Cartesianassumption of an a priori separation of the world intotwo ontological domains: ma er and meaning (Barad2007), the physical world and the world of ideas(Ingold 2007a, 3). Their solution is to re-invigoratema er and re-materialize meaning through practice.


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Barad’s use of ma er as an ontological category andIngold’s focus on materials as opposed to ma er sharea concern with the dynamic, ultimately relationallyconstituted, and inherently indeterminate state of‘nature’. According to Barad (2007, 151 emphasis in

original), ‘ ma er is substance in its intra-active becoming— not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency’.

To demonstrate how the generalized ontologi-cal indeterminacy is resolved into local determinacy,Barad (2007, 81–3, 99–106) develops the example of the‘wave-particle duality paradox’ of quantum physicsin which ma er is shown to act as both a wave or aparticle, yet these are mutually exclusive states. InBarad’s reading, there is no paradox: the entiretyof the material conditions necessary to conduct theexperiment produces the speci c state of the objectmeasured (in this case, an electron). A wave or particleis produced within the speci c ‘phenomenon’ thatincludes both apparatus and object. In other words,there are no independent, individual ‘things’ (objects,subjects, etc.) with pre-determined properties oridentities, only ‘things-in-phenomena’. The concepts‘wave’ and ‘particle’ are not properties intrinsic tothe electron, but are quite literally embodied by thelarger ‘apparatus’, so that each concept is materialonly in a very speci c sense. The speci c materialconditions of an apparatus determine the boundariesand properties of the measured object as well as themeasuring apparatus.

For Ingold, the relational constitution of beingconsists of ‘a eld’ of ‘interwoven lines’ — or a‘meshwork’ — in contrast to interconnected points,or a set of pre-determined objects (Ingold 2006, 13).The relation ‘is a line along which materials ow, mixand mutate’ (Ingold 2007b, 35). According to Ingold(2007b, 35), ‘every thing’ is itself an entanglement ofrelations, including both persons and things, whichare not ‘nodes’ or something qualitatively di erentfrom the relations themselves, but rather ‘bundlesof relations’. The environment itself, as a ‘domain ofentanglement’, consists of the interwoven growth ofmany such relational beings.

Similarly, for Barad, relational ‘phenomena’ and

not objects are ontologically primitive and thereforeconstitutive of physical reality (Barad 2007, 140, 151).Things exist only in relation to other things. In contrastto a substance ontology, subjects and objects withdeterminate boundaries and properties are outcomesof relationships and do not precede them. An impor-tant consequence is that what we call the ‘objectivereferent’ to which we can properly a ribute properties,predicates, a ributes, and so on, are not objects andsubjects but rather the phenomenon as a whole (i.e.

both object and apparatus). Ingold also insists thatthings or materials do not have pre-occurent proper-ties but are ‘processual and relational’; properties arehistories rather than a ributes, as illustrated in hispoint about the properties of stone as opposed to the

notion of the ‘materiality’ of stone:Stoniness, then, is not in the stone’s ‘nature’, inits materiality. Nor is it merely in the mind of theobserver or practitioner. Rather, it emerges throughthe stone’s involvement in its total surroundings—including you, the observer—and from the manifoldways in which it is engaged in the currents of thelifeworld. (Ingold 2007a, 15)

Just as ‘electrons’ do not bring with them propertiesthat pre-exist the phenomenon in which they aremanifested or measured, the properties of stone arenot internal to it as ‘stoniness’. Properly speaking,the properties of stone are properties of the larger

phenomenon of which the stone and observer areconstitutive parts.

