Editorial

One Year to Go: Looking Towards WAC-9

In just under a year’s time, members of our host institution—the World Archaeological Congress (WAC)—will gather in Prague for their ninth four-yearly congress. We can look forward to a large gathering from across the globe: the last Congress in Kyoto attracted over 1600 participants from 83 countries and all inhabited continents (Archaeologies Editorial December 2016), and easy access to Europe is likely to make next years’ even bigger. The call for sessions is now out (see back pages of this issue and further below), and a total of 21 themes are available to be populated by sessions. Themes cover a wide range of contemporary topics each of which is highly relevant to archaeology globally: themes cover, among others, issues of archaeological practices, heritage and archaeology, indigenous archaeologies, identity politics, ontologies of archaeological categories, and environmental issues. There is enough here for anyone interested in organizing a session. A typical session at a WAC Congress lasts for 90 min, and comprises five 15-min-long papers, with 5-min introduction and 10-min discussion at the end, but other formats—including round table discussions, workshops, debates, panels, and forums—are also welcomed to make for a diverse and lively event. The deadline for submitting session proposals is midnight Central European time (GMT + 1) on Tuesday 15 October 2019.

A WAC session is a good way to promote a particular topic or to investigate a large question to which your own work makes a contribution. It is a way of establishing and maintaining an international network and a way of promoting yourself and your work to the international archaeological community. Indeed, such sessions are the mechanism by which the community of which we are all a part is created and maintained. The papers and other contributions to sessions may be suitable for publication, and session leaders are encouraged to submit materials for publication in WAC’s own outlets: as a book in the One World Archaeology series or as a special issue of this journal. We in particular welcome approaches from session organizers, and several successful issues since 2016—and to come—have been produced out of sessions at WAC-8 in Kyoto.

As well as formal presentations and discussion, a WAC Congress provides an opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones. There is always a lively social programme and opportunities to mix informally with others. And Prague is one of Europe’s great historic cities which is worth a deep exploration in its own right. We look forward to meeting you there! (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Prague castle and imperial palace as seen from the Charles Bridge (Photograph: J. Carman 2013)

Meanwhile…

Across Europe, the Brexit confusion continues with uncertainty as to outcome and when it will be known. The implications for Britain’s archaeological heritage remain dark and so do those for international collaboration in research. So much archaeological work in Britain—especially in advance of major infrastructure projects such as London’s CrossRail and the high-speed HS2 rail link from London to the north of England via Birmingham—depends upon staff from other countries, especially continental Europe. The prospects for such essential work and the people who undertake it are as unclear as other aspects of the process. While universities and other large employers are working to ensure retention of their staff from Europe, other organizations may not be so well placed to do so and concern is widespread while the future remains unknowable.

At the same time, enhanced Western tensions with Iran (the subject of one of this issue’s contributions) are troubling the world. The focus of news agencies is upon oil exports and the despatch of naval vessels to the Gulf to patrol the Straits of Hormuz, but Iran remains one of the centres of early world civilization and the consequences for the archaeological heritage are worrying. We have seen in recent decades how conflict harms the archaeological heritage—‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Balkans, war damage in Iraq, destruction by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Daesh in Syria—and the prospect of further clashes in the Gulf raise the same fears. To our colleagues and friends in conflict zones across the globe, we extend our warmest regards and hope for their well-being.

Karnataka Vandalism

More ambiguously, news from India tells of the reconstruction of part of the Nava Brindavana World Heritage site in Karnataka after its vandalizing by youths. While restoration of the damaged material is the result of local action in accordance with the religious significance afforded the site, it raises the larger questions of restoration versus non-intervention and whether any intervention should be only by trained professionals. Here, the issue was resolved by direct action and driven by intentions that would be endorsed by many of us, following the intent of WAC Code of Ethics concerning recognition of Indigenous claims on heritage. The fact remains, however, that these are contested issues and if UNESCO chooses to accept such local initiatives as legitimate it sets a precedent for future and perhaps less benign interventions.

Yet Another Disaster: Notre Dame on Fire

As Brazil puts in place efforts to restore the National Museum that burnt down in September 2018, research reported in Nature indicates that those countries where there is significant public spending on heritage resources are far less likely to suffer damage to those resources. The Brazil museum fire was at least in part due to a significant loss in financial support for the institution from central government (see Archaeologies Editorial December 2018). The massive cost of retrieval and restoration of the collection—as well as that of the building itself—are greater than the costs of any investment would have been over a significant number of years, which may be a point for any government to consider in making decisions about cuts to heritage spending.

In April, the Brazil National Museum fire was followed by yet another devastating catastrophe of the World heritage, fire of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The irreplaceable loss of cultural heritage is a severe tragedy to the Catholic Church, to Europeans and to all mankind.

Most of the wood/metal roof and the spire of the cathedral were destroyed, with about one-third of the roof remaining. The remnants of the roof and spire fell onto the stone vault underneath, which forms the ceiling of the cathedral’s interior. Some sections of this vaulting collapsed in turn, allowing debris from the burning roof to fall to the marble floor below, but most sections remained intact due to the use of rib vaulting, greatly reducing damage to the cathedral’s interior and objects within.

The preamble to the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (the Venice Charter 1964), states that, “Imbued with a message from the past, the historic monuments of generations of people remain to the present day as living witnesses of their age-old traditions … It is our duty to hand them on in the full richness of their authenticity”.

Discussions on the reconstruction of the Cathedral started almost immediately after the day of disaster. Here, we would like to quote an interesting point of view from outside of Europe. Our colleagues Claire and Jordan of Flinders University (Smith & Ralph 2019) suggested that: “But not all societies think like this. Some have quite different notions of what is authentic. Iconic buildings such as the Catherine Palace in Russia and Japan’s historic monuments of Ancient Nara have been successfully restored, sometimes after great damage, and are today appreciated by millions of people”.

We appreciate this is a realistic and positive approach to such a great loss; however, both of us editors being European we find such disasters a tragic discontinuity of almost 900 years of material expression of our identity. Perhaps it is part of being European that we depend so much on traditions and the authenticity of our heritage. But as we cannot change the fate of Notre Dame, the Australian approach may help us to alleviate our grief and think of positive solutions.

Machu Picchu Airport

The most famous Peruvian Inca site of Machu Picchu is constantly overcrowded. There were more than 1.5 million visitors in 2017, almost double the limit recommended by UNESCO, putting a huge strain on the fragile remains of architecture and local ecology.

Now, in a move that caused threat and outrage for archaeologists, conservationists and locals, work has begun on clearing ground for a multibillion-dollar international airport, intended to jet even more tourists much closer to Machu Picchu.

The heavy machinery is already scraping clear millions of tons of earth, damaging the Inca cultural landscape near Chinchero, a picturesque ancient town about 3,800 metres a.s.l. that is the gateway to the Sacred Valley. Chinchero was built six centuries ago as a royal estate for the Inca ruler Túpac Inca Yupanqui, and is incredibly well preserved. The local economy is based on farming and tourism, but even those who rely on visitors are wary of the plans. At present, most visitors to the valley come through Cusco airport, which has only one runway and is limited to taking narrow-bodied aircraft on stopover flights from Peru’s capital, Lima, and nearby cities such as La Paz, Bolivia.

But the new airport, which construction companies from South Korea and Canada are queueing up to bid on, would allow direct flights from major cities across Latin America and the USA. The Peruvian government wants to complete the construction of the airport in 2023.

A petition asks the Peruvian president, Martín Vizcarra, to reconsider or relocate the airport from Chinchero. Is there any hope that the dangerous construction will stop?

Hasankeyf Destruction

The 12,000-year-old Hasankeyf settlement in Turkey’s southeast is now going through final and complete destruction, after a Constitutional Court ruling gave the final permission for a controversial Ilısu dam project that is set to leave the ancient town under water. The top court ruled that the issue was at the “discretion of the state”, as the construction of the dam and hydroelectric power plant project were matters of “public welfare” and “outside the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction”.

