Archaeopop in PORK: Occupy the Anthropocene

I've been doing an Archaeopop column for PORK, the Pacific Northwest's magazine of Rock n' Roll, Weirdo Art, and Bad Ideas. Issue #7 is out now, read it online here. This month, a meditation on Occupy, trash, and the anthropocene.

Yes I am jumping on this Occupy bandwagon, because it’s for real. As philosophy, it’s a serious upgrade of the hippy ‘be here now’: because it’s not just being, but OCCUPYING. Don’t be the navel-gazing wallflower, get in the pogo pit. Be French Canadian and go around banging on a pot. Whatever you do, live your life in full view.

Human history is filled with daring occupations, big and small. I was reading in Science magazine today about the first people to occupy the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. They showed up 9,000 years ago, as soon as the glaciers melted – even before plants started growing out there – and made lives for themselves. In fact, humans got everywhere in really ancient times with nothing but stone tools, and knowledge of the stars. Last issue I wrote about how maybe people came to ancient America from the east as well as the west. Even more impressive is the people that made it from Africa to Australia 50,000 years back, or the Polynesians and Melanesians who journeyed to the Pacific islands and even Madagascar. Those people weren’t just sitting around ‘being’, they were occupiers.

Now let me get to the other half of the title. The anthropocene is the geological age we live in right now. It means ‘new human age’. That’s right, we’ve changed the chemistry and geology of the earth enough to have a whole new age named after us. Like it or not, the world we live in is made by our own hands. We’ve been terraforming the planet for at least 50,000 years and even the deserts of Australia and rainforests of Brazil have the stamp of humanity on them. After thousands of years of thinking of nature as either our implacable enemy, or our utopian Eden, we have to come to terms with the fact that nature… is us.



Now a lot of people left and right are seriously invested in pretending that humans are just spectators in this world of ours. The fundies think that climate change can’t happen because it’s not in the magic book. Deep ecologists have the idea that the world is some kind of holy virgin being raped, so everyone should castrate themselves to make it stop. We live in a culture of propaganda and delusion, where driving a Prius saves trees and coal is clean. Occupying the Anthropocene is about cutting through this haze by naming and claiming all that we do as humans. If we think of the world as one big archaeological site – because it IS one – then we can use an archaeologist’s eye to understand what’s really happening. What do you find at a dig? Human acts and the traces they leave. It’s garbage, but it’s also treasure – because it tells us about things that really happened rather than what others want us to believe.

A vignette: Archaeologist Bill Rathje ran an excavation for 20 years in a Tucson landfill. Then he went and talked to the families whose trash they were digging up. Guess what? The truth was in the trash! People recycled less and threw away much more. They ate more junk food, drank more booze, and looked at more porno magazines than they admitted. But they weren’t lying, they just didn’t want to remember the truth. As Rathje said: "That what people have owned -- and thrown away -- can speak more eloquently, informatively, and truthfully about the lives they lead than they themselves ever may." (Rathje died in May at age 66. I think he’s a hero of the Anthropocene.)

You get it, don’t you? You know you’ve felt like garbage for a lot of your life. Maybe they literally threw you in a dumpster at some point. But listen – it’s good to be trash, because trash where the truth is. If you can see the people and things that have been discarded, you can lift the veils of propaganda about ‘how the world really is’. To do that, you need to become an archaeologist and learn to see patterns in a random stream of waste.

Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian philosopher, once visited a British garbage dump and found the meaning of love. He said, “to recreate, if not beauty, than an aesthetic dimension in things like this – in trash itself – that is the true love of the world. Because what is love? Love is not idealization. Every true lover knows that if you really love a woman or a man you don't idealize him or her. Love means that you accept a person with all its failures, stupidities, ugly points, nonetheless the person is an absolute for you, everything that makes life worth living. You see perfection in imperfection itself. and that's how we should learn to love the world. A true ecologist loves all this.” [Points to huge pile of garbage.]



Our Anthropocene era is a hot mess, a glorious ruin, and it is sometimes dirty and ugly. But turning away in shame is a betrayal. We’re all hideous bags of mucus and blood, bacteria and crap, but we still love and are loved. In that spirit we have to Occupy the Anthropocene, jump in the mosh pit of the world, wade shamelessly into environmental degradation, get a bloody nose from the fumes, and write it a love note anyway. To kick a destructive habit you have to look the problem in the eye, challenge it to a fight, and keep punching until you win. It’s an alchemical process: Occupy, archaeology, and everything else worth doing takes base matter – ancient trash, hippies, whatever – and tries to transmute it something eternal. Lead into gold, garbage into history, and – we can hope – discontent into revolution.

