Reviews
the expressive components of ritual and ceremony, and by
drawing greater attention to the transcendental components
of belief reveals the limitations of sociological definitions
of ritual that have been dominant within anthropology,
and latterly archaeology, from Durkheim onwards. A clear
articulation of direction is provided in the final chapter by
Mitchell. He calls for a ‘post-Structuralist Material Culture
mode’, in which there is a shift from the study of meaning,
structure and ideology towards practice and effect — from
representational to non-representational approaches. Within
this, material culture is central as a locus for much of the
agency generated and maintained through ritual acts. The
move is from sociological construction to performance,
distributed agency and materiality.
So, is this volume a ‘cult classic’? Well, probably not,
but it is a highly readable, stimulating and useful series of
papers that begins to chart a notable shift in interpretive
direction within the archaeological study of ritual (compare
this with earlier collections on the theme, such as Garwood
et al. 1991). My one gripe is that the papers are often too
short for the richness/complexity of the evidence and argu-
ment required. Within this field, ‘thick description’ (a full
articulation of context) has considerable value.
Joshua Pollard
Department of Archaeology & Anthropology
University of Bristol
43 Woodland Road
Bristol
BS8 1UU
UK
Email: Joshua.Pollard@bris.ac.uk
References
Bradley, R., 2005. Ritual and Domestic Life in Prehistoric Europe.
London: Routledge.
Brück, J., 1999. Ritual and rationality: some problems of
interpretation in European archaeology. European
Journal of Archaeology 2(3), 313–44.
Garwood, P., D. Jennings, R. Skeates & J. Toms (eds.), 1991.
Sacred and Profane: Proceedings of a Conference on Archaeo­
logy, Ritual and Religion. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Archaeology and the Media, edited by Timothy Clack &
Marcus Brittain, 2007. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast
Press; ISBN 978-1-59874-233-6 hardback £40 & US$89;
ISBN 978-1-59874-234-3 paperback £15.99 & US$29.95,
328 pp., 47 figs., 1 table
Christopher Witmore
Permit me to begin this review with a brief allegory. The
Egyptian god Theuth, the cunning originator of arithmetic,
geography, astronomy and writing, goes forth to present
CAJ 19:2, 277–9 © 2009 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
doi:10.1017/S0959774309000420
277
these latest of inventions to Thamous. After stressing the
merits and utility of each, Theuth in turn listens to the bal-
anced praise and critique of the wise king; but then comes
the example of writing. Theuth states:
Your highness, this science will increase the intel-
ligence of the people of Egypt and improve their
memories. For this invention is a potion for memory
and intelligence.
To this Thamous replies:
You are most ingenious, Theuth. But you tell me
the opposite of writing’s true effect. It will atrophy
people’s memories. Trust in writing will make them
remember things by relying on marks made by
others, from outside themselves, not on their own
inner resources, and so writing will make the things
they have learnt disappear from their minds. Your
invention is a potion for jogging the memory, not for
remembering.
It doesn’t matter whether or not you have read Plato’s
Pheadrus, in which the allegory of Theuth and Thamous was
told, because its basic plot has been reiterated many times,
by so many artists, archaeo­logists, journalists, technicians
and television producers. The plot is utterly familiar. Just as
writing exists outside and separate from the workings of the
human mind, so too the message it conveys is separate from
the medium, the vehicle that transports it. Mind and matter,
ends and means, meaning and material: such is the familiar
(modernist) plot into which media almost inevitably fall.
In the millennia since Plato’s Phaedrus, the mixed-up
fates of media and men (much less archaeologists), for better
and worse, have become ever more intertwined. Perhaps it is
a sign of our times that mention of the word ‘media’ should
be conflated so often with ‘the media’. Given the ubiquity
of media, and given the capriciousness of the media, the
appearance of a book entitled Archaeology and the Media is long
overdue. To be sure, ‘the media’ betrays a particular emphasis
from the front cover onwards. For the editors, Timothy Clack
and Marcus Brittain, ‘media is both the means to mass communi­
cation and the material agency by which that communication
is transmitted, transferred, or conveyed’ (p. 9). My emphases
underscore two points of concern which I shall raise, at the
expense of many of the book’s merits, in the course of this
review: 1) media taken as ‘the media’, and 2) the pesky dis-
tinction set forth by the Platonic plot with which we began.
