Kam
So this wasn’t all that bad a read. The author’s writing is a pleasure to read, as ever, but this book feels a bit lighter in the heel, so to speak, compared to his previous works. I personally attribute this to his dips into fiction for almost half the book, wherein he spins a little tale about the specific time period and culture he’s focusing on in any given section, showing how the artifacts and techniques that he tackles in that section might have been applied by people in the past. These little fictional bits are not utterly egregious, and they are clearly solidly grounded in pretty good research, but I, as a reader, could have done without them. I would have appreciated a stronger focus on the experimental archaeologists themselves: most of whom seem like an interesting bunch, and, even better, have the benefit of being people who are currently alive and working on their research despite pushback and condemnation from more traditional archaeologists.
Speaking of pushback and condemnation, I liked that the author tackles the friction between traditional archaeologists and experimental archaeologists, and even tries to explain why the friction exists in the first place, but I could not help but notice that he missed a crucial sticking point: classism. Traditional archaeology has, historically, been a pursuit of wealthy white colonizers with noble titles, and as such the class biases of such people linger in that particular field of study even today, exacerbated by the ivory tower of academia. Such people are not interested in the nitty-gritty of ancient Egyptian beer-brewing, for instance, or how to take down a giant sloth with an atlatl - such things are too “common”, the purview of the lower classes, not the kings and high priests they are often far more interested in. Traditional archaeologists of a certain type are entirely happy to make admiring noises about marble busts of ancient Roman matrons and can probably identify each one based on their hairdos, but are far less interested in figuring out how those hairdos got made in the first place.
Which brings me right back to what I mentioned earlier, about being more interested in the experimental archaeologists the author interviews and works with during his research for this book. Each of them is a character in their own right, and the interviews the author conducts with them to learn the whys, wherefores, whats, and hows of their special interest are more fascinating to read than the fictional stories. While it’s true that many of these experimental archaeologists do not have the specific academic training to qualify as traditional archaeologists, and it’s somewhat reasonable for traditional archaeologists to be wary of people who claim expertise outside of their field, the bias can be unjust in certain cases, especially when the experimental archaeologists are themselves experts in the specific subject matter they are tackling, or have degrees in other fields besides archaeology or related fields like history. Take, for example, the aforementioned hairdos depicted in statues and busts of Roman women. The person the author interviews in this book herself works as a professional hairdresser; if anyone knows hair, she would. And yet, despite this clear expertise, her research about ancient Roman hairdos has been met with dismissal by some archaeologists and academics. This is why I say classism may be at play here: both against the subject matter at hand, and against the person presenting the research.
Overall, this wasn’t a bad read, but it doesn’t have the same level of heft and rigor that I remember from the author’s previous books. I think this might be because he spends almost half of each section telling a fictional story which, while it IS grounded in solid research and does not not feel outlandishly speculative, does take a lot of power out of the nonfictional parts of the book. I wish more space had been devoted to talking about the real experimental archaeologists whom the author interviewed and interacted with while putting this book together, as well as tackling the reasons behind why some traditional archaeologists tends to frown upon experimental archaeologists.
Originally posted at kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com.
So this wasn’t all that bad a read. The author’s writing is a pleasure to read, as ever, but this book feels a bit lighter in the heel, so to speak, compared to his previous works. I personally attribute this to his dips into fiction for almost half the book, wherein he spins a little tale about the specific time period and culture he’s focusing on in any given section, showing how the artifacts and techniques that he tackles in that section might have been applied by people in the past. These little fictional bits are not utterly egregious, and they are clearly solidly grounded in pretty good research, but I, as a reader, could have done without them. I would have appreciated a stronger focus on the experimental archaeologists themselves: most of whom seem like an interesting bunch, and, even better, have the benefit of being people who are currently alive and working on their research despite pushback and condemnation from more traditional archaeologists.
Speaking of pushback and condemnation, I liked that the author tackles the friction between traditional archaeologists and experimental archaeologists, and even tries to explain why the friction exists in the first place, but I could not help but notice that he missed a crucial sticking point: classism. Traditional archaeology has, historically, been a pursuit of wealthy white colonizers with noble titles, and as such the class biases of such people linger in that particular field of study even today, exacerbated by the ivory tower of academia. Such people are not interested in the nitty-gritty of ancient Egyptian beer-brewing, for instance, or how to take down a giant sloth with an atlatl - such things are too “common”, the purview of the lower classes, not the kings and high priests they are often far more interested in. Traditional archaeologists of a certain type are entirely happy to make admiring noises about marble busts of ancient Roman matrons and can probably identify each one based on their hairdos, but are far less interested in figuring out how those hairdos got made in the first place.
Which brings me right back to what I mentioned earlier, about being more interested in the experimental archaeologists the author interviews and works with during his research for this book. Each of them is a character in their own right, and the interviews the author conducts with them to learn the whys, wherefores, whats, and hows of their special interest are more fascinating to read than the fictional stories. While it’s true that many of these experimental archaeologists do not have the specific academic training to qualify as traditional archaeologists, and it’s somewhat reasonable for traditional archaeologists to be wary of people who claim expertise outside of their field, the bias can be unjust in certain cases, especially when the experimental archaeologists are themselves experts in the specific subject matter they are tackling, or have degrees in other fields besides archaeology or related fields like history. Take, for example, the aforementioned hairdos depicted in statues and busts of Roman women. The person the author interviews in this book herself works as a professional hairdresser; if anyone knows hair, she would. And yet, despite this clear expertise, her research about ancient Roman hairdos has been met with dismissal by some archaeologists and academics. This is why I say classism may be at play here: both against the subject matter at hand, and against the person presenting the research.
Overall, this wasn’t a bad read, but it doesn’t have the same level of heft and rigor that I remember from the author’s previous books. I think this might be because he spends almost half of each section telling a fictional story which, while it IS grounded in solid research and does not not feel outlandishly speculative, does take a lot of power out of the nonfictional parts of the book. I wish more space had been devoted to talking about the real experimental archaeologists whom the author interviewed and interacted with while putting this book together, as well as tackling the reasons behind why some traditional archaeologists tends to frown upon experimental archaeologists.
Originally posted at kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com.