WENDY ASHMORE

Distinguished Lecture

"Decisions and Dispositions": Socializing Spatial

Archaeology

Archeology Division Distinguished Lecture

99th AAA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, November 2000

ABSTRACT Concerns with spatial dimensions and social inference have long histories in archaeology. However, the two histories are
not always conjoined. This article considers changing understandings of space in archaeology in the last half century, and the variable
nature of what "social" has denoted and connoted during that same span. The review highlights recurring calls for a social archaeol-
ogy, and the degree to which, in such instances, social inference has been expressed in spatial terms, especially as these have recog-
nized people's "decisions and dispositions" as shaping the archaeological record. Life histories of place receive special attention as
ways of discerning the existence and social impact of such decisions and dispositions. These life histories constitute an arena in which
archaeologists from diverse theoretical perspectives can offer complementary insights. Moreover, they exemplify ways in which social
and spatial inferences in archaeology contribute to wider understanding of human experience. [Keywords: archaeology, social, space,
place, life history]

T HE FIRST WORDS in my title come from David

Clarke's assessment of spatial archaeology a quarter
of a century ago. In that review, he summarized analytic
tive with no claim to comprehensive history or inventory
of all the works or even all the significant works that have
appeared. My central contention, however, is that the
and interpretive accomplishments and offered some prog- still-growing appreciation that space is actively inhabited,
noses for future inquiry. My intention in this article is to and that social relations and spatial structure are linked re-
examine some of what has changed in archaeologists' atti- cursively, has transformed our anthropological—and our
tudes toward the place of space in archaeological under- human—understanding of the past.
standing since the 1977 publication of Clarke's review. In Conceiving space in such socially active terms is the
so doing, I also describe ways in which a socialized spatial principal meaning behind my subtitle's allusion to ''so-
archaeology both complements and contributes to wider cializing spatial archaeology," and I further contend that
scholarly spheres. there are important contributions to this pursuit along
It is an understatement to say that change in archae- many of the often-divergent paths archaeological interpre-
ology of space has been significant: From micromor- tation has traced in the past three decades or more. There
phological analysis to GIS, our physical means of examin- are works that most everyone would cite in such a review,
ing space have expanded in ways unimagined only a few and while I include a good number of them, I try also to
decades past. More important, however, have been the acknowledge some other, perhaps underappreciated, con-
changes in our premises about, and approaches to, inter- tributions.
preting meaning in spatial structuring of the archaeologi- The changes that have taken place since the mid-
cal record. My review here is highly selective and illustra- 1970s can be attributed to multiple, synergistic factors. Al-

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 104(4): 1 1 7 2 - 1 1 8 3 . COPYRIGHT © 2002, AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

