Inserting the Human into Human History: Experiments with Montage, Experience, and Discontinuous Narrative in Archaeological Reportage

Abstract

Drawing upon critical theory and visual anthropologicalphilosophy, this paper calls for the revision and humanisation of archaeological study via experimental engagement with multiperspectival representation techniques. Following from a narrative analysis of archaeological visual productions, it is here reasoned that researchers often repudiate the heterogeneous, human and embodied dimensions of archaeology in their adherence to traditional objectivist scientific paradigms. Such repudiation is challenged in light of emerging anthropological studies of the body, human experience, and sensuous scholarship. Via appeal to Cubist art theory and the cinematic frameworks of montage and collage, this paper thus ventures upon a personalised—contextualised—visual elaboration and demystification of archaeological science.