Taking media in the singular not only does an injustice
to what they are (and I am referring to more than the incorrect
use of Latin grammar), it also does an injustice to the diverse
array of concerns which Clack and Brittain have admirably
drawn together in this book. Targetting archaeology’s rela-
tionships to ‘mass media’, its fourteen chapters give insights
into film, television, newspapers, photography, literature,
video games and emergent media. If the allegory of Theuth
and Thamous seems a distant concern to such a book, then
that distance falls away when one considers how its plot
is built into the very divisions of labour between primary
research and secondary dissemination, between content pro-
ducers (‘fuzzies’) and technical personnel (‘techies’), between
interviewees and journalists. As Clack and Brittain point
 Reviews
out, there seems to be no end to archaeologists’ frustration
when it comes to the associated transformations that occur
in the jump across the rift between these different cultures.
Academic turned popular, accurate turned sensationalized,
fact turned fiction; if all media are sieves, then when it comes
to archaeology, popular media seem to offer the coarsest
mesh of all. These anxieties are amplified under a political
economy of top-down information design — scrambling for
authority and control seems the modus operandi of giant media
companies (the link between media and power is as old as
Theuth himself).
While these differences are exaggerated and over-
simplified, the repetitive dichotomy upon which they rest
nonetheless provides moorings from which many of the
chapters cast off.
Between these disparate cultures (archaeologists and
journalists; archaeologists and TV producers), both bones
of contention and boons of collaboration are to be found
throughout the book. These relations need not always gravi-
tate to the former. To such ends, in Chapter 5 both Brian Fagan
and Francis Pryor suggest archaeologists be trained to write
for larger audiences and engage with the media. Somewhat
obliquely, Timothy Taylor, in his contribution, argues that
certain problems are not so much connected with disjunc-
tures between the different cultures, as with archaeological
presuppositions about the nature of human beings. These
‘paradigms’, as Taylor describes them, leave little room for
unseemly acts such as cannibalism, and such sensational
acts are what often capture popular attention. Whatever the
response, the perpetuation of the two cultures masks the
diverse associations which take place behind the scenes.
With regard to the archaeology of the Great War, in
Chapter 8 Jon Price emphasizes the mutual gains of direct
collaboration in his experiences with film production
companies such as Maya Vision. As the editors emphasize,
such paths of communication are full of many circuitous
moves, many complex detours. In attempting to understand
journalistic craftsmanship across thirteen magazines and
newspapers, Marion Benz and Anna Katrien Liedmeier’s
study focuses on issues of choice in the selection of archaeo-
logical stories. They situate the topic of editorial decision (a
term whose etymological roots connect to the act of cutting)
in archaeological reporting in a fluctuating and heterogene-
ous web involving issues of relevance, proximity, currency,
sensation and competition. Of course, for archaeology these
relations are not what they once were.
Like Oscar Montelius working out his laminar
sequences of European Bronze Age artefacts, Karol Kulik
(Ch. 4) subdivides archaeological communication into five
ages: from antiquarian (1700s–1830s) to print (1840s–1910s)
to mass (1920s–1950s) to specialist (1960s–1980s) to global
(1990 to the present). If archaeology’s audience was once
relegated to the gentleman club networks of late eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century London (to take but one example),
then an archaeology which draws public interest from the
comforts of myriad couches is of a radically different sort.
Following the old maxim that to know our past is to better
prepare for our future, Kulik cautions archaeologists to
maintain a positive relationship with this ‘public’.