 Ashmore • "Decisions and Dispositions" 1173

though some might leap to ascribe key importance to the different meanings that have attached to social inference
rise of "postprocessualist" ways of thinking, this not only and to the idea of a "social archaeology." As suggested be-
falsely homogenizes the internal diversity embodied in fore, such a shift is tied to trends in social theory underly-
that constellation of approaches but also gives short shrift ing interpretation, to the explicitness of their acknow-
to continuing innovative contributions by a wide and di- ledgment, and, as increasingly recognized, to changes in
verse range of other archaeologies. Of course, the same underlying social philosophy and economic conditions
rough quarter century witnessed significant, parallel, and (e.g., Sherratt 1996).
influential shifts in geographic thinking. Moreover, the Certainly, interest in spatial patterns has suffused ar-
last couple of decades have seen a veritable explosion of chaeological inquiry. Myriad scholars, in the United States
attention to space by authors other than archaeologists and elsewhere, have long sought to reconstruct social (or
and geographers, and we have drawn on the insights of societal) organization from the archaeological record, as
cultural anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and viewed through artifacts and features mapped across space
others for whom space, per se, had not traditionally or (e.g., Chang 1958; Childe 1951; Fox 1932). In the United
consistently been a discipline-defining attribute. As "so- States before the mid-20th century, however, links be-
cial" disciplines have increased attention to space, space- tween social and spatial were drawn, more often than not,
oriented disciplines have reexamined social matters. In- with speculative rather than systematic bridging argu-
creasingly explicit attention to social theory has informed ments.
all these diverse approaches. To set a jumping-off point for charting changes, I turn
The pages that follow outline some of the changing to Walter Taylor. In 1948, building on earlier appeals, Tay-
roles of space in archaeology, and what "spatial archaeol- lor enjoined archaeologists to attend more to social infer-
ogy" has comprised or might be taken to comprise. The re- ence than to the time-space descriptions of culture history
view also highlights the variable nature of what "social" and to ground such inference more securely in a conjunc-
denotes and connotes, especially with regard to social as- tive, behavioral, and functionalist approach to the archae-
pects of spatial inference. Grounds wells in attention to the ological record. But, as we all know, his call went largely
"social" have certainly led to calls for a "social archaeol- unheeded. Explicitly in response to Taylor's injunction, in
ogy" at several points, varying from one case to another in fact, Christopher Hawkes detailed what he saw as great
how the domain, wellsprings, and aims of such an archae- difficulties in getting at social and political institutions ar-
ology might be defined. Although I attempt to illustrate chaeologically, placing them third of four domains in ac-
how these developments have been manifest in a wide ar- cessibility on his famous ladder, after "techniques" and
"subsistence-economics" but ahead of "religious institu-
ray of research areas, I offer more extended reflection on
tions and spiritual life" (1954:161-162).
just one of the many recent lines of productive in-
Turning specifically to space, Albert Spaulding codi-
quiry—that is, looking at theory and practice concerning
fied the dimensions of archaeology as form, temporal lo-
what has been called the "biography" or "life history of
cus, and spatial locus, specifically tagging these as dimen-
place." I suggest how this kind of inquiry, among others,
sions for characterizing and analyzing artifacts and
reveals materialized "decisions and dispositions," both an-
assemblages (1960:438-439). His aim was avowedly meth-
cient and modern, and how social and spatial inference in
odological, "to describe clearly the fundamental opera-
archaeology contributes to concerns beyond archaeology.
tions of archaeology on its empirical data" (1960:437).
Note, however, that he went on immediately to clarify his
WHENCE SPATIAL AND SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGIES?
position, asserting that, although "behavioral inferences
Spatial and social interpretations of the archaeological re- may creep in, . . . they will be evidence of weak minded-
cord have long and distinguished histories, often but not ness" (1960:437). Links to social matters were certainly at-
always intertwined. This observation begs what I mean by tenuated.
the terms spatial and social. Lewis Binford was far more optimistic about social in-
By spatial archaeology, I mean simply the range of ar- terpretation than were Hawkes or, in the foregoing pas-
chaeological pursuits that focus on study of the spatial as- sage, Spaulding. Often likened in intent to Taylor's un-
pects of the archaeological record. These pursuits certainly heeded call, Binford's "Archeology as Anthropology" (1962)
do not constitute a separable "field," but, rather, a set of successfully galvanized efforts toward a "New Archeol-
perspectives on studying ancient societies and cultures, ogy." In that manifesto, he asserted categorically that the
emphasizing position, arrangement, and orientation, and archaeological record held information on social as well as
examined at a range of scales: from individual buildings or technological and ideational domains of ancient life. To-
monuments, caches, and burials, to settlements, landscapes, ward this end, social organization was a central theme of
and regions. Architecture and the built environment, gen- multiple early applications of that "New" or "processual"
erally, are only a part of the whole, and discussion of them archaeology (e.g., Longacre 1966; Winters 1968), several
here highlights their two-dimensional aspects or plan view. of which based key inferences on spatial distributions. Per-
As regards the social part of the equation, I offer no haps most directly relevant here, however, social dimen-
single definition. Rather, as part of the review, I highlight sions have been an early and quite enduring focus of
1174 American Anthropologist • Vol. 104, No. 4 • December 2002