Occupy Academic Publishing

May 1 commemorates the men and women who fought and died for the 8-hour workday. One of the labor movement's explicit arguments for cutting working hours was to allow more time for people to pursue their own personal development. To a lot of people, that means reading about archaeology. But today, much of the best research is locked away from the public behind publishers' paywalls. This May Day, let's reflect on how academics can help end their complicity in a publishing system that denies publicly-funded research to everyone except the shrinking handful of universities in rich countries. In December I pointed out where the current model is taking us:

For-profit academic publishing is a suicide bombing mission against the academy. In pursuing their doomed business model, the big publishers risk turning the work we do as scholars into a giant echo chamber. Students take on a lifetime of debt, partly to pay for journal subscriptions that enrich a few corporations. Scholars are turned into serfs who must feed the beast new product for it to sell, or risk losing their already tenuous livelihoods. Institutions bankrupt themselves paying for ever more expensive journals without which they cannot compete.

Even Harvard University is buckling under the pressure. The faculty association and library have circulated memos demanding open-access publication, as the Guardian reports:

Robert Darnton, director of Harvard Library told the Guardian: "I hope that other universities will take similar action. We all face the same paradox. We faculty do the research, write the papers, referee papers by other researchers, serve on editorial boards, all of it for free … and then we buy back the results of our labour at outrageous prices.

According to the Harvard memo, journal subscriptions are now so high that to continue them "would seriously erode collection efforts in many other areas, already compromised". The memo asks faculty members to encourage their professional organisations to take control of scholarly publishing, and to consider submitting their work to open access journals and resigning from editorial boards of journals that are not open access.

I hope I don't need to point out that if Harvard University can't afford journal subscriptions, the system is badly broken. America's richest and most prestigious university library, unable to afford basic journals?

Though it's depressing that elite institutions have to be inconvenienced before anyone does anything about an obviously unjust system (imaging being a scholar in Africa!), momentum seems to be building to reform the system. The Federal Research Public Access Act, which would mandate that publicly-funded research be open access, is slowly making its way through the US Congress. The Academic Spring project is launching a mass boycott of Elsevier by scholars, and Britain's Wellcome Trust (the world's second-largest private funder of science) announced this month that all funded projects must be available to the public. (And kudos to the UK Guardian, which has been way out front in reporting on the growing movement).

Shockingly, some archaeology professional societies have been on the wrong side of the issue. The president of the Archaeological Institute of America, Elisabeth Bartman, came out against open access in a recent letter:

Here at the AIA, we particularly object to having such [an open access] scheme imposed on us from the outside when, in fact, during the AIA’s more than 130-year history, we have energetically supported the broad dissemination of knowledge, and do so through our extensive program of events and lectures for the general public and through our publications. Our mission statement explicitly says, “Believing that greater understanding of the past enhances our shared sense of humanity and enriches our existence, the AIA seeks to educate people of all ages about the significance of archaeological discovery.” We have long practiced “open access.” 

Beyond the obvious misunderstanding of what 'open access' is (the AIA's scholarly journal is not), Bartman shows off the paternalistic attitude that gives academics a bad name. Keep the serious research for 'serious scholars', while giving the public the 'lite' version of events and lectures, better suited for their little pea brains. Thankfully AIA presidents usually serve for very short terms. She certainly does not speak for members with this ill-informed drivel, as many eloquent responses in the archaeology blogosphere attest (like this one, this one, this one, and especially this one).

The foolishness and greed of the big academic publishers, however, give us the chance to correct one of academia's original sins. Bartman's condescension is typical of scholarly attitudes for the last few centuries: the public deserves only the table scraps of scholarship - a few lectures here and there performed as charity work - while the good stuff is kept behind the closed doors of laboratories or the paywalls of academic publishers. Frankly if the publishing situation wasn't hurting scholars at 'good' universities I'm not sure there would be any movement on opening scholarship to the larger public. But think about it. But as Sebastian Heath and Charles E. Jones note in their great response:

The general public has to pay [to read articles] and that reduces the impact that archaeology has on public discourse. Shouldn’t we be giving our best, most carefully produced work the greatest chance to be widely read? 

One thing that drives me crazy as an academic is feeling that my research is irrelevant. But much of that irrelevance is self-imposed: the public can't read our articles, even if they wanted to! The open access movement can help bring scholarship out the ghetto and toward the public.