278
Several chapters in Archaeology and the Media deal with
portrayal of archaeology on television and in film (also see
Holtorf 2007). In Chapter 3, Peter Fowler discusses the rela-
tionship between archaeology and television programmes
such as Hidden Treasure, Time Team and Animal, Vegetable,
Mineral. In Chapter 10, Tom Stern provides a brief history
of archaeological film in Germany and then moves on to
discuss the style of films generated by the French com-
pany Gedeon-Produktions. A conversation by the editors
with Fagan and Pryor lends perspective to the differences
between British and American television.
In our screen-saturated societies, television seems to
provide an all but obligatory passage point of gargantuan
proportions. At its best, television amplifies archaeology’s
audience and ignites the interest of the public. At its worst,
television does not so much reflect opinions as create them,
nor so much mirror society as model it (Serres 2006, 68–9).
Little by little, (the) media are remaking archaeology.
Despite the weight that is thrown towards television,
Archaeology and the Media shows how different media draw
different masses. Christine Finn (Ch. 6) discusses the powers
of Lennart Larsen’s photographs of bog bodies to excite the
imagination as translated in other media. Both Fagan and
Pryor speak to the untapped potentials of radio. Andrew
Garner (Ch. 13) explores the politics of representation in
the synthetic worlds of video games such as Praetorians and
The Age of Empires. And between the right and left, Layla
Renshaw (Ch. 12) explores a different sort of politics of rep-
resentation with regard to exhumation and the visualization
of bodies from the Spanish Civil War. All these contributions
deserve an audience.
Cut from his recent book (2007), Cornelius Holtorf’s
chapter addresses archaeological fashion. In sum, what you
wear will be read as a statement of the kind of archaeologist
you are (remember the lab coat caricatures of new archaeolo-
gists). What is strange about this chapter is that these zoning
limits are enforced on how identities are understood without
detailed ethnographic study. In highlighting a newspaper
and television preference for doing, Holtorf misses the
work of the other mediators — the trowels (Marshalltown
versus WHS), instruments (EDM versus differential GPS),
vocabulary (specialist versus direct), etc. — that archaeolo-
gists deploy. And yet, as the editors point out for cinema
verité, does not the whole theatre of interactions between
these participants radically transform under the influence of
different directors? Were it not for cameras, film crews and
light booms, might we say the level of skill enacted in the
course of doing seems a far better barometer of the kind of
archaeologist you are? Or, perhaps there was never a better
supervisor of practice than the ‘rolling camera’?
The question of performance is central to Angela Pic-
cini’s chapter which maps out a crisis of ‘truth’ with respect
to TV archaeology. For Piccini, film, as a mode of documen-
tation, elicits anxieties over fact and fabrication (it is worth
pointing out that the latter is built into the etymology of the
former). The ‘sure path of science’ requires a whole host of
other media — consider how hard we work to muster reli-
able and well-aligned allies on the spot to convince — and
Piccini suggests that it is time for documentaries to return to
 Reviews
montage. However, accuracy also rests upon the traceability
of the production process: until the many steps involved in
documentary craftsmanship are manifest by making any
and all of the inscriptions that mark them public, our default
position should be that of disbelief.
As critical theory reminds us, doubt need be a constant
recourse for anyone engaging with television or, indeed,
other media. Formerly, the cost of dissent was far too great
when it came to the Television Industry. Not any more. The
rules of the game have changed, and fast. In just the last five
years we have begun to witness a shift from professionally-
generated content to user-generated content, from the web
as a publishing medium to the web as a communication
medium. As of mid October 2008, YouTube was ranked
number 3 in a ‘global’ survey of the most visited websites;
Facebook was ranked 5; Myspace was 7; Wikipedia, 8; and
Blogger.com, 9 (these statistics are compiled by Alexa.com).
Does this mean that the hegemony of ‘the media’ is breaking
down? Not by a long shot. Commercial media arrive via
these same websites. In this, Clack and Brittain are right
to point out how all media acquire definition in relation
to other media. Whatever the outcome, Web 2.0 provides
substantial opportunities for archaeology (e.g. Webmoor
2008). Overall, these issues are left belatedly to the last
chapter of the book.