settlement archaeology, that cornerstone of both spatial pose systematic positivist means of explaining variation in
and processual archaeology (e.g., Chang 1968; Willey house form—specifically, the number and diversity of in-
1953). Indeed, settlement surveys long antedate the rise of habitants' roles and activities and preferences for round or
processualism (e.g., Parsons 1972), and settlement pat- rectilinear houses (cf. Flannery 1972; Morgan 1965;
terns have often been considered as mapping social or- Rapoport 1969).
ganization fairly directly on the ground (e.g., Trigger 1967; Also in the mid-1970s, The Early Mesoamerican Village
Willey 1953). Settlement archaeology has proven an ex- (Flannery 1976) marked a significant threshold for linking
tremely productive avenue for archaeological research, ar- social and spatial in archaeology, strongly promoting the
guably the most widely practiced approach in spatial ar- use of socially defined units to guide field and analytic
chaeology around the world (e.g., Billman and Feinman study. That is, in the Oaxaca Valley research on which the
1999; Knapp 1997; Sabloff and Ashmore 2001). book was founded, investigation was guided by attempts
In the 1960s, of course, archaeological inquiry tended to identify villages, households, and other social units.
to a strongly functionalist stance, often involving systems Spatial correlates were proposed for the designated social
theory and evolutionary approaches to both spatial and units, and while spatial relations alone do not confirm the
social inference and, frequently, complementing qualitative materialization of social units, the contents of this book
ethnographic analogy with quantitative pattern analyses. linked the two realms more explicitly than had commonly
Spatial concerns were common early on in these well- been the case. While the research was based firmly in sys-
known areas of processualism, especially in its American tems theory and other processualist approaches, Kent
heartland. Flannery, Joyce Marcus, and their colleagues also recog-
On the international stage, social and even ideational nized the historical contingency of the Oaxaca case, and
factors had already gained prominent attention in spatial the critical value of attention to specifically Zapotec world-
analyses. In proceedings from one influential conference, view (e.g., Flannery and Marcus 1976; Marcus and Flan-
some 85 authors attached varied importance to these fac- nery 1996). Much renowned for Flannery's engaging alle-
tors, as well as to economic and ecological ones, in inter- gories, the 1976 edited book has also served, for many (if
preting human settlement and spatial order at diverse more often in principle than in practice), as a near bible
scales (Ucko et al. 1972). In his concluding remarks, Stuart for how to think about the social and spatial organization
Piggott lauded the conference for its productive "face-to- embodied in the archaeological record. It was also a prime
face encounter between social anthropologists and archae- stimulus, though far from the only one, toward 1980s
ologists" (1972:947) but recalled Hawkes's 1950s pessi- emergence of what is now called "household archaeology"
mism about the susceptibility of archaeological evidence (e.g., Wilk and Rathje 1982).
to inferences on social structure and belief systems (1972:
950-951). Some contributors found recourse to social fac- Let us stay in the mid-1970s for a moment more. In
tors highly productive, as did Kent Flannery (1972) in his 1977, Clarke's Spatial Archaeology recognized a domain of
comparison of village forms—that is, their spatial lay- inquiry potentially more encompassing than settlement
out—in Mesoamerica and the Near East. Others, however, pattern studies. Clarke defined spatial archaeology specifi-
were like Piggott, less sanguine, among them social an- cally as
thropologist Mary Douglas (1972). She cautioned archae- the retrieval of information from archaeological spatial re-
ologists about seeking to identify symbolic meaning in do- lationships and the study of the spatial consequences of
mestic spatial arrangements, because so little of the spatial former hominid activity patterns within and between fea-
symbolism she noted in ethnographic sources was ex- tures and structures and their articulation within sites, site
systems and their environments: the study of the flow
pressed in readily recognizable, interpretable material
and integration of activities within and between structures,
form. Some authors wrote of strategies, decisions, and dis- sites and resource spaces from the micro to the semi-micro
positions in the establishment and form of settlements, and macro scales of aggregation. [1977:9]
but the tone overall was decidedly mixed.
The literature at large was also mixed. By the mid- Clarke recognized that these scale levels were each suited
1970s, and despite processualist interests expressed in social best to a different range of social activities and analyses
organization, some scholars were actively decrying archae- and certainly linked space more directly to behavior than
ology as having become overly focused on the complexi- did Spaulding. Still, Clarke's emphases were places and
ties and potentials of economic modeling to the perilous spatialized activities, more than people. Earlier discussions
exclusion of other domains of social life. Writing of North of spatial scale in archaeology were decidedly more inclu-
American mounds and waterworks, for example, Robert sive of social inference (e.g., Trigger 1968). Nonetheless,
Hall (1977) advocated greater recognition of spatialized Clarke's was a stance very much in keeping with the inter-
symbolic expression and urged strongly the critical value pretive times. Shortly thereafter, in a critique of locational
of local traditions, oral and written, for interpreting such models in archaeology, Carole Crumley quoted Clarke's
historically contingent material expressions. While ac- definition for spatial archaeology and then summarized it
knowledging the impact of symbolic expression, Rosalind concisely as "the special application of the universal study
Hunter-Anderson (1977) highlighted social factors to pro- of objects/points and the relationships among them,
 Ashmore • "Decisions and Dispositions" 1175