If things were to stop their ‘action’ of relatingthey would no longer be. If relations are ontologi-cally prior, then the world is inherently animatedand dynamic. In Ingold’s account, life is continuallyin a process of generation, of re-birth; agency issynonymous with life, while for Barad, agency is ane ect of ongoing ‘intra-actions’, the causal structurethat di erentiates ‘thing-in-phenomena’. In contrastto the notion of ‘object agency’, then, agency is notseparated into two di erent types — intentional ande ective. This notion of agency is quite di erent fromsimply refusing humans sole propriety over agency, asthe democratizing notions of ‘secondary agent’ (Gell1998) and ‘actant’ (Latour 1993) imply. As Sillar (thisissue) argues, agency is the e ect of relations (see alsoGardner 2008; Gell 1998; Joyce & Lopiparo 2005; Robb2008), but in Barad’s and Ingold’s accounts, those rela-tions are not between pre-existing entities, but are theoutcome of the di erentiating impulse that producesdeterminate entities in the rst place. As such, agencyis less a choice between external natural causes andhuman-authored intentional action, and more an e ectof ongoing material-discursive practices that produce

both human and non-human in the rst place.Both Barad and Ingold propose ‘meta-ontolo-gies’, quite di erent from traditional substance ontolo -gies yet with the same implied claim to universality.Barad’s ontology provides a generalized explanationfor the mechanism of ontological constitution andrecon guration, which is both physical and meaning -ful, but which is radically open to recon gurationand pluralization. Ethnography is central to Ingold’sworld, but it is still a singular world. We are le with


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the problem of the relationship between these global,and implicitly singular theories and ontologies, andthe status of other peoples’ ontological claims. Asimilar point could be made about the ‘meta-ontology’under-girding ‘symmetrical’ approaches in archaeol-

ogy (e.g. Olsen 2003; Witmore 2007; see also Henareet al. 2007, 7). To propose a relational ontology basedon ma er’s inherent dynamism solves the problem ofneeding an animating human hand to enable agencyand action, but it does not necessarily place us on apath to ontological alterity (multiple worlds) such asthe Amazonian ontologies discussed by Viveiros deCastro. This requires a further step which dependsupon taking seriously the ‘cross reality’ challengeswhich emerge from anthropological and archaeologi-cal accounts of other worlds.

Open-ended conceptuality

In a discussion of the methodological implicationsof new theories of ‘agency’ in archaeology, Dobres &Robb (2005) argued that theory, method, and method-ology need to be thought and practised together ratherthan sequentially. Drawing on Viveiros de Castro’stheories, Henare et al. (2007) propose a methodologyfor anthropology that gets at ontological alterity. Inline with Dobres & Robb (2005), they argue that theoryproduction must be ongoing rather than pre-deter-mined. Present analytic approaches are problematic,they argue, because they rely on a ‘classi catoryrepertoire intended for re nement and expansion’(Henare et al. 2007, 5) and thus deny the possibilityof ‘ontological breakthrough’ because data are edinto pre-existing schemas. In contrast, they developa heuristic concept of the ‘thing’, which is treated asa more-or-less empty signi er (much like Strathern’s(1988) ‘person’); the things themselves as they areencountered act as ‘conduits for concept production’(Henare et al. 2007, 7). New analytical frameworksand theory are produced as a result of the encounter,not prior to it.

This methodological minimalism opens upanalyses, enabling apparent anomalies to provide a

route into ontological alterity (see Bray, this issue).Conventionally, anomalous things are treated asepistemological conundrums the solutions to whichare thought to lie in expanding familiar interpretivecategories to encompass them (Henare et al. 2007, 6;e.g. Holbraad 2007 on the history of mana interpreta-tions). To get around the conventional separation of athing and its meaning, Henare et al. (2007, 2–3) adoptthe anti-representationalist strategy of ‘radical essen-tialism’ by ‘taking things in the eld as they present

themselves, rather than immediately assuming thatthey signify, represent, or stand for something else’.Holbraad’s (2007) work among the Ifá diviners of Cubareveals the powder-power, aché , as neither an isolat-able concept nor thing. Approached by an Ifá diviner

who thinks powder is power and vice versa, we neednot assume that our representations are inadequate;nor need we try to explain why someone (or some‘culture’) might think powder were power. Holbraad(2007) shows that refusing a priori the separation

between thing and concept enables him to ‘thinkthrough’ a new concept (powder-power) and explainIfá ontology as constituted by motility and transcend-ence. In another example, Marshall (2008) examinesthe confusion experienced by European explorersand traders a empting to distinguished persons ofhigh rank among the Nuu-chah-Nulth people ofthe North American Northwest Coast despite theiralmost complete disregard for status-speci c dressor insignia. The only example described was a rainhat depicting whaling scenes presumed to mark outa chief. But even the rain hats did not, in fact couldnot, ‘signify’ rank or status because persons were notstabilized and marked out as particular kinds of being,or understood to have xed identities. Instead peopleneeded to maintain themselves in a state of constantmotion, shi ing and transforming between positionsand states. In this process material objects were takenup to enable such movement, not to designate, displayor hold steady an achieved position. Li le wonder theEuropean newcomers were perplexed.