Located on the banks of Tigris River, the town of Hasankeyf in the south-eastern province of Batman is an area with very rich archaeological and historical potential. The town, which was declared a natural conservation area in 1981, meets nine of the ten criteria to be deemed a UNESCO World Heritage site. However, it soon will be consumed by the waters of the Ilısu Dam, which is supposed to provide electricity and irrigation to the region. The dam will raise water levels of the Tigris River by around 60 metres, submerging the ancient town and villages around it, including immovable historical artefacts. Unfortunately, this is yet another battle for World heritage lost.

Hungarian Academy of Sciences Crisis

The struggle for democratic and academic freedom in Hungary continues, with Prime Minister Orban’s latest attempt to consolidate power: after taking control of several Hungarian institutions, the media, large parts of the economy and education with his attempt to shut down the Central European University, Orban is now targeting scientists.

At first, the government only planned to take part of the research arm’s budget, but now the government has upped the stakes and sought to take control of the whole research network of the academy. The proposals made by the government angered both students and researchers, who saw it as “government blackmail”, leading to several more protests against Orban’s move to overhaul the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and in defence of academic freedom in Hungary. As part of the blackmail to stop the protests, the Ministry of Science withheld funding from several research institutions employing nearly 5,000 people.

“My actions are driven solely by the desire to make the Academy and the entire Hungarian research ecosystem more efficient”, said Laszlo Palkovics, the head of the controversial reform. It is extremely worrying to see science profit-driven, as its purpose has never been to provide monetary gains for governments or universities.

What will it take to stop the government’s actions in Hungary? Will protests be enough? Academic freedom is something that should not be tampered with and is supposed to remain a neutral ground. With his latest move, Orban is trying to wash away the last pillars of democracy and places of freedom in Hungary, accelerating its path towards full-grown authoritarianism (Szabo 2019).

Anniversaries at WAC-9 Venue

Soon after Czechoslovakia was declared an independent state on the ruins of the Austrian–Hungarian Empire in October 1918, a new research institution was established in 1919. The State Institute of Archaeology (within the Ministry of Schools and Education) was founded by Lubor Niederle (Figure 2). Archaeology as a scientific discipline was developing in Bohemia and Moravia since the mid-19th century. The first professorship of archaeology at Charles University in Prague was acquired by Jan Erazim Vocel in 1850, and the first specialized archaeological journal Památky archeologické was established in 1854. Over a 100 years ago, the first Czech lectures on Egyptology were introduced at Charles University. In the first half of the 20th century, the number of Czech and Moravian archaeologists did not exceed two dozens and the first Slovak archaeologists were only trained by Jan Eisner. The State Institute of Archaeology in Prague played an important role in the organizing of archaeological heritage management and developing research projects and strategies. Its archives and library became the most substantial sources of archaeological information.

Figure 2

Lubor Niederle in 1915 (by Max Švabinský)

During the Second World War, the Institute, as was the whole country, was under German protectorate and partly used for Nazi propaganda (Turek 2018). Most of the Czech archaeologists were out of academia or even sent as slaves for the Reich. The Czech intelligentsia was not supported by Nazi Germany, and Czech national scientific institutions were to be exterminated. After the war, in 1953, the Soviet division of science was adopted and the Institute incorporated into the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. This was yet again a time of political interference into archaeological research and several propagandistic research schemes highlighting the communist ideology and links to Soviet Union (Turek 2018). Some important and extensive excavation projects were conducted in the 1960s–1980s, such as the first farmers Neolithic settlement area at Bylany, La-Tène oppidum Závist or continuing excavations at Prague Castle. After the fall of communism in 1989 (the celebration of 30th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution is forthcoming on 17th November this year), Evžen Neustupný became director of the Institute of Archaeology and set the new research and heritage management profile of the Institute following democratic traditions in Czech archaeology. In last three decades, the Prague Institute of Archaeology (v.v.i.) developed into an important European centre of archaeological research retaining a decisive role in the structure of Czech archaeology. Happy anniversary!

This Issue

We offer six papers this month and a short commentary on current events in a particular country. They fall into two broad areas: a concern with relations internal to the discipline of archaeology; and a contrasting concern with relations between archaeologists and others. Coverage includes the role of labour relations in the development of archaeology, current studies of gender, and processes of academic peer review. Contributions go on to consider relations between Finnish archaeologists and Europe’s only Indigenous people, the role of Indigenous knowledge in designating an Australian World Heritage site, how to develop a new approach to research in a medieval city, and the current state of heritage in Iran.

As so often in our pages, the contents invite further debate and not all readers will agree with what our authors say: but debate is the heart of any academic discipline (indeed the collective noun for archaeologists might be “an argument [of archaeologists!]”) and mutual disagreement binds us more strongly together. The collection also confirms our commitment to accepting contributions from those often excluded from the chance to publish for an international readership. These include early career researchers (Marianne Moen, Eeva-Kristin Harlin and Samaneh Farokhi), an Indigenous contributor (Denis Rose) to the article from Australia, and authors from Latin America (Diego Salazar and his colleagues from Chile) representing a region so rarely seen in the pages of English-language journals with a global audience.

In our first article, Allison Mickel considers the role of those who did the actual digging in the early 19th century archaeological investigations. Her article emphasizes how much of early archaeological knowledge relied upon decisions made not by those who took credit for the work—whose names are remembered and inhabit the conventional histories of archaeology—but by the labourers hired to undertake the actual digging and retrieval of objects. Hers is a contribution to the study of archaeology’s origins “from the bottom up”, paralleling Everill’s (2009) work in the UK—a close examination of archaeological practice as it actually was rather than as we imagine it should have been, inviting a more critical perspective on current practice and relations.

Marianne Moen is concerned with current issues in archaeology—especially the state of gender concerns in the discipline. She argues three things: that issues of gender remain marginalized as a specialist sub-discipline of archaeology; that assumptions of universal gender constructions persist in archaeological interpretation; and that intersectional perspectives—taking a broader view of social identity as the creation of intersecting lines of privilege and discrimination—offer a fruitful way forward. Drawing upon her own ongoing PhD research in Viking archaeology, she offers recommendations on how gender should be approached in archaeological work and especially writing so it can be treated as a component of social organization more widely.

Diego Salazar and his colleagues, drawing upon parallel endeavours in other branches of knowledge, take a close look at the process by which archaeological knowledge is produced and disseminated in a review of academic journal peer-review processes. Their comparative examination of the criteria applied by reviewers identifies clear differences between different parts of the globe and highlights how institutional politics impacts on publication decisions, rather than the justification of claims about the past made in the work itself. They argue for the role of journal peer reviews as a mode of resistance to neoliberal trends by offering a critical evaluation of claims about the material discussed rather than a concern for status and institutional ranking. They suggest that it also provides a mechanism for overcoming neo-colonial relations between metropolitan centres and areas otherwise considered peripheral to intellectual activity.

Moving away from a narrow concern with the internal dynamics of the discipline, Eeva-Kristin Harlin draws upon her continuing PhD research to discuss the attitudes of Finnish archaeologists to the repatriation of Sámi objects and a rise of concern in the Sámi community for greater control over the evidences of their past. She draws the contrast with other Scandinavian countries of Finnish treatment of the Sámi people, which allows Finns to claim affinity with Europe’s only Indigenous community and for Finnish archaeologists to fall back on claims of scholarly detachment to avoid engaging with the political issues that arise in Indigenous relations. This attitude is driven by fears of being seen as “political” and thus taking a particular stance on issues of Sámi—and wider Finnish—identity. Underlying this is a further fear of confronting the inevitably colonialist structures of archaeology in Finland, as everywhere.

Anita Smith and her colleagues take UNESCO—and especially the listing of World Heritage sites—to task for the under-representation of Indigenous values. Drawing especially on the case of Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in Australia, they highlight how the contribution of Indigenous practices is more likely to be valued for World Heritage listing for their enhancement of the natural characteristics of the place than as of cultural value in their own right. A comparison of their case study site with other sites across the globe reveals a gap in the World Heritage listing process which disadvantages places to which Indigenous communities attach and denies such communities recognition for the values that derive from their use of such landscapes. They urge a shift in UNESCO practice to redress this, and suggest that it will provide for the recognition of many more places where Indigenous values contribute to the stock of human heritage.

