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  • The Ground, The Ground, The GroundOr, Why Archeology Is So ‘Hard’
  • Paul Kockelman (bio)

Let me begin with five observations: 1) the essence of a mirror is not that you can see yourself in it, but that you cannot see behind it; 2) the exemplary medium, the ‘queen’ of all media, is therefore the thermos, understood as an internally mirrored container; 3) thermoses preserve differences across distances by insuring that their contents stave off thermal equilibrium for short periods of time; 4) but they only do so at the expense of not just binding the contents to the container, but also blinding the contents to whatever surrounds the container; 5) if you want to survive your first night in Minecraft, and not get eaten by some creep, the simplest strategy is to dig down your own height (plus one) in distance, and then put a block above you (see Figure 1 on the following page). In some sense, you trade your ability to sense and move in exchange for about 10 minutes of time. Like the contents of a thermos, you buy yourself a ‘night’ by allowing yourself to be blinded and bound.

With these observations in mind, I thought I would define archeology in a relatively broad way. And to do that, I need a workable notion of death—let’s say, coming to equilibrium with one’s environment (precisely what a thermos, or a manhole in Minecraft, allows one to avoid). In this way, not just anyone but also anything can die insofar as it becomes indistinguishable [End Page 176] from its surroundings. Understood as such, archeology is interested in anything that didn’t die insofar as it tells a tale about something that did. That is, something must not have come to equilibrium with its environment, such that it can be distinguished as figure to ground (or signal in noise). And this same something, by reference to a ground, figures as evidence of something else (itself otherwise lost in the noise). Phrased another way, archeology is interested in whatever ‘stands out’ insofar as it ‘stands for’ that which is no longer ‘stand-ing.’


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Figure 1.

Surviving your first night in Minecraft

Notice, then, that this definition turns on two kinds of grounds. The first kind of ground is relatively sensorial (figure to ground, signal in noise). And the second kind of ground is relatively semiotic (figurable as the sign of something else in reference to a ground). Phrased another way, one and the same agent, however distributed, needs to both signify and interpret. They must sense something as a sign and, concomitantly, actually create the sign—if only by bringing it into view as such. And they must interpret this sign, by treating it as a sign of something else and, concomitantly, relating to that something else—whatever the degree of remove. I’ll take up these and many other senses of ground below. For the moment, though, it is enough to focus on two overarching points. First, archeology, like any other art or science, is a semiotic endeavor: a sign gives rise to an interpretant in reference to the features of an object and the interests of an agent. That hardly needs to be argued. And second, a key thing that differentiates archeology (in a narrow sense) from other semiotic endeavors (such that the discipline itself ‘stands out’, so to speak, and doesn’t die) is that both of these grounds—sensorial [End Page 177] and semiotic—are tightly coupled to, if not coterminous with, ‘the ground.’ That is, the sensorial ground is the semiotic ground is the ground you’re standing on (and often buried in).

Let me return to our thermos, our manhole, our mirror. Two entities, call them ‘big L’ and ‘little l’, had to interact, such that each could leave an impression on the other. (And if you don’t like the Hegelian story (there were two entities, who came to interact), you can have the Heideggerian story (there was interaction, until the interactants got distracted).) How they interact (hit, shake, pound, etc.) is not my concern for the moment. At some point, they...

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