Refusing the separation of concept and thingis not con ned to anthropology or archaeology. Itis happening within the physical sciences too. Therevelatory potential of anomalies also drives Barad’s(2007) work (for example, the ‘wave-particle dualityparadox’). If within the terms of their own theories thehard sciences are able to encompass the possibility thatphysical reality itself, as conceived by Western science,is fundamentally relational, then concept productiondirected at archaeological material must also encom-pass the virtualities of its physicality. Speci cally, ma eras dynamic and continuously open to recon guration

and agency-as-e ect or ‘in life’ are allied notions withheuristic potential. Archaeologists and anthropologistshave di erent opportunities for recognizing and uncov -ering anomalies. Holbraad’s and Viveiros de Castro’santhropological accounts have an underdevelopedsense of the ‘ma er’ of the thing. In contrast, becauseof the irreducibly material nature of archaeological‘concept-things’, their ‘prosaic’ character (Holbraad2007, 208) will necessarily have greater weight in theinvestigation and rethinking of concepts.


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Towards ‘ontological breakthrough’ in frst-millennium northwest Argentina

Research currently being conducted by Alberti onmaterials from northwest Argentina, particularly

biomorphic pots, is the grounds for elaboration ofthe terms in which ontological di erence can becomeintelligible (Alberti 2006; 2007; Figs. 1–4). This is nota case study or example, which would entail actuallyunderstanding the logic of the ontology of the pots,

but rather an extension of the theoretical discussion.A contrast is drawn between two possible approachesto the Argentinian material in order to illuminate thedi erence between a conventional interpretation,which rests on questions of an epistemological nature,and an approach which a empts to take ontologicalalterity seriously. The rst, more traditional approachwould be to treat the pots as ‘representations’ of ananimist (or perspectivist) worldview. Here, analogieswith ethnographic parallels are useful. The secondapproach, and the one advocated here for ge ing atontological di erence, is that ‘worldviews’ is not whatwe are a er at all but precisely ‘worlds’, in which caseperspectivism as a set of theoretical possibilities must

be adopted in order to understand the pots.The anthropo-zoomorphic vessels and burial

material from the La Candelaria and San Franciscoregion of northwest Argentina during the rst mil -lennium reveal exaggerated anatomical features,human/bird or human/animal ‘hybrid’ forms, and

biomorphic protrusions or ‘ mamelones’ (Figs. 2–3;Alberti 2007; Gore i 2006). There are also exceptionalpieces of ner quality that depict single or twined ani -mals in a naturalistic style. Much of the material wasrecovered by collectors, so contextual data are sparse.Poorly preserved se lements with small assemblagesof urn burials in proximity predominate; the materialrecovered archaeologically largely comes from such

burials (Baldini et al. 2003; Heredia 1968; 1975). Whilethe material shares characteristics with a tradition thatencompasses many of the cultures of the wider area,no canon for the imagery has been developed (Alberti2007; DeMarrais 2007; Lazzari 2005).

When faced with this body of material the imme-diate question is what does it mean? A conventionalanswer is that it represents the beliefs of past peoples.The task of archaeologists is then to re-constructmore-or-less accurate interpretations of the underly-ing meanings inherent in the vessel forms and theirimagery. Since the pots and their imagery t withina generally Andean framework of beliefs, they aretaken to indicate or to have been involved in ritualand other activities (e.g. DeMarrais 2007; González

1977; Llamazares & Sarasola 2006). Thus, here a focuson animism would entail ‘reading o ’ such meaningsfrom the pots, perhaps on the basis of analogy withethnohistoric or ethnographic accounts. As such, in anearlier publication Alberti (2007) made the case thatthe location of the La Candelaria and San Franciscocultures, wedged, as it seemed to him, between theAndes and the lowlands, enabled him to read ofrom his material Amazonian cosmological content,an analogical usage.