Mariusz Drzewiecki and Robert Ryndziewicz describe the development of a new approach to investigating the site of Soba, medieval capital of the Kingdom of Alwa in Nubia, drawing upon recent developments in archaeology globally. Although Soba has been subject to several excavations, no full-scale geophysical survey has been undertaken and the authors first sought to confirm the suitability of the site for this. At the same time, they experimented with aerial photography using a camera mounted on a drone. They also conducted preliminary work with the local community, whose houses and farms now cover much of the site and who can provide details and knowledge not available from other sources. The authors plan to develop this approach over a 3-year project, and we shall no doubt look forward to further news in due course.

We offer finally a short commentary piece by Samaneh Farokhi who outlines a personal perspective on the current state of heritage in Iran. As mentioned above, tensions with Iran create the possibility of conflict in the region with consequences for the heritage of Iran that may not be good.

References

Claire, S., and R. Jordan.

(2019). Notre Dame: How a rebuilt cathedral could be just as wonderful, April 16, 2019 7.31 am BST. https://theconversation.com/notre-dame-how-a-rebuilt-cathedral-could-be-just-as-wonderful-115551.

Everill, P.

(2009). The invisible diggers: a study of British commercial archaeology. Oxbow: Oxford.

Szabo, M.

(2019). Viktor Orbán’s latest target: The Hungarian Academy of Science, Kafkadesk. 29 June 2019.

Turek, J.

(2018). Archaeo-propaganda: The history of political engagement in archaeology in Central Europe. Archaeologies, 14(1), 142–163.

A Word of Welcome from the President of the World Archaeological Congress

Nowadays, it is a truism to say that the world is in crisis, and the discipline of archaeology, firmly situated in the contemporary world, is meant to be in crisis, too. However, it is not necessarily the case; in reaction to the relentless expansion of hyper-capitalist economy-led globalization and the exacerbation of postcolonial problems, Archaeology with Capital A has been reorganizing itself by proactively “localizing” itself into an increasing number of “archaeologies” differentiated along issues concerning inequality, discrimination, injustices, destruction of cultural heritage and identities, and infringement of basic human rights generated by the deepening crisis.

World Archaeological Congress was founded in 1986, when problems generated and exacerbated by the crisis began to be felt as something which we the citizens of the world, including archaeologists, could no longer ignore. The accelerating pace of globalization on one hand was intensifying inequality and discrimination and on the other hand raising global awareness of human sufferings. Our global archaeological community, the World Archaeological Congress, or “WAC”, was formed specifically in line with the UN condemnation of the then apartheid regime of the Republic of South Africa. However, retrospectively, the birth of WAC can be recognized to have been a part of the global movement responding to rising problems that the hypercapitalism and globalization led to.

Thirty-three years on, the situation remains to be critical. In some ways, problems have been deepened. Widening economic, social, cultural and political gaps and inequalities within and between human groups and communities of all kinds, ranging from individual families, genders, various communities, countries, to global regions, are destabilizing our ontological security, fuelling hatred, and resulting in all sorts of extremism. Unchecked exploitation of natural resources, not sufficiently regulated industrial productions, and the endless march of irresponsible consumerism are threatening the survival of living species, including human being.

What can we do? I would like to say we can do a lot. The ideals, causes and objectives of WAC, many of which were regarded as irrelevant to archaeology when it was founded back in 1986, have now firmly become common principles to be complied with and drawn upon in doing good archaeologies. Locally rooted archaeological practices are increasingly involved in proactive movements to protect local heritage, local environment and local identities. And, such local movements are increasingly situated in global movements to protect the well-being of our lived world.

Prague is a fitting place for us to gather, examine how far we have come, and together think and imagine which directions we shall move and what we will be able to do for the betterment of archaeologies and betterment of the world; Prague has witnessed many human struggles and endeavours to protect and further human freedom and basic human rights, some of which were defeated and some of which were won.

Looking forward to meeting you in Prague in the next Summer, and sharing our ideas, imaginations and dreams for the futures of archaeologies!

Koji Mizoguchi

President of the World Archaeological Congress

WAC-9 Themes and Call for Sessions

Dear Colleagues worldwide!

Thirty-four years after its birth in Southampton as a highly influential world organization, the World Archaeological Congress is coming back to Europe. Prague has always been a cultural and multilingual crossroads of Central Europe. The atmospheric streets of Prague hide amazing subterranean relics of the medieval city which are very attractive to visitors to explore. The Czech Capital is the city of St. Wenceslaus, the city of Franz Kafka and of Václav Havel.

Prague is once again becoming such a crossroads as a forum for discussion for anyone who is concerned with the study of archaeology and world heritage.

WAC is open to archaeologists of all countries, encouraging the development of regionally based histories and maintaining the international academic discourse within the worldwide community.

This special event offers you the opportunity to share the results of your research. It mediates discussion on professional training and public education for disadvantaged nations, groups and communities. The voices of representatives of different Indigenous groups will be welcomed. We will also discuss the role of archaeology and the state of world heritage in the current globalized world.

Make your research visible worldwide: come to Prague 5th to 10th July 2020!

We look forward to welcoming you in the heart of Europe.

Yours Sincerely

Jan Turek

• WAC-9 Academic Secretary

• 9^th World Archaeological Congress 05-10 July 2020 Prague, Czech Republic

• 9. Světový archeologický kongres, 5. – 10. července 2020 Praha, Česká republika

• 9° Congresso archeologico mondiale, 05-10 luglio 2020 Praga, Repubblica Ceca

• 9. Dünya Arkeoloji Kongresi 5-10 Temmuz 2020’de Prag, Çek Cumhuriyeti’nde

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• 9. Régészeti Világkongresszus 2020. július 5–10., Prága, Csehország

  

• 9. ülemaailmne arheoloogiakongress 5.-10. juuli 2020 Praha, Tšehhi Vabariik

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• 9 Bceмиpный apxeoлoгичecкий кoнгpecc (BAК-9) 05-10 июля 2020, Pecпyбликa Чexия

• 9. Svetový archeologický kongres, 5. – 10. Júla 2020, Praha, Česká republika

• 9 Bcecвiтнiй apxeoлoгiчний кoнгpec (BAК-9) 05-10 липня 2020 Пpaгa, Pecпyблiкa Чexiя

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• 

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• 9de World Archaeological Congress 05-10 juli 2020 Praag, Tsjechië

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• IX cycвeтны apxeaлaгiчны кaнгpэc 05-10 лiпeня 2020 Пpaгa, Чэxiя

• WAC-

  

• 9. World Archaeological Congress, 5.-10. Juli 2020 in Prag, Tschechische Republik

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• IX Congrés del World Archaeological Congress (WAC). 05-10 de juliol de 2020. Praga. República Txeca

• 9. Maailman arkeologikongressi (WAC) järjestetään 5-10. kesäkuuta 2010 Prahassa, Tšekin tasavallassa.

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• Dziewiąty Światowy Kongres Archeologiczny, 5-10 lipca 2020, Praga, Czechy

• IX Congreso del World Archaeological Congress (WAC). 05-10 de julio de 2020. Praga. República Checa

• 9. Pasaules arheoloģijas kongress (PAK-9) norisināsies 2020. gada 5. – 10. jūlijā, Prāgā, Čehijā

• 9-ти Cвeтcки apxeoлoшки кoнгpec 05. – 10. jyлa 2020. гoдинe, Пpaг, Чeшкa Peпyбликa

• 9^e Congrès Mondial d’Archéologie 05-10 juillet 2020 Prague, République Tchèque

• Al 9-lea Congres mondial de arheologie 05-10 iulie 2020, Praga, Republica Cehă

• 2020 yilning 05-10 iyul kunlari Chexiya Respublikasida bo‘ladigan – 9 Praga Butundunyo arxeologlarining kongressi

WAC-9 Themes

A. Archaeological Practices

1. Global Perspectives on Rock Art

Sam Challis and Catherine Namono

(Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa)

Once the province of those specializing in other fields such as art history, the investigation of rock art is increasingly relevant to archaeologists and heritage managers across the globe. It is now firmly established as a sub-discipline with specialists of its own. Recent rewards on the rock art dating scene have helped contextualize our understanding of rock art. In tandem with this is the increase in rock art sites as tourism destinations and tools for the economic empowerment of local communities. That said, we invite archaeologists and researchers in related disciplines with rock art interests to submit ideas for sessions. The global perspective that we encourage invites comparative treatments, with an awareness that rock art is highly contextualized and contentious.