which characterizes chemistry as well as comparative lit- however, the message was couched as well in processualist
erature" (Crumley 1979:142, emphasis added). terms of "adaptation"; the thrust of that social archaeol-
Clarke and Crumley went on, however, to evince ogy volume, as a whole, was quite explicitly a call for en-
somewhat divergent attitudes toward archaeological pros- hanced methods, and a harbinger of exploring new ways of
pects for spatial study, and its relation to social inferences. thinking, including but not emphasizing social aspects of
While Clarke exhorted his colleagues and students to take space.
"greater interest in theories of anthropological spatial vari- Colin Renfrew's research has long and prominently
ability, [and in so doing, potentially] making a direct con- involved spatial analyses toward social inference, and his
tribution to the elaboration of that theory" (1977:28), he 1986 volume of collected works—most of which first ap-
was pointedly skeptical of prospects for "determin[ing] all peared in the 1970s—is aptly titled Approaches to Social Ar-
the factors which governed individual decisions and dis- chaeology. Like Redman and his colleagues, Renfrew cast
positions [behind spatial order], especially prehistoric ones" "social archaeology" as "reconstruction of past social sys-
(1977:20). These are the "decisions and dispositions" of tems and relations" (1986:3) and offered his work as refin-
my title, whose identification archaeologists have pursued ing method and theory for grappling with such recon-
quite productively in subsequent years.1 struction. The first of five sections in the book refers to
That other views were already taking hold in the late space in the title: "Societies in Space: Landscapes of Power";
1970s is clear from a number of authors, including some however, spatial approaches pervade the whole volume.
cited earlier, and, notably, Crumley. The subject of her Particularly influential has been his examination of ex-
1979 essay on regional scale locational inference was ar- change models and of territory formation and labor or-
chaeologists' prominent and, in her view, uncritical use of ganization in Wessex and elsewhere. His interpretation of
gravity and central place models. She criticized overreli- British megalithic monuments, for example, contrasts
ance on economic factors, and on models based in capital- strikingly with Glyn Daniel's (1980) treatment of Stone-
ist societies, for explaining archaeological patterns of an- henge only slightly earlier. With Hawkes-like interpretive
cient regional human settlement. She further criticized the pessimism, Daniel had doubted we would ever compre-
inflexibility of such models, their discouragement of con- hend the significance of this arrangement of stones. Taking
sidering options for organizational change (e.g., Crumley a social and spatial perspective, however, Renfrew offered
1987). She argued that both the gravity and central place provocative views on the social and political function of
models cited would be more effective if subsumed under this and other places, especially their role in integrating la-
one positing regional heterarchy, in which ranking of set- bor and leadership across the surrounding countryside. Al-
tlement nodes could potentially shift with frame of refer- though notably central to Renfrew's social approach,
ence from any one domain, including economics, to any space remained, for him and for many at the time, a
other, or with changes in society through time. Most im- largely passive field within which social interaction oc-
portant for this discussion is her insistence on the impor- curs.
tance both of nonmaterial factors in modeling use of re- By the early 1980s, of course, interpretive tides con-
gional space, and of allowing more explicitly for flexibility cerning social aspects of space were already turning dra-
and change (Crumley 1979:145, 166). As expressed in her matically, as hinted by works cited earlier. Some archae-
long-term collaborative Burgundy research, and in her ologists, for example, had begun to examine the social
writings on historical ecology more generally, choices in processes and decisions materialized in architectural design
occupation of the landscape change as people renegotiate (e.g., Lekson 1981; McGuire and Schiffer 1983). Among
values and priorities—that is, decisions and dispositions, the defining works of the decade, however, are structural
whether free or constrained—concerning environment and symbolic analyses of space, emblematic of emerging
and space (e.g., Crumley 1995b). I revisit these notions later reaction against the theories and models central to proces-
in the article, with respect to larger fields of inquiry. sualism (e.g., Hodder 1984), Indeed, spatial analyses and
The late 1970s were also marked by an explicit call for social inferences are the core of several contributions in
a social archaeology. By 1978, some felt that Binford's the bellwether-edited volume Symbolic and Structural Ar-
(1962) assertion of the equal accessibility of technological, chaeology (Hodder 1982b), Although the title aptly suits
social, and ideational domains had been lost amid bur- the contents, Ian Hodder's (1982a) introduction is a pointed
geoning research on subsistence and technology. In re- critique not only of early processual and functional ap-
sponse, Charles Redman and his colleagues urged pursuit proaches to archaeology, spatial and otherwise, but also of
of a "social archeology," which they characterized as "a symbolic and structural approaches that failed to incorpo-
glowing awareness of the critical importance of the appli- rate a theory of practice to enliven and socialize the static
cation of careful and explicit methods to substantive prob- portrayal of cultural rules and grammars.
lems of widespread interest" (Redman et al. 1978:6-7). In By this time, of course, social anthropologists, geogra-
their edited volume on Social Archeology, contributions phers, architects, and other scholars beyond archaeology
such as John M. Fritz's (1978) structuralist consideration had been exploring social, structural, symbolic, and prac-
of Chaco Canyon attest to new perspectives on the social tice aspects of space. For example, from at least the mid-
organizational significance of spatial order. Even there, 1960s, Edward T. Hall's writings demonstrate clearly the
1176 American Anthropologist • Vol. 104, No, 4 • December 2002

