1 Archaeology of the Human Experience: An Introduction

Abstract

The Archaeology of the Human Experience (AHE) is concerned with understanding what it was like to live in the past, an endeavor that speaks to established archaeological traditions and to much broader audiences. AHE has four components: (1) Investigating the conditions of life; (2) Understanding how those conditions came to be; (3) Considering how those conditions are part of, and affect, the larger social and cultural context; and (4) Exploring the experience of those conditions. Many established methods can be used to investigate the first three; the fourth raises delicate questions about whether and how we can know others. Future work will continue to develop systematic measures that might shed light on how and why conditions worsen or improve in some cases. [archaeology of the human experience, human development, archaeological theory]

Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation

“…Archaeologists would be remiss to avoid these considerations because they are part of what people experienced and how they lived. Similarly, archaeologists who examine the archaeology of human experience argue that people's experiences are amenable to archaeological investigation (Hegmon 2016a). Examining human experiences can allow the voices of marginalized groups to be heard, such as indigenous people, women, and children, which is a concern of many archaeologists who study cooking.…”

Anthropological Archaeology in 2016: Cooperation and Collaborations in Archaeological Research and Practice

“…Interestingly, however, a focus on the affective aspects of collaboration, sharing, and cooperation is largely absent from this recent archaeological interest in experience and emotion in the past (Allmond ; Arjona ; Ceasar ; Hall ; Hegmon ; Reilly ). The authors of many of these studies point to the impossibility of identifying the exact emotional and subjective state of a long‐gone individual, and instead focus on the practices, material conditions, and contexts that shaped and were shaped by human experiences and emotions, ranging from the reconstruction of the conditions of human experience to the affective and embodied nature of particular historical circumstances, identities, and materialities.…”

“…Many studies of human experience focus on suffering and isolation (Hegmon ; Martin and Harrod ), such as those of captives and slaves (Cameron ; Trimble ), as well as detention, imprisonment, and forced labor (Allmond ; Blin ; Chopelain ; Hall ; Pollock and Bernbeck ; Redon ; Vermard, Adam, and Panisset ). For instance, in a study of a Roman slave collar, Jennifer Trimble () explores not only the painful, debilitating experiences of the slave who would have worn such a metal collar labeled with a written ownership tag but also the material, textual, and visual dimensions of Roman slave owners’ experiences in possessing and dominating another human, and the perspective of viewers and readers who would have experienced the collar as an “audience.” This focus on human suffering, violence, and isolation undoubtedly stems from the fact that they are heightened emotions of the human condition, even if there is recognition that the capturing of such emotions through image or text “is deeply deficient, as it is nothing but a mediated version of a more fundamental encounter with the world” (Pollock and Bernbeck , 34).…”

The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes

“…Microregional climate change, natural disasters, and the effects of invasive species have been undertheorized for ancient sites, although faunal, botanical, and climate data sets are now increasingly robust and primed for such analyses. Newly emergent paradigms for the holistic treatment of archaeological data include the Archaeology of the Human Experience (see Hegmon 2013) and social network analysis (see Knappett 2013). Archaeologists should also be alerted to the longitudinal data sets developed by other disciplines which can enhance site-specific studies, such as the History Database of the Global Environment (Klein Goldewijk et al 2011) and the Global History of Health Project (http://global.sbs.ohio-state.edu).…”