Thus, session and paper submission should closely consider the local environments in which rock art is situated in terms of ancestral lands and local communities who are (or should be) custodians of rock art. This concern suggests that sessions dealing with community management of rock art sites, along with ethical issues that impinge on some communities when researchers impose interpretations or do not follow ethical data collection protocols, are particularly compelling. Issues of culture contact as expressed in rock art are also of interest, possibly addressing how rock art (often made by groups ancestral to these local communities) reflects contact between indigenous people and others. Further, we encourage sessions and papers that focus attention on the ontological turn in the discipline that has seen many useful applications of ethnographically attested beliefs applied to the interpretation of rock art, whether recent or, by analogy, to images made in deeper antiquity. New approaches to recording, dating rock art, and sustainable conservation and management of sites are welcome as are any new approaches that enhance our interpretative strength.

2. Why Archaeology Needs Ethnoarchaeology

John W. Arthur

(University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL, USA)

Over the last two decades, some researchers have challenged the field of ethnoarchaeology by suggesting that ethnoarchaeology has contributed little to the interpretation of the archaeological record and moreover is ahistorical. This Theme seeks to bring ethnoarchaologists from around the world at WAC-9 to address these viewpoints by accentuating why archaeology needs ethnoarchaeology. This Theme seeks a broad range of sessions, spatially and topically, exploring how ethnoarchaeology offers archaeology alternate worldviews promoting the archaeological interpretation of the past.

We welcome ethnoarchaeological sessions that explore new and critical perspectives focused on ethical issues, community involvement, methodologies, fieldwork challenges, access to information, and the overall benefit and challenges that ethnoarchaeology can contribute to understanding the recent or deep past. Session topics may focus on a range of pertinent topics, such as ceramics, metals, stone, glass, architecture, hunting, collecting, settlement, subsistence and many other substantive studies that span the worlds’ cultures, adding new perspectives regarding how people live and interact with their material world. What is the future of ethnoarchaeology and how does ethnoarchaeology contribute to archaeology? Can ethnoarchaeology contribute to or learn from other sub-disciplines, such as Indigenous archaeology or community archaeology? We encourage contributions that will foster the growth of ethnoarchaeology, countering critics sitting on the sidelines.

3. Contemporary Archaeologies

Dante Angelo

(Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile)

This Theme focuses on a recent trend in the practice of archaeology that has attained relevance in the last three decades—the idea of contemporary archaeology that is gaining wide and global acceptance. This concept has challenged and expanded the chronological limits of the discipline and reinforced the importance of archaeology as a discipline of things as well as broadened theoretical and methodological practices and incorporated cross-disciplinary conversations. One of the most relevant aspects of contemporary archaeologies addresses concerns with current or historical issues that directly inform and affect our present contexts (memory, displacement, exile, heritage, political violence, etc.). These and other subjects of interest have so far contributed to the acceptance of contemporary archaeology as a sub-discipline, but it is arguably the case that it is far from being a unified practice. One reason may be that many contributions are framed with an implicit agreement that contemporary issues need to be confronted by paying attention to the specificity of cultural, historical, economic, and political contexts and, therefore, by politically situated research.

Thus, one of the main goals of this Theme is to assess the variation in archaeologies of the contemporary and to reflect upon the maturity that they may have attained so far. Instead of aiming for a unified set of theoretical or methodological aspects, we want to scrutinize how diverse contemporary archaeologies emerge from particular (local or global) contexts and discern intertwined historicities. Session proposals for this Theme are encouraged to examine different contexts and to propose connecting lines of inquiry between, regional or global case studies and past realities, as part of nuanced and ethico-politically informed perspectives. We are interested in discussions that foster unorthodox approaches to these realities, through the presentations of creative and innovative archaeological forays. Some of the questions guiding these debates may be related, though not exclusively, to the following topics and questions: How has contemporary archaeology changed after some years of practice? Is there a contemporary past or many? How may contemporary archaeologies help us to make sense of our social world and global settings? Does the archaeology of the contemporary provide any tools to cope with current socio-political issues (trauma, exile, violence, discrimination)? If so, how? What are the main differences or similarities of the practice of an archaeology of the contemporary in settings of the global south, north, or within them? How does archaeology, as a discipline observed from rather contemporary contexts, inform and contribute to wider debates? Are there aspects (cultural, political, ethical, philosophical, social, economic) to which a contemporary archaeology could particularly contribute?

4. High-Spirited Gatherings or Lightening Sessions

Katherine Weedman Arthur

(University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL, USA)

High-Spirited Gatherings encourage lively international dialogue between session presenters and community participants as well as create connections and inspire discussion. Major meetings of archaeologists have included “Lightening” or “Flash” sessions that allow participants to present their findings and contributions in a concise and spirited manner. We will introduce this approach at WAC-9 in what we call “High-Spirited Gatherings”. We see these sessions as places to present new ideas and grab the attention of participants by being provocative, creative, and experimental. Give yourself the opportunity to move beyond the details and jargon of your research and develop the skills to distil it into an important point that you can communicate to others clearly and concisely. Convey what is most important about your research, what you hope to learn, and why it matters or what its impacts are. Relish the occasion to engage the craft of story-telling—do not read to us. Speak to us! Connect to us! We invite High-Spirited Gathering sessions for each Theme of the conference, eg. A New Bioarchaeology, Historical Archaeology, aDNA, etc.

If you have a special case to make for a session outside the Themes, we will consider proposals on a case-by-case basis. Each proposed session will be 90 min, consisting of ten 3-min presentations (3 slides only) followed by 5 min of open discussion. After all presentations, there will be another 10 min of discussion to bring the main points of the session Theme together. Those who present in a High-Spirited Gathering session may also be the first author of a presentation in another session.

B. Archaeological Praxis

5. Evaluating Archaeological Knowledge

George Nicholas

(Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada)

Technological advances and new research agendas continue to broaden the scope of archaeology, yielding remarkable insights into our understanding of past human lifeways—from insights drawn from ancient DNA through to discerning the impacts of ancient land-use practices at the global scale. Are these developments matched by corresponding rigour in the interpretation of the archaeological record? This question becomes even more important when interpretations have social or political implications for living peoples, including threats to how their heritage is treated. Whether our endeavours are framed in terms of “analytical” archaeological, evidence-based reasoning, or corroborating data sets, we have a responsibility to ensure that the archaeology we do acknowledges the great responsibility we have, individually and collectively, in interpreting the archaeological record, whether our own or someone else’s.

This Theme asks us to consider what constitutes archaeological knowledge, how it is constructed and evaluated, and what happens when particular interpretations of the archaeological record are taken for granted. Key questions to explore in sessions include: What constitutes “evidence”? How can competing or conflicting interpretations be resolved? How might traditional knowledge and other sources of information be employed as multiple working hypotheses? What are the implications when “archaeological” interpretations conflict or don’t correspond with other accounts of the past (eg. oral histories)? How objective is archaeology? What is the practical value of seeking greater rigour in archaeological interpretations as well as our ethical obligations to do so? This Theme offers multiple opportunities to explore these questions in terms of both theory and practice.