Following representationalist logic, analogicalcorrespondence could be sought between the form ofthe vessels and the content of Amazonian myth. The LaCandelaria material corresponds well with some ele-ments of Amazonian cosmology. The hybrid pot forms(e.g. Fig. 3) recall the widespread Amazonian beliefin a transition point from mythic time when humans

and animals were not yet clearly distinguished tocurrent-day discrete identities (Lévi-Strauss 1969).Alternatively, the hybrid gures could be taken torepresent shamanic journeys, where distinct pointsof view were achieved by hallucinogen-inducedcorporeal transformation (e.g. Llamazares & Sarasola2006; Pérez Gollán 2000). More adventurously, the

biomorphic protrusions and general unse lednessof form could indicate the existence of ‘the mythicalriverrun of uent metamorphosis’ that continues its

Figure 2. La Candelaria-style ceramic vessel showingbiomorphic ‘protrusions’. (Museo de La UniversidadNacional de Tucumán; photograph, B. Alberti.)


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‘turbulent course’ below the separate surface of the bodies that separate species (e.g. Figs. 2–4; Viveirosde Castro 2007, 159). As such, an argument could bemade that the vessels are the material embodimentof myth manifested through the establishment ofa gurative art tradition, three-dimensional beliefs

given greater force by their material permanence.However, analogical reasoning, while important forlaying out the possibilities of di erent worlds, doesnot necessarily actualize the ontological potential ofthose worlds. The logic of the myths themselves, iftreated as ‘the discourse of the Given’ (Wagner 1978,as cited in Viveiros de Castro 2008) rather than stories,also reveals the unlikelihood of the pots representingmythic events. If identity conceived as ‘disorganized

bodies’ (Viveiros de Castro 2007, 158) is an ongoing

state, a truth established by myth itself, then to suggestthat the pot ‘represents’ this ‘story’ is to remove thepot from that world. To follow the logic of the theoryin its own terms would necessarily entail understand-ing the pot as part of the same ‘ongoing’ process of

identity and world formation. It is quite probable thatthe gurative material played an active role in ritual(e.g. DeMarrias 2007, 255; Llamazares & Sarasola 2006,64–5) and that a connection exists between present-dayAmazonian cosmologies and the archaeological mate-rial. A representationalist approach assumes that thething as sign vehicle reveals a story or set of cultural

beliefs inscribed in it and read o it. But, as demon -strated, a simple representationalist logic is actuallycounter to the terms of ‘perspectivist’ theory itself. Toadopt such an approach to understanding the mate-rial — ‘reading o ’ myth or worldviews — merelyunre exively imposes the separation thing-meaning.This is not to say that forms of representation did notexist, but they would not necessarily be of the kindthat we would immediately recognize (see Viveirosde Castro 2007 for an alternative Amazonian logic ofrepresentation). Thus, assuming a straightforwardrepresentationalist approach to the meaning of thepots undermines the possibilities of discovering theontological logic they embody.

A di erent procedure is required for archaeologyto reveal anomalies as such, one which is literalist (i.e.non-representationalist) and suspicious of potentially‘neutralizing’ universal concepts, such as ‘body’ or‘gender’ (Viveiros de Castro 2003). For example, theLa Candelaria pots viewed conventionally are ‘things’(pots) with a speci c form and decorative aspectwhich is understood as the imprint of culture, i.e. asa representation of a body. In contrast to Holbraad’s(2007) powder–power analysis, the confoundingthing-concept is already fully entailed in the initialencounter. A twofold anomaly, this is in fact a ‘pot-

body’, where neither ‘thing’ (pot) nor ‘concept’ (body,as representation) matches exactly what we expect.An array of ontological possibilities are opened up,our access to which will be guided by the ‘anomolies’of the material (once released from the thing/concept

dualism) and the theory we bring to bear. Generalpossibilities include a notion that all body-pots areontologically equivalent; that the ma er of esh andthe ma er of ceramic pot ‘bear’ material truths in thesame way (ta oos and engraved marks on pots arenot distinct; or to break a pot and to break a body hasthe same material consequences). All of which is notto say that local representational regimes did not existor are not, potentially, relevant to the understandingof ‘body-pot’. However, the logic of ‘representation’

Figure 3. La Candelaria-style zoomorphic ceramicvessel. (Museo de La Universidad Nacional de Tucumán;

photograph, B. Alberti.)