The model of restricted academic publishing has been a stinking zombie for years, but is now starting to rot in earnest. As we all know, zombies need fresh brains to keep going. Elsevier, Springer, and their undead friends appear to have eaten their way through the whole population of the academic village. Here's hoping their immoral business model falls apart into a pile of stinking ooze ASAP. 

Greek archaeology under fire: support heritage against the Troika and IMF

Greece's new role as Europe's impoverished debt slaves has serious implications for archaeology and museums. In 2010, 10% of staff at the Ministry of Culture were laid off, followed by a 35% cut in wages in archaeological service in late 2011. A new hire now makes just €670 ($900) a month after taxes. On top of this, the parliament this week is proposing further cuts of 30-50% across the Ministry of Culture. Cuts in things like museum security have consequences: last month armed robbers stole over 60 artifacts from the museum at Olympia, and we can expect such things to become more common as the whole country descends further into poverty.

On Wednesday the Greek Association of Archaeologists launched an appeal for support in the face of these draconian cuts:

If monuments had a voice of their own, they would tell us what has been going on in Greece in the past two years. In the name of the global economic crisis and with the IMF acting as a Trojan Horse, austerity measures have been undermining public services, welfare State and social cohesion. Democracy and national dignity are under attack.

Monuments have no voice, they have us
We, the 950 Greek Archaeologists, civil servants working in the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, are fighting against the destruction of both our country and our cultural heritage, because of the policies dictated by the IMF and the Troika.

The Greek Archaeological Service is not overstuffed, nor are we being overpaid. We serve in order to protect our cultural heritage and monuments, all over Greece, facing constant lack of funding and personnel, dedicated to the pursuit of scientific knowledge and to access to culture as a public good. Our scientific work has won international recognition. For more than 170 years we have been organizing excavations, studying Greek civilization, organizing Museums not with stolen antiquities but with well-documented exhibits, restoring monuments, organizing educational programs and helping bringing together Ancient culture and modern art.

As civil servants we have neither sought after luxury or over-spending, nor have we been accused of corruption, in sharp contrast the practices of the government and the political system that today promises to “save our country”.

As archaeologists in the land that inherited democracy to the world we are perfectly aware of the dangers associated with the suppression of democracy. We are struggling to preserve the memory and the material traces of the past, because we know that a people without memory are condemned to repeat the same mistakes again and again.

Monuments have no voice. They must have yours!
We are making an urgent appeal to our colleagues, to scholars and citizens all over Europe and the whole world, all the people expressing their solidarity and support to the Greek people, to defend cultural heritage and historical memory. The peoples of Europe share the same destiny. The same austerity packages and authoritarian measures, that are currently tearing apart Greece and its monuments, are going to be imposed across Europe.

They're asking people to spread the word and add support at their Facebook group. Reuters has video. "Greek museums today, tomorrow the Louvre."

Reuters, via Global Post

The appeal includes some important figures about the infrastructure for archaeology and museums in Greece. There are:

• 66 Ephorates (local departments) of Antiquities.
• 210 museums and collections of pre-historic, classical and Byzantine antiquities 
• 250 organized archaeological sites
• 19.000 declared archaeological sites and historical monuments (http://listedmonuments.culture.gr/search_declarations.php)
• 366 projects co-funded with the European Union, with a budget of €498 million
• Hundreds of excavations that are currently in progress

To deal with this there are: "7000 employees of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism which include 950 archaeologists, civil servants, and 2000 guards and night-guards" plus 3500 seasonal employees. That's already grim math. 460 sites and museums open to the public plus 19,000 listed sites and monuments, with only 2000 guards for the lot. 2000 guards is barely enough for the stuff open to the public. And research? Only 950 archaeologists on staff in the whole country! We're talking about Greece here!

So, what happens if they cut another 30-50%? As Despina Koutsoumba says in the video above, further cuts will mean widespread closures, with museums and sites turned into nothing more than guarded warehouses. It will certainly mean an increase in looting and theft, since there will be no one to prevent it - or so few guards that a couple robbers can easily overpower them, as at Olympia.

Koutsoumba is right: destroying wages, living standards, and the public sector is the IMF's plan for Europe as a whole. With European politics captured by the unelected mandarins from Goldman Sachs, reducing the population to slaves the banks' balance sheets is the only policy courseCulture, heritage, and museums are unnecessary luxuries that distract people from their duty to fatten the bankers' pockets, so they have to go.