6. Discrimination and Injustices

Koji Mizoguchi

(Kyushu University, Japan)

As long as uneven distribution of resources and differential accessibility to them exist, there also exists inequality in social relations. Such inequality is generated between different categories of individuals and groups, differentiated with their attributes: physical, material or symbolic, and congenital, acquired, or imposed. Throughout human history and across the globe, every single human society had sources of inequality, and different societies developed different ways of dealing and coming to terms with them. Since the inception of Modernity and the emergence of the notion of basic human rights, human societies have been striving to minimize and ultimately eliminate inequality, with an increasing range of mechanisms being invented, adopted and institutionalized to achieve this.

Efforts have been made to reveal the mechanisms and processes of the generation, naturalization, and concealment of inequality, whereby we can learn how to tackle and overcome problems generated by inequalities that damage basic human rights. All the humanistic and social scientific disciplines, including archaeology, have been involved in this collective endeavour. Along the way, we have differentiated and developed the notion of discrimination and social injustices, and we have invented various mechanisms and institutionalized rules to prevent them from taking place, and/or tolerated, or justified. However, it is blatantly obvious that we have some way to go. For instance, we have painfully learnt how discrimination and injustices are rife in our workplaces and life–worlds in the form of the rise of the #MeToo movement. Under the Theme, “Discrimination and Injustices”, we invite sessions that consider: the sources of inequality, discrimination and injustices in the past and in the present; how these inequalities were and are generated, presented, concealed, naturalized, legitimized, and reproduced in the past and in the present; how disparities developed and were challenged and are still being challenged; and, how such struggles have either prevailed or failed in the recent past into the present.

This Theme aims to create an open forum in which we can support each other and organize ourselves to stand up against and defeat discrimination and injustices that may occur during our practice in the field, laboratory, and in other settings. Seeking to build a community of mutual respect and collaboration, archaeologists are asking what contributions we archaeologists can make to eliminate discrimination and injustices and to minimize and ultimately eliminate inequalities in our communities.

C. Heritage

7. Community Approaches to Archaeology and Heritage Management

Peter R. Schmidt

(University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA)

Over the last decade, archaeologists and heritage practitioners have shown elevated interest in community engagements. These engagements often lead to better awareness by communities about the power of archaeology to enhance understandings of their pasts while also creating contradictions to public and scholarly characterizations and stereotypes. On the flip side, community engagement carries with it the potential to undermine the identities of communities that embrace it. Issues of power, control over research goals and objectives, mutual respect, and community well-being inform virtually any project that employs a community approach. This Theme seeks to unveil both the positive contributions that community approaches afford as well as the problems and failures that occur under the community aegis. Archaeologists often trumpet their successes with community engagements, submerging the problems that inevitably inform such work. Also problematic is the misidentifying of public archaeology—outreach, school and community short-term participation, and site visits—as community archaeology. Public archaeology may fail to incorporate or capture the issues that inform genuine engagement—power sharing, mutuality, control over research, and local oversight of dissemination of research results. Nonetheless, public archaeology has much to offer towards the development of deeper engagements. Sessions that explore community projects originating from local initiative are welcome, along with those that may be top-down yet still hold important lessons.

Sessions that explore the potential of public archaeology projects to incorporate participatory approaches are appropriate, as are those that focus on ethical and power-sharing issues as well as those that examine the pitfalls and potentials of all genres of community research and advocacy. We welcome sessions that examine innovative ways to bring professionals and community members together, following common goals and seeking research result that benefit both, for example, documentation of oral traditions and issues of social memory, development for local education, development for tourism, research to enhance local documentation of sites, or research to assess the value of heritage sites.

8. Transdisciplinary and Unbounded: Contemporary Approaches to Critical Heritage Studies

Uzma Z. Rizvi

(Pratt Institute, New York, USA)

Critical heritage work emerges from many different perspectives, disciplines, and ways of knowing. At its core is a clarity acknowledging the contemporary nature of such a practice, the power vested in negotiations of heritage, and the inherent transdisciplinarity of such work. Contemporary critical heritage studies span from discussions related to climate change to protests in global cities; from spiritual practices that agitate the state to museum displays and curatorial decisions; from the opaque to the hypervisible. The capaciousness of the practice provides an ideal framework for critical analysis of unbounded practices that push the limits of what is possible to conceive. In addition to cohesive sessions, this call for sessions will also aim to house more experimental, innovative, and idiosyncratic sessions, keeping in mind the aim to trace the new limits of critical heritage studies.

Sessions considered under this theme should address issues related to critical heritage studies in any of its transdisciplinary modes, including but not limited to: contemporary art and design, education and pedagogy, museums/museum curation, technology and social media, decolonization, coloniality, the postcolonial critique, indigenous heritages, repatriation, politics of collaboration, gendering experience and practice, queering archaeology, social memory, post-western heritage discourse, among other possible topics. Also of interest are discussions related to epistemic critiques of heritage policy, local initiatives to rewrite policy, and ways by which policy has been transformed by heritage activist work. We welcome all proposals for sessions and papers contending with these issues, including those proposed by transdisciplinary viewpoints/authors, non-archaeologists, and in non-traditional formats.

9. Trade in Art, Culture, and History: Heritage Tourism in the 21st Century

Chapurukha M. Kusimba

(American University and Field Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA)

Due to declining fortunes in agriculture, mining and manufacturing sectors, many countries see tourism as a remedy to numerous economic problems they face. Assets such as museums, heritage sites, historic theme parks, arts festivals, art galleries, and curio shops form key components of heritage tourism. Despite rapid growth and investment in heritage tourism over the last three decades, we still know very little about the positive and negative impacts of tourism on communities and other stakeholders. Studies reveal that in cases where members of the local community have been actively involved in tourism development and derive benefits from the industry, the relation between local communities and tourists tends to be harmonious.

We invite papers that will provide case studies of successful visitor management through planning to minimize negative cultural impacts on local communities. There are a myriad of issues surrounding heritage management and tourism, but we encourage participants to submit sessions and paper proposals on one or more of the following issues. What does international tourism contribute to the conservation of cultural heritage? What cultural impacts does international tourism have on local culture, the local art infrastructure, and the well-being of local communities? The travel industry long recognized the significance of cultural and heritage resources and their marketability and has sought to maximize long-term benefits of cultural and heritage tourism. What management strategies already exist or are appropriate from other local settings to ensure that irreplaceable cultural and heritage resources are appropriately protected and conserved? What is the relationship between heritage tourism and sustainable development, with special reference to World Heritage Sites (WHSs)? Have comprehensive and holistic management plans to mitigate tourism impacts and sustain site significance been successful? How have these strategies engaged with local community stakeholders? What is there to learn about the histories of communities vis-à-vis WHSs? What could be changed to ensure sites’ full implementation, solvency and sustainability? We also invite session, paper, and poster submissions that explore the benefits of cultural tourism to museums, heritage sites, and communities. In cases where cultural and heritage sites are community managed, what operating policies and practices have been implemented to ensure that they meet their heritage preservation and education mandates while also remaining sustainable?

D. Indigenous

10. Indigenous Views on Ancestors, Ancestral Sites, their Excavation and Disturbance

Aulii Mitchell

(Cultural Surveys, Hawai’i) and Tiatoshi Jamir (Nagaland University, India)

I ulu no ka lālāikekumu (Hawai’i)

(We are products of our genealogical connections)

Longterok nung poker Menang ali tetenzükdang (Nagaland, India) (With the origin at Longterok [six stones]

The beginning of a new world)

This Theme focuses on the richness and diversity of Indigenous views of the spiritual world. Our concerns highlight relationships with ancestors, their sacred lands, sites and stories, and how excavations and disturbance occur in contemporary times. We invite exploration of memories of origin myths and centres of dispersals of Indigenous communities drawn from ancestral sites. We seek to better understand: how descendant communities derive memories of ancestors and their lives from ancestral sites to enhance their sense of connection with the past; how myths of origin and migration in the distant past are validated within Indigenous settings and how these interfaces with archaeological inquiry; and, how this impinges upon both archaeological investigations and disturbance for development. Sessions will examine these and other constructs about these phenomena from both archaeological and cultural perspectives.

