On the Issue of Appropriation of Archaeological Evidence

Clarke (1973) discusses the innovations in the field of archaeology. He argues that the development of the discipline involves the development of its consciousness, a process which entails not only the fields realization of its own epistemological and ontological foundations but also a realization of the different aspects which it can incorporate from other disciplines (Clarke, 1973). Although Clarke (1973) understands that such a process leads to the loss of the fields innocence, he argues that it is necessary as it will allow the discipline to develop consciousness to the extent that it is able to go beyond itself. He states, Although the loss of disciplinary innocence is a continuous process we can nevertheless distinguish significant thresholds in the transition from consciousness..., self-consciousness to critical self-consciousness... (Clarke, 1973, p.6). For Clarke, a discipline is critically self-conscious if it possesses an understanding of its internal structure and the potential of the external environment (1973, p.7). In addition, he also argues that amongst these thresholds, that which any discipline ought to strive for is the point of critical self-consciousness (Clarke, 1973). Such is the case since it is at this point that the discipline will be able to fully synthesize the different methods and information incorporated from other disciplines (Clarke, 1973).

    An archaeological study which manifests this aspect of critical self-consciousness is Walshs (2000) Medieval English Martinmesse. Walsh appropriates materials from the field of literature as well as methods from literary theory as he analyzes the development and demise of the Martinmas feast. It is important to note however that there is a distinction between Clarke and Walshs conception of Archaeology. Whereas the former perceives the discipline as entity which was initially free from the influence of other disciplines, the later conceives the discipline as an entity which is merged with the other disciplines. From this, one may thereby infer that although Walshs text is an example of what Clarke conceives as critical self-consciousness, what Clarke perceives as the disciplines loss of innocence was not possible in the first place from Walshs perspective. Such is the case since certain contextual evidence for archaeological studies may be derived from the works in other disciplines. This appropriation of materials from other disciplines is not only apparent in Walshs text but also in the case-studies in the chapter (i.e. the discussion on the textual and contextual evidence of what ought to constitute the Roman household).