Activism in Archaeology: A Conversation With Christopher Barton

A summary of episode 137 of the Preservation Technology Podcast*, produced by the National Park Service's National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT). Megan Reed talks with Dr. Christopher Barton, associate professor of archaeology at Francis Marion University in South Carolina.*

Archaeology as a tool for activism

Barton edited Trowels in the Trenches: Archaeology as Social Activism, a collection by contributors from many parts of the world. He stresses that it builds on others' work — naming archaeologists such as Randy McGuire, whose Archaeology as Political Action inspired him in graduate school, Megan Springate and Alexander Jones.

The episode: "Activism in Archaeology", from the National Park Service's Preservation Technology Podcast.

Why he does it. Raised Catholic to believe he was his brother's keeper, Barton sees his skills as something to use with people, not to hand down to them. An archaeologist, he says, is not the gatekeeper of the past. A self-described middle-aged white man from New Jersey working in South Carolina's rural Pee Dee region, he cannot claim to know what it means to be from the Pee Dee, or to be Black; he works with communities as equal partners. Studying the region's past — slavery, the antebellum and postbellum years, Jim Crow — helps explain how people came to their present situation, and how to build a better future for all.

"All archaeology is social activism"

Reviewers wanted the book to be radical, and at first Barton wanted a combative, "punk rock" archaeology. But his reading and conversations convinced him that all archaeology is a form of social activism: archaeologists do backbreaking work to tell the present about the past and leave us better informed. Activism in archaeology, he argues, is not a product but a process — varied, full of trial and error.

He traces the field's development:

• an older archaeology obsessed with lists — an inventory of finds;
• a turn, with scholars such as Mark Leone and Ann Yentsch, to the social meaning that objects reflect and help create;
• and now a stage of using that knowledge for social change — tracing the historical roots of pollution, unequal access to health care and food, and other legacies that persist.

Barton does not claim one site report will change the world. But society values archaeology — it has college courses and National Park Service programmes devoted to it — and that limited influence can bring even small, incremental change.

Beyond one region and period

The field's activist work, he admits, has been largely confined to historical archaeology of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. The book deliberately widens it: chapters range from gender identity in the Paleolithic to events in Timbuktu, to show that such work can be global and cover any period.

What he hopes readers take away

• Never think of yourself as powerless. Simply reading something outside your usual interests and thinking differently is worthwhile.
• Limits can be overcome. Barton is dyslexic, worked construction in oil refineries, and was told college was not for everyone; he has struggled with reading and writing all his life. No book is written by one person, he says — it takes a community — and no one is alone in their struggles.

Advice for other archaeologists

• Decolonise and democratise the field, as Paulette Steeves argues in her book: replace the pyramid, with the archaeologist on top, students as labour and communities outside, with overlapping circles. His students, who know what it means to be from the Pee Dee and have wide local networks, help choose which sites to dig — they are collaborators, not labour.
• Small changes count. Writing about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, he struggled over how to describe their relationship and finally chose the word "rape" — one word, not radical to most, but for him a step out of his comfort zone. Activism can live in any site report or scholarly talk.
• Borrowing from Stan Lee: with great power comes great responsibility — and archaeologists, he says, have real power to do good.

Sources

• National Park Service, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, "Podcast 137: Activism in Archaeology." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/podcast-137-activism-in-archaeology.htm
• The Preservation Technology Podcast: https://www.nps.gov/podcasts/preservation-technology-podcasts.htm
• The transcript names "Paulette Steven"; the archaeologist and author is Paulette Steeves.
• The original's photograph of the book's cover is not reproduced.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.
• The episode's audio is the National Park Service's own file, from the podcast's feed.