We invite sessions and papers that explore a continuum of ideas, seeking to understand that Indigenous views of the ancestors are not homogenous and that they provide rich alterities across the globe. Sessions that explore shared affinities in beliefs about ancestors promise to provide important lessons about how Indigenous ancestral beliefs and places may gain a more prominent role in how archaeology and development may be managed by Indigenous communities into the future. Sessions will also hopefully draw on the participation of Indigenous voices about their pasts within an archaeological discourse and how such approaches contribute to archaeological theory and method by presenting alternatives to the dominant paradigms in mainstream archaeology.

11. Archaeology as Indigenous Advocacy

Juliana Salles Machado

(Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brazil) in collaboration with: Michael Heckenberger (University of Florida, USA)

Scientific discourses about the deep past produced by archaeologists acknowledge little or no relationship with traditional and/or indigenous people who currently occupy different parts of the world. This invisibility is expressed through the maintenance of archaeological categories, such as the academic use of the term prehistory as opposed to [occidental] history as well as ceramic or lithic typological categories that, generally, capture little of their relationship with living people. For several decades, the growth of indigenous archaeology and the diversification of collaborative approaches dealing with the relationship of archaeology and Indigenous and traditional societies have shown that the detachment assigned to that distant past is increasingly questioned. In various global settings and practices, Indigenous and traditional people are questioning such abstract and arbitrary constructions as well as their academic uses and legal and social consequences. Rather, they are grasping and appropriating archaeological speech and producing and building complex narratives that put into play the multiple and complex relationships between past and present. These plural constructions compel new theoretical and methodological agendas for archaeology, particularly in global southern regions. Increasingly observable is the demonstrated effectiveness of Indigenous archaeologies as instruments of advocacy to indigenous current demands, promoting and ensuring the guarantee of indigenous rights, especially in indigenous cultural and territorial survival. Archaeology has been acting through distinct ways to maintain a cultural defence of people in Global Southern contexts and the rising efficacy of alternative Indigenous knowledge and ontologies. This is occurring through recognition of significant places and management of anthropogenic landscapes and understanding traditional techniques, cultural choices, and strategies within the production of materiality. Although Indigenous archaeology has gained more visibility in northern countries, Indigenous archaeology in southern contexts remains little known, with a few examples masking huge cultural and historical variability.

This Theme encourages sharing deeper knowledge about the diversity and commonalities of Indigenous archaeologies across the Global South and elsewhere. Of significant interest is the impact on legal processes and rights claims made by Indigenous archaeological researchers and their renderings of past histories of landscapes. This Theme expects archaeologists from diverse southern regions as well as indigenous and local community researchers to share their research experiences and thus contribute to a better and more plural understanding of the southern contexts. Within the current scenario of struggle for native peoples’ rights under increasing pressure for world development, indigenous people are, in distinct ways, increasingly appropriating archaeological discourses as a form of advocacy for their territorial and cultural rights, making the social impact of our production even more immediate. This engagement in advocacy imprints us with an irrefutable responsibility for the highest concern for ethical conduct in scientific practice as well as addressing the wide range of implications our productions create.

12. Fission or Fusion? Indigenous Engagement

Paora Tapsell

(University of Melbourne, Australia & New Zealand Maori Centre of Research Excellence, University of Otago, New Zealand), in collaboration with: Marcia Langton & Lyndon Ormond-Parker (University of Melbourne, Australia), and Merata Kawharu & Hirini Tane (University of Otago, New Zealand)

This inclusive Theme is open to all WAC members. It has been developed to assist our sectors of Archaeology, Anthropology, Museums and Cultural Heritage unpack the past two decades of accelerating engagement on all matters Indigenous, from repatriation to memorialization, from genetics to engineering, exhibitions to site excavations; from co-production through to education initiatives; and not least the increasing use of our sector’s science to improve source communities’ own economic, social and political well-being. This Theme seeks sessions, papers and/or posters from academics, professionals, researchers, scholars, and source community representatives across the planet who have hands-on experience of working with Indigenous/First Peoples on their ancestral landscapes and waterways, both remotely and in urban settings. What are the opportunities and barriers we can share with each other to mutually empower reciprocal transfers of knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment? How might we give equitable voice to those source communities who find themselves at ground zero of intensive primary production for first world consumption?

This Theme provides a platform for critical debates and innovative responses, evolving out of Indigenous spaces of engagement. The sessions will provide opportunity for experiences and learnings to be safely aired, tested, and shaped into potential interventions and/or solutions drawn from the past. Can WAC be a lighthouse—from a whenua* perspective—that guides humanity, contributing to a new order of environmentally accountable resilience, adaptation, sustainability, and enterprise?

*Whenua (n. Māori/Pacific) − the fertile placenta (soils + waterways + air) found between Earth Mother (Papa-tū-a-Nuku: Energy) and Sky Father (Ranginui: Space) from which all life emerges, is sustained and eventually returns.

E. Interactions and Transformations

13. Historical Archaeology: Global Alterities and Affinities

Natalie Swanepoel

(University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa)

From its initial focus on the global processes resulting from the expansion of Europe and the rise of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, and chattel slavery during the last half millennia, historical archaeology has diversified into a sub-discipline with local research foci, sources and methodologies arising from unique regional historical trajectories. The result is an ongoing debate about how to define the scope and practice of historical archaeology. Is it the study of the last 500 years; the comparative use of documentary, oral and pictorial sources in conjunction with archaeology; or the study of the expansion of Europe, colonialism, capitalism and culture contact? These discussions are starkest in contexts where there are debates about the relevance and value of historical archaeology to Indigenous and local communities in previously colonized areas. Historical Archaeology has long held the motto “dig local, think global”, but increasingly the call from these postcolonial contexts is for scholars to also “think local”, that is, to incorporate postcolonial and decolonized perspectives into their research, including non-Western epistemologies and ontologies to better understand past societies. Such challenges call for us to re-examine our theoretical approaches, sources, and methodologies.

Sessions and individual contributions within this Theme have the potential to address a number of questions. These include questions of definition, such as how do we move beyond a “global” definition of historical archaeology? How is the sub-discipline practiced in different parts of the world and what are the relationships among these forms of practice? Questions of theoretical frameworks, paradigms and methods, such as how may postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, including non-Western epistemologies and ontologies, be mobilized in our theoretical and interpretive frameworks? What are the methodological implications? What new or existing sources need to be incorporated or evaluated anew? What implications do this hold for relationships and/or partnerships with descendant/stakeholder communities? How may these relationships be deepened and elaborated?

Also welcome are sessions and papers that examine our relevance. As we approach the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, the global community faces virulent problems arising from inter alia: environmental degradation, climate change, conflict, economic inequality, cultural and social intolerance, and systemic racism, sexism and homophobia, and political extremism. Many of these result from the aforementioned historical processes that have long fallen under our purview. How does historical archaeology, as a global comparative discipline with local foundations, speak to these global challenges in a way that is meaningful to communities and societies at the local level? Finally, how do we ensure that we are able to attract a new generation of historical archaeologists who are demographically, culturally, and theoretically reflective of the multiple contexts that we study? Are we meeting the training needs for a new generation of historical archaeologists? What ideas have been implemented to attract and retain a diverse student body (and eventual practitioner base) in historical archaeology?

14. Maritime Histories: The Seas in Human History

Alice B. Kehoe

(Milwaukee, WI, USA) in collaboration with: Bettina Schulz Paulsson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)

Two-thirds of planet earth are covered by seas. Humans are dispersed by water as well as overland. Humans reached the Sahul—easternmost SE Asian islands, New Guinea, Australia—in the Middle Paleolithic, presumably using rafts. Later in the Pleistocene, humans likely paddled around the Pacific Rim to the coasts of the Americas. Sea routes thus established carried trade and migrants for millennia.

