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Marxist archaeology

Article January 2010

DOI: 10.1016/B978-012373962-9.00178-3

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Wurst LouAnn, MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY. In: Encyclopedia of Archaeology,

ed. by Deborah M. Pearsall. 2008, Academic Press, New York.
 Author's personal copy
See also: Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation;
Ethical Issues and Responsibilities; Historical Archae-
ology: As a Discipline; Illicit Antiquities; Industrial
Archaeology; Robotic Archaeology on the Deep
Ocean Floor; Ships and Seafaring; Underwater Archae-
ology; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.
Further Reading
Bass GF (1967) Cape Gelidonyia: A Bronze Age shipwreck. Trans-
actions American Philosophical Society 57(8): 177.
Bass GF (2005) Beneath the Seven Seas: Adventures with the Insti-
tute of Nautical Archaeology. London: Thames and Hudson.
Bass GF (ed.) (2004) Serce Limani: An Eleventh-Century Ship-
wreck: The Ship and Its Anchorage, Crew, and Passengers.
College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.
Bass GF and van Doorninck FH (1982) Yassi Ada, Vol. 1: A 7th
Century Byzantine Shipwreck. College Station, TX: Texas A&M
University Press.
Blackman DJ (1973) Marine Archaeology. Proceedings of the 23rd
Symposium Colston Research Society Held University of Bristol
April 1971. London: Butterworths.
Bruce-Mitford R (1975) The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, Vol. 1: Exca-
vations, Background, the Ship Dating and Inventory. London:
British Museum.
Cousteau J-Y (1954) Fish men discover a 2,200-year-old Greek
wreck. National Geographic Magazine 105(1): 47.
Cederlund CO (1983) British Archaeological Reports, Internation-
al Series 186: The Old Wrecks of the Baltic Sea: Archaeological
Recording of the Wrecks of Carvel-Built Ships. Oxford: BAR.
Cederlund CO (ed.) (1985) British Archaeological Reports, Inter-
national Series 256: International Symposium on Boat and Ship
Archaeology. Oxford: BAR.
du PlatTaylor J (1965) Marine Archaeology. London: Hutchinson.
MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY
LouAnn Wurst, SUNY College at Brockport,
Brockport, NY, USA
2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
historical materialism methodological approach to the study
of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by
Karl Marx (18181883).
Karl Marx German philosopher, political economist, and
revolutionary.
Marxism the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marxs
work on one hand, and the political practice based on Marxist
theory on the other hand.
For most westerners, the term Marxism conjures a
plethora of contradictory images. For some, it is cast
as a bogeyman an irrelevant icon of either a rigid
Encyclopedia of Archaeology (2008), vol. 2, pp. 1605-1607
MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY 1605
English Heritage (1999) Towards a Policy for Maritime Archaeol-
ogy: An English Heritage and RCHME Discussion Paper.
Fenwick V (1998) Historic Shipwrecks: Discovered, Protected and
Investigated. Stroud, UK: Tempus.
Litwin J (2000) Down the river to the sea. Proceedings of the
Eighth International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology,
Gdansk 1997. Gdansk: Polish Maritime Museum.
Marsden P (2003) The Archaeology of the Mary Rose, Volume 1:
Sealed by Time: The Loss, and Recovery of the Mary Rose.
Portsmouth: The Mary Rose Trust.
Prott LV, Planche E, and Roca-Hachem R (2000) Background
Materials on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage.
Paris: UNESCO.
Reinders R and Paul K (eds.) (1991) Carvel Construction Tech-
nique: Skeleton-First, Shell-First: Fifth International Symposium
on Boat and Ship Archaeology, Amsterdam 1988. Oxford:
Oxbow Books.
Ruppe CV and Barstad JF (eds.) (2002) International Handbook
of Underwater Archaeology. New York: Kluwer Academic/
Plenum.
Steffy JR (1994) Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of
Shipwrecks. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press.
Throckmorton P (1987) History from the Sea, Shipwrecks and
Archaeology. London: Michell Beasley.
UNESCO (1972) Underwater Archaeology, A Nascent Discipline.
Paris: UNESCO.
UNESCO (2001) Convention on the Protection of the Underwater
Cultural Heritage, 15 Oct3 Nov 2001, Paris. http://www.
unesco.org/culture/laws/underwater/html_eng/convention.shtml
accessed Mar 2007.
