Handbook of Postcolonial Archaeology eds. by Jane Lydon and Uzma Z. Rizvi, and: Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology eds. by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink (review)

During the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline, research on Indigenous peoples and sites typically followed a colonial model focused on discovery and recovery. Sites, artifacts, and human remains were located, removed, contextualized, and displayed by explorers and outsiders; these processes often took place without the participation or consent of traditional leaders and knowledge-bearers from the population under study. These archaeological excavations enabled colonial states and scientific authorities to dominate and appropriate the intellectual and cultural property of colonial subjects. Practitioners of scientific colonialism routinely marginalized Indigenous perspectives and distorted representations of ancestral peoples, objects, and territories. They also introduced temporal, social, and typological divisions between present and past, and between theoretically "primitive" and "civilized," "historic" and "prehistoric" eras.

Postcolonial approaches to archaeology, as theory and practice, constitute more than just forms of resistance to earlier colonial models of archaeology. Postcolonial methods are, ideally, investigative, restorative, and collaborative. Practitioners examine the impacts of colonial processes, while soliciting data and insights that can expand our understanding of the archaeological record. Proponents of decolonization also seek to restore local and Indigenous perspectives and to shift the social relations around archaeology by increasing engagement with contemporary descendant communities. Two new publications examine both the history of colonial archaeologies and trends in postcolonial archaeologies; each is likely to prove influential in shaping the future of collaborative archaeologies.

Handbook of Postcolonial Archaeology: Reframing Colonialism

Jane Lydon and Uzma Z. Rizvi, editors of the Handbook of Postcolonial Archaeology, offer a collection of narratives that recount place-specific histories of colonizing archaeologies and decolonizing projects. This volume is organized into five parts, framed by introductions and commentaries. Themes are critiques of colonialism; archaeological narratives of colonialism; issues of restitution, repatriation, and ethics; postcolonial identities; and strategies for implementing postcolonialism. Forty-five contributors from six continents represent various scientific, Indigenous, and ethnic perspectives. Each author examines colonial power relations, articulates attempts to decolonize, and proposes future projects, while weaving together regionally specific negotiations of power, identity, and history. The authors seek to disentangle archaeological theory, practice, and ethics from the limitations of colonialist thought and to recover more culturally accurate representations of local Indigenous peoples and ethnic histories.

Part I, "The Archaeological Critique of Colonization: Global Trajectories," is particularly valuable for its thoughtful discussions of the histories of archaeological practice in the Middle East, Near East, South Asia, and East Asia. Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal (chapter 2) examines Western searches for the origins of classical civilizations in the Middle East, linking this work to the invention of the "primitive," the consolidation of nation-state identities, and the persistence of Western intellectual dominance (45). Benjamin W. Porter (chapter 3) critiques archaeological (re) constructions of history in Palestine and Israel that bolster national narratives to legitimate contemporary social injustices. Identifying the term "Near East" as a "discursive myth," he suggests recovering local Indigenous terms (e.g., the Arabic mashriq) that are more historically grounded (52). Museological models are examined in the chapter by Sonya Atalay (chapter 4). She uses Anishinabe petroglyphs and prophecy representing spiral reckonings of time to acknowledge colonial ruptures while also laying foundations for postcolonial futures. Dilip K. Chakrabarti (chapter 5) argues that in South Asia, archaeologists marginalized India's Indigenous history by focusing on successive migrations rather than local communities. He also complains of the continuing intellectual marginalization of Third World scholars by First World scientists. Koji Mizoguchi (chapter 6) describes trends in East Asia (e.g., antiquarianism, Marxism, and myths of imperial genealogy) that reshaped identities and inspired new national traditions (83), and Hyung Il Pai (chapter 7) discusses how Japan mapped and manipulated Korea's ancient remains (koseki), relics (ibutsu), and...