The archaeology of human use of the seas is extremely challenging. Outside of a few harbours and shoals, anything sunk in the deep seas is irretrievably lost and likely disappeared. Inferences must be developed from land data, ranging from the basic fact that humans reached Australia at least 50,000 years ago, to historic port documents of ship ladings and contracts. Scholars familiar with seafaring dub this latter approach a “landlubber bias”. Sessions under the Maritime Theme should adduce whatever data seem relevant to elucidating marine voyages, as early as the Middle Paleolithic and up to the near present. Sessions may focus on migrations of populations and of individuals and groups such as pilgrims to Jerusalem; on resource procurements and trade, such as Lapita in the Pacific; on spread of retrievable artefacts such as Neolithic European megaliths; or on experiments with constructing and voyaging boats—rafts, log boats, shell boats, plank boats, sails, rudders, navigation. Geographical concepts such as the Indian Ocean World, Gulf of Mexico World, and Pacific Rim are relevant. Symbols and rituals relating to the sea, seafaring, and boats fit under Maritime, as do issues in history such as identifying the Classical “Sea Peoples” or Norse in the North Atlantic. We plan at least one session on controversies using the term “diffusion”, notoriously linked to the seas.

F. Identities and Ontologies

15. Archaeologies of Identity

Jan Turek

(Center for Theoretical Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)

Identities decisively shape the human world and condition the role of individuals in society. The study of identities connects to most aspects of archaeological research. Starting on the level of personhood, personal identity represents the differences in character that marks off an individual from others, but it is also based on one’s position within society and reflects social relationships. Personal identity shapes not only the way an individual is accepted by their society but also the personal perception of cultural and social norms at different levels of social interaction. The range of personal identity topics includes gender, social, and historical and biological relationships. Personal conceptions and group affiliations are important across a wide range of archaeological research on communities, including the analysis and interpretation of collective identities, social differentiation, genetic and ethnic processes, and religious and ideological issues.

In this Theme, we welcome sessions discussing material traces of past identities in a broad sense, focused on questions of ethnic or group identities marked by material culture. We seek to better understand how or if archaeological evidence can be inserted into a general picture of the population history and changes in group affiliations. Questions, such as how may we persuasively illustrate the record of shared identity of archaeological “cultures”, and to what extent do these categories correspond to the past ethnic, social group (eg. guild, kin groups, secret society, etc.), religious, settlement, or subsistence identities? How may we discern the traces of past personhood, gender, and self-identification in material remains; and, what issues arise from our attempts to make these connections? Finally, how have modern national/ethnic and religious identifications shaped our interpretations of identity in archaeological research and how have ideological engagements influenced archaeological research and interpretation of identity?

The study of past identities is currently influenced as never before by the development of contemporary social agendas. Our interest in past social and personal relationships is increasingly formed by the present-day issues in a globalized world. The free and open discussion of differences in both the perception and understanding of identities is necessary to prevent misunderstanding, animosity, and social injustice on both regional and global levels; archaeologists must be concerned with how our interpretations of our data may enter larger arenas.

16. Landscapes, Forests, Groves, Rocks, Rivers, and Trees: Ontological Groundings and Seeking Alternative Theories

E. Ichumbaki

(University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) and Kellie Pollard (Flinders University, Australia)

The practice of archaeology across the world continues to be guided by theories and methodologies that pay attention to material culture to conceptualize human history. Non-artefactual and ecofactual evidence such as forests, groves, and trees, to mention a few, are rarely considered as “things” that tell historical stories about human journeys. Often these historical stories are told through very different ontological viewpoints than used in archaeology, compelling critical examination of our own assumptions and practices. This Theme welcomes sessions that aim to engage with indigenous ideas about landscapes and particularly landscapes, forests, groves, trees, rocks, and rivers as knowledge that has the potential to reconfigure archaeological concepts and practice. Sessions are invited to explore the power of intangible heritage and materialized ritual practices attached to such places to broaden and transform archaeological theory. What are the problems and potentials of such inquiries? Do archaeologists have the training and background to accommodate ontologies that see landscapes, trees, groves, forests, etc. as living substances? We invite sessions and papers that focus on the archaeology of landscapes, forests, groves, and trees—sacred and non-sacred–and that struggle to understand and incorporate ontologies that are non-Western and that structure the deposition of material residues such as artefacts and structures.

In keeping with these principles, we also seek to examine the ways archaeologists theorize, practice, and design methodologies to disrupt mythologies of the past, particularly those originating from anywhere in the world where colonialism was the foundational basis of contemporary society’s identity. We seek sessions that explore how native epistemologies—how we know what we know and the interaction between different knowledge in time and across space–contribute to better theory-making. We also seek to understand better how others’ ontologies—the nature of being, how people are what they identify as their realities—influence how archaeological inquiries are conducted as well as how they structure the archaeological record. The world over, epistemologies and ontologies are diverse for myriad reasons that encompass worldviews, beliefs, values, and gender, and are innumerable in their representations of knowledge about the past. We welcome those who are working to advance ontological alternatives, with initiatives coming from non-Western as well as Western communities involved in new forms of archaeological representation and their implications for the discipline.

G. Archaeologies and Sciences

17. The aDNA Revolution: Its Issues, Potentials, and Implications

Chuan-Chao Wang

(Xiamen University, Xiamen, China)

Beginning in 2010, it became possible to examine whole genome DNA sequences from ancient remains with the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies and recent methodological advances. Ancient DNA (aDNA) has already fundamentally changed our understanding of evolution and demographic history for humans, plants, animals and pathogens. Although undeniably powerful, many questions remain about how to interpret aDNA results within appropriate archaeological and anthropological frameworks and how to balance ethical obligations. Despite a tremendous amount of ancient genetic information that has become available from Neanderthals, Denisovans, and West Eurasian populations, far less is known about the genetic structure of extinct humans and ancient populations in East Asia and Africa, largely because of the lack of aDNA data.

We invite sessions and papers for WAC-9 on a wide variety of aDNA topics that integrate evidence from genetics and archaeology. Diverse foci are encouraged to obtain a better understanding about the origin and dispersal of human populations, host–pathogen interactions throughout history, domestication of plants and animals, and development of bioinformatic techniques. The WAC-9 sessions will bring together population geneticists, archaeologists, palaeontologists, and other researchers interested in ancient DNA, providing opportunities for discussion of the technological, interpretative, and ethical challenges and opportunities that prevail today. We warmly welcome scholars, researchers, students, members of Indigenous communities as well as journalists and others interested in aDNA to discuss the current state of the art and future directions of this burgeoning research field.

18. A New Bioarchaeology: Telling the Difficult Stories

Charlotte King

(University of Otago, New Zealand) in collaboration with: John Krigbaum (University of Florida, USA)

Bioarchaeology, the study of human remains in archaeological context, is becoming an increasingly relevant field in archaeology. Bioarchaeologists are stepping out of the shadow of archaeology and its appendices, and showing that osteological evidence does not just support archaeological paradigms, but can be used to build them.

Human remains are unique, acting as archives allowing us to reconstruct the micro-histories of individuals, while also giving insight into population-level social, environmental and biological transitions. Bioarchaeology allows reconstruction of the lives of those left out of the historical record, and reveals the sometimes harsh realities of structural violence, discrimination, personhood and identity in the past. We approach the subject with a keen awareness that for many Indigenous groups potent ethical issues surround the study of ancestors; yet, there is also a growing awareness that important ancestral stories may be told with the application of bioarchaeological methods. To tell these stories, bioarchaeology pulls together an increasing wealth of scientific techniques and social theory to provide insights into the past.

This Theme welcomes sessions that focus on multi- and inter-disciplinary use of bioarchaeological evidence to build both large-scale paradigms of biosocial change and individual-level insights into the past. We welcome sessions focussed around the cutting-edge techniques being employed in the discipline (eg. chemical and isotopic analysis, micro-histology) and the importance of weaving social theory into bioarchaeological interpretation. We are particularly interested in sessions that aim to tell the difficult stories of our past and shed light on those who history has silenced (eg. women, children, marginalized communities). This Theme also aims to promote discussion surrounding the ethics of working with human remains, with sessions focused on working with descendant communities, and the perception of human remains in different cultural groups.