Westerdahl C (1994) Crossroads in ancient shipbuilding. Oxbow
Monograph 40: Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium
on Boat and Ship Archaeology, Roskilde, 1991. Oxford: Oxbow
Books.
evolutionism or failed political idealism. Some have
rejected Marxism as part of the larger postmodernist
critique of all totalizing discourses. Its equation with
economic determinism and communism as the inevita-
ble outcome of history is hard for most social scholars
to swallow, especially with the recent collapse of many
communist states. On the other hand, many scholars
have argued that Marxism represents some of the most
powerful theoretical ideas of the modern age and the
only true potential for emancipatory action.
Reconciling these disparate stances is not easy.
This stems from the fact that Marxism does not
refer to a single, consistent social theory; there is
often more difference than similarity between self-
proclaimed Marxists. Ambiguities in Marxs work
and the often-hidden nature of his influence in
Western scholarship are at the root of many differences.
Divergence in Marxist theory is also linked to historical
 Author's personal copy
1606 MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY
contexts and, in Anglophone archaeology, its specific
development and research agendas. Thus, Marxism is
best seen as a tradition rather than a theory, recognizing
that it often takes many different forms.
There is, however, a series of principles that all
Marxists, no matter what bent, share. All look to the
writings of Karl Marx for inspiration and engage in the
larger tradition of Marxist scholarship that builds on
his work. All Marxist archaeologists propound some
form of historical materialism, including a dialectical
approach that treats society as a totality of inter-
connected social relations defined by contradiction
and conflict. They reject commonsense ideas of linear
causality based on abstracting discrete social entities,
that is, the economy, instead focusing on relations
evident in and connecting material/ideal oppositions.
All Marxists emphasize that people make history
through praxis, or theoretically informed action. For
archaeologists, this means recognizing that our knowl-
edge of the past is created in and influenced by modern
social and political conditions that derive from a capi-
talist system defined by relations of power and inequal-
ity that are unjust. Finally, Marxist archaeology is
geared toward not simply understanding these rela-
tions, but changing them. As such Marxism represents
a form of political action (see Economic Archaeology;
World Systems Theory).
Marx is best known for his study and critique of
capitalism. Except for historical archaeology, this is a
context that is far removed from much archaeological
research. In this respect, archaeologists have applied
historical materialism in several different ways
abstracting general concepts and ideas and applying
them to noncapitalist contexts; and using it to under-
stand the workings of archaeology and its products
in the modern capitalist world. In other words,
Marxist ideas have been applied to construct knowl-
edge about the past as well as to critically confront
our role in the construction of knowledge in the
present.
Marxism and Knowledge about the Past
Marxist archaeologists have creatively applied many
aspects of Marxs general concepts and ideas to our
understandings of life in the past. One obvious area
has been questions of state formation and the origins
of complexity, with its accompanying relations of
class and hierarchy. The application of a Marxist
model to this, one of the burning questions in archae-
ology, dates from the work of V. Gordon Childe,
undoubtedly the most prolific Western archaeologist
of the twentieth century and the first to explicitly use
Marxist theory in his work. Childe presented a theory
Encyclopedia of Archaeology (2008), vol. 2, pp. 1605-1607
of historical development punctuated by revolutions
(Neolithic, Urban, and Industrial) based on changes
in relations of production. This focused attention on
questions of labor, appropriation of surplus produc-
tion, exploitation, and class struggle. While many of
Childes specific arguments have been discredited by
new empirical data, the Marxist emphasis continues
in the contemporary research on state formation
by Thomas Patterson, Elizabeth Brumfiel, Antonio
Gilman, Philip Kohl, and Allen Zagarell.
Other scholars have fruitfully extended a similar
historical materialist framework to pre-state or non-
stratified societies, recognizing that questions about
the relations and mode of production, labor, inequal-
ity, and exploitation are not limited to the modern
world. Examples would include Jon Mullers and
Charles Cobbs study of the Mississippian period
in the southeastern United States and Dean Saittas
analysis of power and labor relations in both Cahokia
and Chaco Canyon.
A slightly different tack was taken by Marxist
archaeologists who adopted a world-systems approach.
World-systems theory was developed by Immanuel
Wallerstein to account for the formation and growth
of capitalism on the global stage. Wallersteins appeal
lay in theorizing spatial parameters for inequality, con-
flict, and contradiction in terms of regional core and
periphery relations. Archaeologists have critically and
creatively applied these ideas to unequal geographic
development in the Near East, the Mediterranean
world, and the American Northwest/Southwest. World-
systems theory continues to be widely used, although
typically alienated from its Marxist roots.