differential construal of space and spatial etiquette cross- place in the settlement array. Somewhat later, and from
culturally, and more broadly, the reciprocal relation be- very different theoretical perspectives, scholars argued
tween spatial organization and social behavior, at varied similarly for examining sets of places, or systems «of set-
scales of interpersonal interaction. Hall quotes Sir Winston tings, and emphasized particularly the multiple and tem-
Churchill, "We shape our buildings and they shape us" porary roles that any given single place could serve at dif-
(1966:106), a view embodied at more length in Anthony ferent points in a day, a year, or a lifetime (e.g., Ingold
Giddens's (e.g., 1984) oft-cited writings on structuration. 1993; Rapoport 1990). In other words, they reminded us
Space is not passive; it is socially constituted and consti- that the qualities of place are complex and mutable, mate-
tuting, materialized in architecture and also, if less tangi- rially embodying sequential decisions and dispositions.
bly, in customs of social interaction (e.g., Schortman 1986). At the same time, a growing number of scholars—in
Returning to the 1980s, these were years marked for archaeology and elsewhere—pointed to the role of these
many by more self-conscious and critical social and politi- repeated actions in constructing social memory and,
cal awareness in archaeology, and by the foregrounding of thereby, inscribing social meaning on a place. Some have
attention to social theory. Indeed, some authors have called attention to enactment performance in socializing
equated archaeological theory with social theory (e.g., space, and drawing on a range of epistemic bases, have
Shanks and Tilley 1988). The role of architectural space in sought to examine consequences of movement through
social control and in the exercise of social power gained "lived space," as ritual, procession, pilgrimage, or prox-
great attention (e.g., Leone 1984; Shanks and Tilley 1988). emics (e.g., Conkey 1997; Moore 1996; Schortman 1986;
Archaeologists of quite diverse theoretical backgrounds Thomas 1993). Indeed, for Julian Thomas, landscape space
identified political authority as mapped in civic architecture, is intensely social in the foregoing ways:
with social practices reinforcing the message, such as pub-
a network of related places, which have gradually been re-
lic ritual performance and periodic processions through vealed through people's habitual activities and interac-
civic space (e.g., Ashmore 1989; Cowgill 1983; Fritz 1986; tion, through the closeness and affinity that they have de-
O'Connor 1989). Again, space was not seen as passive: It veloped for some locations, and through the important
shapes and is shaped by social action. events, festivals, calamities, and surprises which have
drawn other spots to their attention, causing them to be
Less overtly politically charged, household archaeol- remembered or incorporated into stories. [2001:173]
ogy has been characterized often as focusing on a funda-
mental component of society (e.g., Kent 1990b; Steadman Some scholars also have pointed emphatically to the
1996). Spatial arrangements of the buildings, rooms, fur- cumulative and still enduring symbolic and political im-
nishings, and outdoor spaces of such domestic social units portance of places like Teotihuacan and Stonehenge (e.g.,
have supported many sorts of inference as to their mem- Bender 1998; Chippindale 1986; Fowler 1987), This con-
bers' decisions and dispositions. Many looked to the ar- cern merges archaeological considerations with social and
rangements of activities and functions in space to under- spatial dimensions of today. Active repositories and touch-
stand what households did (e.g., Ashmore and Wilk 1988; stones for social memory (e.g., Basso 1996), "places" could—
Santley and Kneebone 1993). Alternatively, domestic and did, and do—become orienting and potential rallying
spaces channeled and constrained social relations, thereby points for social groups ranging from individual families
reinforcing established social order within the household to whole nation-states.
and with respect to outsiders (Donley 1982; Richards By the 1990s, then, the ways archaeologists consid-
1990). For other analysts, changes in house form and spa- ered space had changed markedly from Clarke's charac-
tial arrangement bespoke tensions in the social order, and terization. Space and place were rife with evidence of deci-
sequential changes in spatial form recorded evidence of so- sions and dispositions from ancient times. That observation,
cial change (e.g., Hodder 1984; Johnson 1989; Kent 1990a). in itself, is hardly new. What's important here is recogniz-
By the end of the 1980s, place had also emerged as an ing the range of theoretical backgrounds archaeologists
important concept for archaeologists, who acknowledged had brought to bear on such spatial analyses, and conver-
increasingly that particular locations took on variably sig- gences of concerns between archaeology and other fields.
nificant roles within arenas of social, economic, and po- Long before that time, of course, the collateral literature
litical action. In "The Archaeology of Place," Lewis Binford on spatial theory had become vast, spanning as it does
argued that to understand "the organization of past cul- multiple perspectives and myriad disciplines, including
tural systems [archaeologists] must understand the organ- geography, architecture, environmental psychology, soci-
izational relations among places which were differentially ology, art and architectural history, urban planning, and
used during the operation of past systems" (1982:5). That philosophy—as well as anthropology.2
meant considering how the individual "places" were formed Within archaeology, several further developments in
through repeated human action, especially as marked tan- spatial and social concerns were rooted in the 1990s or
gibly in artifacts or construction. A space full of such places had reached acceptance by decade's end. One was the
was a key to understanding society. This might be under- opening up of spatial categories, beyond the micro-,
stood as a settlement pattern perspective, but with an em- semimicro, and macro or other tripartite sets commonly
phasis on time, on the creation or modification of each cited, and beyond the built environment usually studied
 Ashmore • "Decisions and Dispositions" 1177