H. Environments

19. Climates of Change and Environmental Pasts

Richard “Bert” Roberts

(University of Wollongong, Australia)

Our planet is currently experiencing rapidly changing climatic conditions that are transforming our environments. Global temperatures are rising at an alarming rate, fuelling an increase in the intensity and frequency of natural disasters such as floods, droughts and wildfires. These manifestations of climate change and the way in which people adapt to them will shape the future of humanity and the fate of other species—perhaps a million of which are currently at risk of extinction, according to a recent UN report.

Changes in climate have also happened in the past, but nothing like at the scale or speed as those occurring presently. The world has been through many glacial/interglacial cycles (Ice Ages) over the past few million years. Some researchers have argued that periods of heightened climatic variability have been major evolutionary drivers, particularly in the early stages of human evolution. During glacial periods, lower sea levels and shifts in temperature and rainfall regimes led to the desiccation of continental interiors, expansion of coastal plains and the joining together of some islands and continents.

The history of our species (and of earlier lineages) has unfolded against this environmental backdrop. People have had to adapt to the ecological and social consequences of shifts in climate and sea level, the net effect reflecting a combination of environmental influences and cultural processes. The relative importance of external (climatic) and internal (cultural) factors differ from place to place, depending on the specific context and the timing and impact of contingent events.

The goal of this Theme is to bring together archaeologists and researchers from cognate disciplines to explore the inter-disciplinary intersection between changes in climate and human–environment interactions in the broadest sense. Scientific concepts and techniques play a key role in addressing questions about past cultural development, so we welcome sessions that apply scientific approaches and methods to cast new light on the many ways in which environmental transformations have affected the course of human history and cultural constructions of our place in nature.

Possible topics for sessions include but are not limited to the following: the effect of climate extremes and “tipping points” on the human past in different regions of the world over different time periods; the impact of swings in climate on the relationship of people to past upheavals in animal and plant communities and on the evolution of human diet; the role of environmental changes in creating new opportunities and challenges for access to and use of resources and influencing demography and behaviour; the shaping of cultural landscapes through the use of fire and other ecological interventions; and the effect of environmental bridges and barriers on the pace and pattern of human migration and population interactions.

20. Water and Ancient Complex Societies

Innocent Pikirayi

(University of Pretoria, South Africa) in collaboration with: Federica Sulas (Aarhus University, Denmark)

From c. 6000 BCE highly centralized, strong, socio-political entities emerged from agrarian-based societies. Very often cited are classical examples from the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan, the Tigris-Euphrates in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley in India and Pakistan, and the Yangtse and Yellow river basins in eastern and northern China. Explanations often proffered for the rise and development of ancient complex societies include economic specialization which would generate an agricultural surplus impelled by the fertile soils deposited in the adjacent vast flood plains. This in turn leads to division of labour, the need for centralized state government, increased population, and ultimately a hierarchical authority that appropriated military, economic, and religious powers. This “Hydraulic Hypothesis”—a theory first described by German historian Karl Wittfogel and a model used to explain the origin of ancient civilizations—has generated papers and essays on agriculture and the deployment of ancient complex societies, largely focusing on these parts of the world. Clearly, the model has limited global application. We know, for example, that irrigation-based systems have emerged without centralized leadership, even in Mesopotamia, and in other parts of the world where complex society has emerged without hydraulic beginnings. However, water played a part in one way or the other in the development and demise of ancient complex societies.

We invite sessions that seek to understand the development of stratified, hierarchical, complexly organized societies from diverse parts of the world, specifically with a focus on the role played by water in the process. How did ancient societies manage water and moisture to grow food, and, create structures and organizations associated with socio-political complexity? How did climate change impact water and moisture management strategies by ancient societies, and what lessons do we learn from their interventions? We also welcome sessions covering the worsening environmental conditions that are triggering and continue to generate conflict in different parts of the world, due to water shortages, unsustainable watershed management practices, and negative impacts of climate variability and change in regional hydrology. Severe multiyear and decadal droughts, coupled with poorly regulated water diversions and abstractions, eg. in the Sahel region of Africa, and specifically the Lake Chad Basin, have led to the depletion of Lake Chad and water scarcity. These processes have contributed to acute humanitarian crises, displacement of populations, and political instability, all of which have been recorded in extant historical accounts and continue to this day. Beyond these are what appear to be very stable ecosystems such as Mt Kilimanjaro, home to Chagga chiefdoms since the 16th century, but whose glaciers are noticeably retreating. From Europe, we welcome sessions and papers speaking beyond water usage in ancient Graeco–Roman civilizations, eg. how Medieval villages and towns developed around sources of fresh water. We invite sessions that explore past water management systems that may hold important lessons for solving water scarcity in the future, across the globe.

Z. World Archaeologies: The Past, the Present and the Future

21. World Archaeologies: The Past, the Present and the Future

WAC-9 Prague 2020 Local Organizing Committee

The Local Organizing Committee and Scientific Committee of WAC-9 recognize that the Themes presented for WAC-9 do not cover the full spectrum of archaeology and heritage issues around the world today. The WAC-9 Themes are intended to provide germane and challenging foci for the meetings, with the recognition of Article 2.1 of WAC Statutes that states:

“WAC is an international non-profit making organization concerned with all aspects of archaeological theory and practice. Its main emphasis is on academic issues and questions which benefit from a widely oriented and comparative approach. It attempts to bridge the disciplinary divisions of the past into chronological periods (such as prehistoric or protohistoric or historic archaeology), and to avoid exclusive, particularistic regional concerns”.

This theme is designed to accommodate sessions and papers that do not fit into the published theme but complement the WAC statutes by presenting innovative and challenging ideas that overcome the divisions artificially imposed upon our discipline.

WAC-9 Call for Sessions

Dear Colleagues, and Friends of WAC,

Having confirmed the list of themes, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) is pleased to invite session submissions for the WAC-9 Prague 2020 Congress scheduled to take place at the Cubex Centrum from 5–10 July, 2020.

Each session, informed by the 21 themes identified by the Scientific Committee, must be proposed by at least two organizers from two different countries. Sessions should emphasize international participation and global perspectives. Session proposals should be composed of a title, an abstract of 300 words, and up to five keywords. Sessions can be organized in different formats, including workshops, debates, panels, and forums. A typical session lasts for 90 min, and comprises five 15-min-long papers, with 5-min introduction and 10-min discussion at the end.

The Scientific Committee strongly encourages the prospective session organizers to provide a list of at least five or more session paper presenters with their abstracts. A session can be as long as justifiably necessary. In the case that you cannot secure five presenters, then you agree to entrust the Scientific Committee and Local Organising Committee to allocate individually proposed papers that they find fit into the session. In that case, please inform the Local Organising Committee your willingness to accept additional paper presenters designated by the Local Organising Committee and the Scientific Committee.

Those who wish to propose sessions must be WAC members and registered to attend the congress. Official general registration starts on 1 January 2020, but those who wish to propose sessions are asked to register at the time of the submission of the proposal. Those presenting papers in sessions must be members of WAC, but may register starting January 1, 2020. If you are planning to apply for travel funds and have not secured funding yet (therefore cannot register yourself at the time of submitting your session proposals), please inform the Local Organising Committee at the time of your submission, justify your delay, and set a timely, specific date to pay the registration fees.

WAC will potentially provide travel support grants to cover some expenses for those WAC members from economically challenged countries who wish to organize sessions and present papers. A designated section concerning the travel support scheme will be published on the Official WAC-9 Prague 2020 website shortly. The opening of the section will be notified through WAC E-mailing list and at the WAC official website. Please inform the Local Organising Committee at the time of your submission of your intention to apply for support. To support as many colleagues as possible, such support will cover only partial expenses.

The deadline for submitting session proposals for WAC-9 Prague, Czech Republic (5–10 July 2020) is Tuesday 15 October 2019 12:00 pm. (GMT + 1).

On behalf of the WAC-9 Local Organising Committee

Sincerely

Jan Turek

WAC-9 Academic Secretary