Mindful of the old Platonic distinction with which
we began, Michael Shanks argues that media are better
understood as modes of engagement. While the differences
between the flatlands of paperwork and the cacophonic flat
screens of the living room are about issues of translation
(signal and noise), media also perform the past. Media add
to the throng of simultaneous forms in which ‘the past’ is
already among us. They impact and orient approaches to the
material world — hence, media are modalities; media are
mediators. For Shanks, archaeologists must do more than
simply acknowledge this in writing; they must creatively
experiment with their own modes of articulation in practice.
This raises the question of memory.
We are so used to thinking of media as separate from
their message (even Marshall McLuhan’s solution was built
out of this distinction) that we tend to forget that without
Theuth’s cunning invention, without the dedicated work of
scribes in scriptoria, without the printing press, we would
know nothing of the whims of the gods so very long ago
with which we began. Memory is far more than grey-matter
recall. Memory is distributed through a bewildering variety
of translations. If we are to prove Thamous incorrect, then
we must think more in terms of memory practices (Bowker
2005). The fear is that digital and some forms of analogue
media will not enjoy the longevity of paperwork. Hard work
is required to insure that our translations enjoy more than
a five-year shelf life. Unless many of us want to become
full-time media archaeologists (how many research hours
have we lost to defunct disks or drives?), Shanks cautions
that information must be understood as a verb and media
require constant management.
So what is to be the role of the archaeologist in relation
to (the) media? Content provider? Interviewee? Consultant?
Critic? Historian? Archaeology and the Media contains many
279
insightful possibilities and, for these reasons, it will find
its place as a component of long overdue courses in visual
archaeology and beyond. However, a deep ambivalence as
to the stability of these seemingly default roles remains.
What strikes me about this book is that few authors
challenge the perpetuation of the divisions of labour between
these different cultures or indeed the place allocated to media.
We could equally exemplify archaeologists taking on the
roles of documentary producers, Op Ed journalists, bloggers,
installation artists, curators, etc. By and large, the book missed
a vital opportunity to rethink the nature of archaeo­logy’s own
knowledge craftsmanship (see Van Dyke 2006). Enrolling
diverse modes of engagement not only transforms the way
archaeology is done, it also modifies the kinds of pasts we
transport with us into the future. This redefines the whole
equation of archaeology and (the) media.
Christopher Witmore
The Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
Brown University
70 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
USA
Email: cwitmore@brown.edu
References
Bowker, G.C., 2005. Memory Practices in the Sciences. Cam-
bridge (MA): The MIT Press.
Van Dyke, R., 2006. Seeing the past: visual media in archaeo­
logy. American Anthropologist 108(2), 370–84.
Holtorf, C., 2007. Archaeology is a Brand! Walnut Creek (CA):
Left Coast Press.
Serres, M., 2006. Ceremony, in Crowds, eds. J. Schnapp &
M. Tiews. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press,
60–70.
Webmoor, T., 2008. From Silicon Valley to the Valley of
Teotihuacan: the ‘Yahoo!s’ of new media and digital
heritage. Visual Anthropology Review 24(2), 181–98.
‘The sapient mind: archaeology meets neuroscience’,
papers on a theme edited by Colin Renfrew, Chris Frith
& Lambros Malafouris, 2008. Philosophical Transactions of
the Royal Society (Biological Sciences) 363(1499), 1933–2061;
ISSN 0962-8436; 14 figs., 3 tables
[Subsequently published as a book by Oxford University
Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-956199-5 hardback £34.95 &
US$69.50; xiv+204 pp., 14 figs.]
Jennie Robinson
This special edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society is a welcome addition to the literature in this area
of neuroarchaeology. The papers contained arise from a
CAJ 19:2, 279–81 © 2009 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
doi:10.1017/S0959774309000432
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.