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cannot be assumed and should be explored in eachcase (e.g. Viveiros de Castro 2007). Nonetheless, therelationship between body and pot is likely more thanmetaphorical. For example, when indications of sexon body-pots are found among the corpus (e.g. Fig.

4) the conventional question is one of seeing throughthe quirks of the local representational idiom ofgender to the biological body that is presumed to beits referent. Within Western taxonomic schemes thepresence or absence of certain sexed characteristicsare used to place the gure into one of two categorieson the basis of their culturally speci c ‘representation’of sex (e.g. Sca olin 2006; see Alberti 2006). Figure 4is one of several vaguely similar forms. The shallowgroove impressed in the clay between the ‘legs’ alongwith the presence of ‘nipples’ conventionally are takento indicate sex, enabling the gure to be categorizedas a representation of a female. The consequence, ofcourse, is that any speci cs (i.e. potential anomalies)are lost within the general analytic frame of sex/genderand binary sex. In contrast, on the basis of the mate-rial itself we could produce a new, locally conceivedtheoretical framework that built from such apparentanomalies. It is not necessarily the case that we haverepresented here a ‘belief’ that bodies were consideredpot-like or pots were considered body-like, a simplemetaphorical relationship; rather, the concept ‘body-pot’ is a literal element of La Candelaria ontology.Once we treat the material as it is presented to us,the question What cultural variations of a given bodyare revealed? gives way to What is a body, what is a pot? or even What is gender, what is sex? In other words,what are the theoretical possibilities of this speci c

body-pot?To animate these pots means thinking through

them in terms of appropriate theories that are likelyto reveal their alterity as ontological rather thanepistemological. Examining the pots in light of thespeci c theoretical postulates of Barad, Ingold andperspectivism, two inter-related possibilities emerge:that ma er and physical form were considered inher -ently unstable, and that the pots can be understood asinserting a di erence and therefore bringing into local

determinacy a potential belonging to indeterminate(or indi erent) but dynamic background ma er.Working with the concept of the ‘chronically

unstable body’ elaborated on the basis of the theoriesof the northwest Amazon group, the Wari’, by Apare-cida Vilaça (2005; see Conklin 2001), Alberti (2007)argued that the La Candelaria and San Francisco potsand skeletal material indicated a concern with ‘shor-ing up’ the body, preventing its transformation intoanother body with another point of view. Combining

the perspectivist theory of the corporeal seat of iden-tity with Ingold’s (2007a) argument that ‘materials’ are

ows, and properties ‘histories’, and Barad’s (2007)insistence that ma er is inherently indeterminate, onecan argue that the volumes and forms of the ceramicsdo not so much ‘represent’ anything as ‘participatein’ an everyday concern with the instability of mat-

ter. Ingold’s (2007a) challenge to the common-sensedurability of ma er, and his critique of notions suchas ‘materiality’ which lead to essentialism (i.e. stone ishard because of its ‘stoniness’), stretches the concept ofma er as usually deployed in archaeology. The logicof the body-pot (i.e. as an extension of the concept

body over pot, and likewise of the concept pot — asmaterials, not nished object — over body) revealsma er itself as conceptualized as unstable. This, then,was its ‘natural’ condition.

Figure 4. La Candelaria-style anthropomorphic body-pot.(Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán Museo;

photograph, B. Alberti.)


