Archaeology – A socio-critical science. Socially relevant – Whose past(s) do archaeologists investigate? Politically significant – Whose history do we construct? Interdisciplinary in design

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Abstract

Archaeological science is always socio-critical archaeological science. Socio-critical archaeological research is always socio-scientifically oriented historical research. This approach is explained in the present study, this is the topic of this book. As socio-critical research archaeologists, we work with things. We look for the people who created, used, and discarded these things. We look for people as individual agents. We look for people as members of social communities. We ask about the ways of life in the social communities of the past(s). We ask about the functions of things in social interaction, and we ask about the meanings of things for the success of social interaction. We conduct our research in interdisciplinary alliances. The guiding discipline for and through our socio-critical archaeological research is sociology. Sociological research has developed the knowledge of the basic conditions that must be in place for social coexistence to be successful. We socio-critical archaeologists derive from these cognitions the parameters we have to look for in order to find answers to the guiding questions of our socio-scientifically oriented archaeological research: Whose past(s) do we see and whose histories do we construct based solely on the analysis of things? We broaden and deepen our interdisciplinary approach by cooperating with those cultural studies that focus on clarifying the conditions and possibilities of successful social togetherness - among them research on representation, semiotics, communication studies, art studies, political research on cultural hegemony, and on the socio-economic framework of social togetherness. The potential of socio-critical archaeological research to elicit the desired insights into social interaction in the communities of the past(s) with a supposedly deficient source situation - things alone - is immense. Boundless is the challenge to transfer the available knowledge potential into our archaeological research and to apply it in our concrete archaeological practice.