(e.g., Stone-Miller and McEwan 1990-91), The varied in- and the newly established Journal of Social Archaeology,
terpretive relevance of different spatial scales is well estab- Both place central emphasis on the importance of social
lished (e.g., Binford 1964; Trigger 1968). Since the 1970s, theory, whether emphasizing "meaning, structure, text,
some scholars had been advocating attention to "siteless" power and ideology" (in Blackwell's case) or a more gen-
surveys, breaking down the boundaries between scales, eral foregrounding invocation of social theory in archae-
and, in particular, criticizing the artificiality of "sites" as ological inquiry (in the case of the journal). Other calls for
interpretive entities (e.g., Dunnell and Dancey 1983; Foley a social archaeology are more implicit in new emphases
1981; Rossignol and Wandsnider 1992; Thomas 1975). By on the social creation and occupancy of space rooted often
the 1990s, these as well as some of the social theoretical in forms of practice theory.
trends just cited supported growing attention to landscape One new thrust is exemplified by The Archaeology of
studies, to incorporate consideration of areas between Communities (Canuto and Yaeger 2000). The contributions
"sites" and of land-use traces—such as roads or agricul- in this book extend works like The Early Mesoamerican Vil-
tural fields—that defied ready categorization as sites (e.g., lage, and household archaeology at large, to examine this
Fish et al. 1990; Trombold 1991). Attention to place like- important form of social integration whose study they see
wise opened new spatial categories, as we have realized the as having stagnated. Following social anthropologist John
social importance of natural places—mountains, caves, Watanabe, the editors characterize a community as "the
and endless other landmarks—and the often subtle divide
conjunction of 'people, place, and premise,' " advocating
between constructed places and those holding social sig-
a "modified i n t e r a c t i o n a l " perspective to examine "the
nificance in physically unmodified state (e.g., Ashmore
relationship between the [social] interactions that occur in
andKnapp 1999; Bradley 1998, 2000).
a given space and the sense of shared identity that both fos-
Archaeologists' conceptions of society have also opened ters and is fostered by these interactions" (Yaeger and
up with expanding implications for social space, as we rec- Canuto 2000:6; emphasis added). Space is important, its
ognize increasingly the internal heterogeneity of society. social aspects most decidedly paramount; decisions and
Elizabeth Brumfiel (1992) argues strongly for the need to dispositions are recognized in spatial terms.
consider gender, class, and factional components of socie- Another recent direction taken emphasizes the social
ties—and the importance of the varied decisions and dis- and temporal fluidity of space. In part echoing Rapoport's
positions, often mutually competitive, that collectively notion of systems of spaces and Ingold's rhythmic substi-
yielded the archaeological record we observe. Similarly
tution of people and activities within taskscapes in the
emergent, by the late 1990s, were contributions of femi-
landscape, Robin and Rothschild (2002) and Meskell (1998)
nist theories for disaggregating society, within and beyond
ask us to consider the practices of everyday life that move
gender distinctions, although many feminist archaeolo-
people and their actions across—and, thereby, make so-
gists—often from different points within feminist think-
cially meaningful sense of—domestic and community
ing—decry the profession's unhurried pace in taking full
spaces, both interiors and outdoors (compare Low 2000).
account of societies' diversity (e.g., Conkey and Gero
1997), At whatever pace, studies of gender and other social Once again, space is important in social terms, its signifi-
identities increasingly recognize spatial perspectives as cance derived from social constitution.
productive (e.g., Hendon 1997; Tringham 1994). Continuities of place continue to be a key theme in
spatial archaeology. Indeed, the importance of archae-
Similar slowness has bedeviled exploration of heterar-
ological places in the modern world has been recognized
chy, a concept introduced to archaeology by Crumley in
emphatically in a number of well-developed cases—from
1979 but that received wide attention only in the 1990s.
Perhaps the intellectual times had caught up with the con- Stonehenge to the Aztec Templo Mayor—and these socialize
cept. The following passage suggests the utility and po- spatial archaeology in a quite distinctive manner. These
tency of the concept, in spatial and social study: cases bring me to the examination life histories of place.