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With that general idea in mind, one way to under-stand speci c di erences in this material is to think ofthe body-pots as revealing notions about relatednessas ‘inserting a di erence’ into a background of indif -ference. As such, the body-pot is not an agglomeration

of a ributes, body parts, sex marks, clay, water etc.that are added on successively to a xed backgroundof ma er (i.e. the natural world, in a modern sense).Barad’s (2007; see above) notion of ‘phenomenon’captures a way to formalize the relationship in whicha local resolution of generalized indeterminacy occursand speci c objects are crystallized out in determinateways. Rather than bodies, sex, pots, and ma er beingthought of in an additive sense, their forms could beseen as a consequence of di erentiating out — mak -ing determinate — certain characteristics, such assex, from a generalized background of indi erence.Those characteristics materialize as the di erence thatis inserted in order to establish a relation. That di er -ence does not ‘signify’ sex, or even create a relationof ‘identity’ between that pot and a real woman. Tothink in terms of instability and in terms of an indif-ferent background suggests that the di erence ‘sex’makes here is at the literal level of ma er. The sexeddi erence is marking and stabilizing that speci c potas sexed.

Ma er and materials are actively involved intheir own recon guration and in se ing the terms oftheir own intelligibility (Barad 2007; Ingold 2007a).The existence of a strong correspondence betweenma er, practice and meaning in Barad’s work (2007),indicates that ‘ma er’ can be seen as inseparable fromthe actions it engenders. As such, separate worlds of,on the one hand, obdurate ma er, and on the other,active practices do not exist. Rather, all processes andactions are ‘natural’ ones. Hence, to work on a body,a body-pot, or ma er, is to ensure their stability aspart of their natural processes, not as a cultural action‘layered over’ stable, inert ma er. Among the Wari’,the a ects that keep a body and therefore a point ofview stable are such ‘natural practices’ as they arenot considered cultural over and against a natural

body (Conklin 2001; Vilaça 2005). In the same way,

we argue, the on-going ‘ma ering’ of the world can be conceived analogically as on-going ‘a ect’; ma ertoo has to behave appropriately and to maintain itspoint of view or intelligibility (Barad 2007). In thecase of the pots this parallelism between bodies andma er can be seen in the way body-pots are treated.Body-pots were worked on in an indistinguishableprocess to bodies, arguably to prevent their transfor-mation and keep their points of view and bodies fromtransforming (Alberti 2007). The speci c marks made

on the body-pot in Figure 4, such as the impressed‘genitals’, are a ect-driven (i.e. practice-based), aimedto provide stability. For example, if ‘times were hard’,as has been argued through osteological analyses ofthe La Candelaria culture associated population at Las

Pirguas caves (Baldini et al. 2003), it could be arguedthat ma er was being experienced as increasinglyunstable and therefore that appropriate a ect wasdi cult to achieve, transformation increasingly imma -nent. Therefore, pots were mended, urn burials werere-opened, bodies were increasingly rearticulated,

burned, or buried in novel ways (Baldini et al. 2003).The processes in which such material transformationswere involved (whether ‘natural’ or ‘cultural’), such asthe stages of making, using, and eventually depositinga body-pot, were all aimed at bringing something into

being from a generalized background of unindividu-ated ma er and then preventing inappropriate trans -formation. However, ma er was never ‘ xed’ even iffelt like it was ( red ceramic is harder than raw clay);fragility was about appropriate practice (a ect), notsome inherent quality of the ‘substance’ that we under-stand that material to be or become. The body-pot inits alterity reveals itself as the possible embodimentof the principle that ma er is by its very nature a ectdependent. The body-pot, therefore, embodies theantinomy of stability and instability, the instability ofma er and the stabilizing e ect of practice, whetherhuman-authored or not. Consequently, the questionof agency is reversed: the issue is no longer howthings get movement (i.e. agency) but rather howthey stabilize.