Other Marxist archaeologists have focused more
specifically on class relations in various social con-
texts. Class can be defined as social groups that occupy
different productive relations and entails differential
control over labor and surplus production. Real classes
exist only in concrete historical circumstances where
the relations are inherently conflictual and contradic-
tory. Archaeologists have seldom adopted an explicit
class approach, but the Marxist-derived terminology
of dominance and resistance, power, and struggle has
become mainstream.
Marxism and Modern Archaeology
Marxist approaches have also had a profound impact
on our understanding of the role that archaeology
plays within the modern capitalist world. Archaeol-
ogists in colonialist contexts have been confronted by
well-organized First Nation and descendant commu-
nities who have led us to questions archaeology for
whom? Marxism provides powerful tools to deal
 Author's personal copy
with this question by focusing attention on class,
inequality, and exploitation. In North America,
Bruce Trigger and Randall McGuire used a Marxist
approach to examine the way that mainstream
images of Native Americans functioned ideologically
to support colonialism and the modern capitalist
state. Archaeologists are today scrambling to engage
various descendant communities in a dialog that
seeks to move beyond these past injustices.
Marxists have also approached the archaeological
study of the present through Critical Theory. Mark
Leones research in Annapolis is a prime example.
Leone focused on ideology as peoples taken-for-
granted beliefs that mystify the true nature of social
relations to uphold dominant power relations. To
promote struggle and change, the Annapolis public
education program introduced visitors to the contra-
dictions and social inequalities of the capitalist system
evident in landscape, architecture, and material
culture.
Other archaeologists have applied an explicitly
Marxist class analysis to the structure of modern
archaeology, making strong connections between
archaeology and American socio-economic and class
relations. These studies have demonstrated that archae-
ology is an inherently middle class practice, evident in
the kinds of questions asked about the past, the kinds
of knowledge that are privileged, and the nature of
the interpretations that are constructed. We have also
learned that archaeology is as plagued by a class struc-
ture defined by inequality and exploitation as any
other arena of the modern capitalist world.
Patterson has argued that for the past 70 years,
archaeologists have been engaged in a conversation
with Marxs ghost. While most of this engagement
is hidden, there are few burning questions in archaeol-
ogy that have not been informed by Marxs ideas.
Material Culture See: Artifacts, Overview.
Encyclopedia of Archaeology (2008), vol. 2, pp. 1605-1607
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MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY 1607
Archaeologists have engaged Marxs ghost through
a variety of concepts class, state formation, inequality,
power, ideology, etc. Acknowledged or not, Marxism is
a vital part of archaeologys theoretical development.
Marxist archaeologists have made valuable contribu-
tions to our knowledge of the past as well our role in
the construction of knowledge in the present.
See also: Colonial Praxis; Economic Archaeology;
Historical Materialist Approaches; Political Complexity,
Rise of; Social Inequality, Development of; Social
Theory; Social Violence and War; State-Level Societies,
Collapse of; World Systems Theory.
Further Reading
McGuire RH (1992) A Marxist Archaeology. San Diego: Academic
Press.
McGuire RH and Walker M (1999) Class confrontations in archae-
ology. Historical Archaeology 33(1): 159183.
McGuire RH and Wurst L (2002) Struggling with the past. Inter-
national Journal of Historical Archaeology 6(2): 8594.
McGuire RH, ODonovan M, and Wurst L (2005) Probing praxis
in archaeology: The last eighty years. Rethinking Marxism
17(3): 355372.
ODonovan M (2002) Grasping power: A question of relations
and scales. In: ODonovan M (ed.) The Dynamics of Power,
Occasional Paper No. 30. pp. 1934. Carbondale: Center for
Archaeological Investigations and Southern Illinois University.
Patterson TC (1999) The political economy of archaeology in the
United States. Annual Review of Anthropology 28: 155174.
Patterson TC (2003) Marxs Ghost: Conversations with Archaeol-
ogists. Oxford: Berg.
Spriggs M (ed.) (1984) Marxist Perspectives in Archaeology.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Trigger B (ed.) (1989) A History of Archaeological Thought.
Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Wurst L (2006) A class all its own: Explorations of class formation
and conflict. In: Hall M and Silliman SW (eds.) Historical
Archaeology, pp. 190206. Oxford: Blackwell.