Beyond the ‘thingification’ of worlds: Archaeology and the New Materialisms

Abstract

This article considers the application of the New Materialisms within archaeology, primarily in response to Witmore’s influential discussion article: Archaeology and the New Materialisms (2014), specifically his emphasis on things. This, the authors demonstrate, is peripheral to the main thrust of the New Materialisms discourse. They unravel complexities in the terminology and consider the etymological and epistemological framework of concepts such as matter and thing. This leads them to consider some important issues that arise applying Deleuzian assemblages to the archaeological record and the potential of employing Barad’s agential realist theory instead. Barad’s concept of phenomena moves beyond the notion of things as separate, bounded entities, emphasizing entanglements of matter and illustrates how matter (including humans) co-create the material world. The authors’ aim is to demonstrate how engaging with matter rather than things enables us to better make sense of the material world and our place within it.