Conclusion: chronically unstable theories

The language of ontology is important precisely because it counteracts the tendency to see indigenousthought as fantasy, which happens when the ‘natives’point of view’ is reduced to a metaphor or worldview(Viveiros de Castro 2003, 14). The analogical use ofanimism in archaeology can shed light on an incred-ible array of cultural practices and beliefs, but it cannotreveal the past as any more di erent than the terms

of the analogy dictate. In contrast, the theoretical andmethodological starting point adopted here enablesus to feel the actual (rather than derived) impact ofanimist theories on our interpretations. Our argumentis that to get at ontological alterity through the pastrequires an approach that is open to the possibilityof plural ontologies. ‘Animist’ theories of the world,such as perspectivism, present just such possibilities,as do contemporary theories of ma er, such as thoseof Barad and Ingold. Importantly, we are not simply


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advocating ‘theoretical eclecticism’ — the outcome hasto be a speci c theory for a speci c body of material

because general frameworks limit our data’s ability to‘extend our theoretical imagination’ (Holbraad 2007,190). The outcome of the speci c analysis presented

here, that ma er was inherently unstable, is suggestivethat perhaps our theories of ma er need to be too.‘Source theories’ that problematize ontology are likelyto enable novelties to emerge from any archaeologicalmaterial. There is no reason to assume that one theoryis more or less appropriate than another from theoutset. As such, the relevance of ‘perspectivist’ theoryfor archaeological explanation is not limited to expla-nations of ‘perspectivists’. Archaeological ontologiesought to be singularities emergent from speci c dataand contexts rather than general frameworks appliedto all cases, and the speci c con uence of theoriesand materials (archaeological and otherwise) willenable non-predictable, materially di erent pasts toemerge.

Similarly, the categories of Western thoughtthrough which we operate are clearly obeying a spe-ci c ontological logic. Even so, they are not closed. Justas the gaps in dualist structures can be deliberate andthemselves the object of thought (Viveiros de Castro2006; see Alberti & Bray, this issue), the engagement

between Western categories and archaeological mate-rial is unscripted even if the terms of the debate aregiven. The traditional concepts of ‘body’ and ‘pot’enable particular pasts to emerge and are archaeologi-cally indispensable for all sorts of analyses. However,archaeological anomalies can also drive the reformula-tion of categories, whether the goal is to produce newconcepts (Henare et al. 2007) or to ‘stretch’ our exist-ing categories of thought (Viveiros de Castro 2006).Others are clearly struggling to enable alternativeontologies to break through the over-determinationof dualist structures. For example, Marshall (2000)has shown how the tension in Wilson Du ’s accountof gender in a set of Northwest Coast stone objectsresulted from his consistently dividing the materialaccording to dualistic structures yet being sensitive toand searching for a way to articulate the complexity

of the material.The ontology of the past is present in the waysin which it is brought into determinate meaning byour writing about it. To say that ‘both people andpots require work to prevent their transformation’ isto suggest a commonality between people and potswhere one is not expected. To incorporate that ideainto future production is to change the terms of the useof the concepts in the discipline. This is not so much a‘proposition’ about the past as an intervention, a work

of conceptual elaboration in the present. It remainsto be seen whether the potential ontological alterity— the ‘para-ontologies’ — implicit in our material can

be made to reveal new worlds.

Acknowledgements

Our gratitude to Alejandra Korstanje and Eduardo Ribo aof the Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tucuman,Argentina, for assistance researching material in their col-lections and for permission to reproduce photographs. BAis grateful to Chris Fowler and Jo Brück for the invitationto chair a session as part of their theme, ‘MaterializingIdentities’, at WAC-6, Dublin 2008. The present article hasits roots in the paper delivered to the conference. Thank youto Tamara Bray, co-organizer and co-editor of this issue, andall the participants in the session for stimulating discoursearound the topic of ‘animating archaeology’. John Robb andan anonymous reviewer provided important constructive

criticism, from which the article bene ted, although wewere unable to fully address their concerns here. We aregrateful to Carl Martin, who provided invaluable editorialadvice; and to Framingham State College philosophers JoeD’Andrea, Paul Bruno, and Doug Seale, who put up withincessant questions about ontology. Thank you to KarenAlberti, without whom this article could not have beenwri en.

Ben AlbertiDepartment of Anthropology

Framingham State College100 State St

Framingham, MA 01701USA

Email: [email protected]

Yvonne MarshallDepartment of ArchaeologyUniversity of Southampton

Avenue CampusHigh eld

SouthamptonSO17 1BF

UK Email: [email protected]

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