Austerity, privatization, and budget cuts has failed to create growth everywhere it's been tried (think Latin America in the 1980s or Russia in the 1990s). It leads to low growth and high poverty. (See also this superb report about Europe's future in austerity.) But lets be frank: behind the bankers' propaganda this is a feature of the system, not a bug. Weak governments, fire-sale privatizations, and the destruction of civil society create an criminogenic environment where corporate crime, crony capitalism, and looting public assets is much easier. Looting antiquities is just one of the depressing implications

Links January 18

Been traveling the last few weeks. Some belated links to a variety of archaeopop subjects...

The New York Times asks, "What's up with all the UNESCO sites?" A good introduction to the problems of WHL listing.

“The dark side, of course, is consumption,” said Francesco Bandarin, assistant director-general of Unesco and head of its World Heritage Center, speaking of the consumerism that so often surrounds heritage sites. “And consumption and preservation do not go together.” If a site is “within an hour of a harbor,” he added, “it becomes inundated by a flood of tourism and geysers of money.” 

The post-eviction archaeology of Zuccotti Park (OWS-Archaeology). Some objects are now curated at the Columbia archaeology lab! 

The first thing I noticed was change. Lots and lots of change: pennies and nickles mostly. Going through the gutters taking pictures of objects in situ before picking them up attracted attention and as I got to talk with a number of people I learned that earlier that morning (I arrived around 8:30am) people had already been seen picking up change. This would explain the lack of quarters and dimes.

How to downsize a transportation network: the Chinese wheelbarrow (Low Tech Magazine, h/t Exiled). Invented 1000 years before the European model, still more efficient. This 'European technological superiority' thing is a historical blip.

Fascinating historical research on the relationship between education and industrialization (VoxEU)

Ruins of the 1%: Inequality Worse in 21st Century America than 2nd Century Rome?

New research by Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen suggest that income inequality in the United States today is slightly worse than in the Roman Empire in the 2nd century CE. Their article in Journal of Roman Studies is a good overview of debates on how to measure ancient Rome's GDP, wages, and income distribution. It's also a bit dizzying, but this is not easy stuff to calculate, given the absence of regular economic data.

By their calculations, 10% of the population went hungry, 74% had income 1-1.5 times basic subsistence, and 14% had a 'respectable' income between 1.7 and 10 times basic subsistence. The top 1.5% controlled 15-25% of total income, the next 10% another 15-25%, while the bottom 90% split the remaining half or so of all income. This works out to a Gini coefficient (a measure of income inequality, with 1 being perfect inequality and 0 being perfect equality) of 0.42-0.44. By this measure the Roman Empire was actually less unequal than some other pre-modern societies, like 18th-century Britain or France (0.52-0.59) - but only because these societies were richer overall. (You need larger surpluses to foster larger inequality.)

Tim de Chant at Per Square Mile (a fantastic geography blog) places this research in context, noting that the Gini coefficient of the United States is now 0.45 and rising: more unequal than a pre-modern empire famous for its oligarchs and mass enslavement. He concludes on a sobering note:

Schiedel and Friesen aren’t passing judgement on the ancient Romans, nor are they on modern day Americans. Theirs is an academic study, one used to further scholarship on one of the great ancient civilizations. But buried at the end, they make a point that’s difficult to parse, yet provocative. They point out that the majority of extant Roman ruins resulted from the economic activities of the top 10 percent. “Yet the disproportionate visibility of this ‘fortunate decile’ must not let us forget the vast but—to us—inconspicuous majority that failed even to begin to share in the moderate amount of economic growth associated with large-scale formation in the ancient Mediterranean and its hinterlands.” 

Let us never forget: most ruins are ruins of the 1%. An Occupy Archaeology movement would have to include field survey and rural settlement studies in its call to arms.

Pepper-spraying cop meme goes archaeopop

It had to happen eventually... From the delightful Pepper Spraying Cop Tumblr. Hat tip Lindsay!

 “Jesus, do you realize how hard it is being in charge of the WHOLE FUCKING SKY? Its rough, man. ROUGH. I got all these assholes praying to me for this or that, I got Osiris crawling up my ass all the time pulling those fucking guilt trips on me because I don’t want to run the family business forever… LAY OFF. Can’t I just take a break for a minute and have a seatAUUUAHAGHAHAGAHAGHGHHHHHHHHHHH”

 “Morguk got wasted and rolled his razor scooter again. God dammit, now we have to schlep all the way over the Euphrates to get parts for that damn thing. Again. Grounding doesn’t work. Taking away internet privileges doesn’t work. Should we send him to boarding school? Would that make us bad parentsAUUAHHAGHAGAHAGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”