Power relations are predicated on systems of values that LIFE HISTORIES OF PLACE
are ranked and reranked in their importance by individu-
als, groups, and organizations as conditions change. By Decisions and dispositions vary widely as to the attraction
studying the physical evidence of decisions (e.g., the and staying power of particular places, in the present as in
boundaries of a royal preserve), a hierarchy of values may the past. Sarah Schlanger writes of "persistent places" to
be seen to be enshrined at one social, spatial, or temporal
scale (elite aesthetics, regional biodiversity, the early Mid- highlight loci that are "used repeatedly during the long-
dle Ages). Inasmuch as it subsumes other opinion, every term occupation of a region" (Schlanger 1992:92). But, of
decision provides the raw material for later change. New ap- course, not all places are persistent in human recognition,
proaches to agency, conflict, and cooperation can be de- and even those that are often have complex trajectories of
vised. [Crumley 1995 a:4, emphasis added]
occupancy, marking, abandonment, desecration, or avoid-
Within the last decade, renewed calls for a social ar- ance (Cameron 1993). It is these variable histories and
chaeology have been sounded, with at least potential ref- place biographies that I highlight here, and the sequences
erence to spatial archaeology. Some calls are explicit, as in of social decisions and dispositions attested in such life
the Social Archaeology series from Blackwell publishers, histories of place.
1178 American Anthropologist • Vol. 104, No. 4 • December 2002

By life history of place, I mean examining evidence for cal or mythical events and people associated with that
human recognition, use, and modification of a particular place. Such decisions and dispositions seem to pertain for
position, locality, or area over the full time span of its ex- Str. 1B-2 at the Classic Maya civic center at Quirigua*, Gua-
istence. Others have used this or similar phrases to consider temala (Sharer 1978), as well as for Str. 5D-46 at Tikal
similar ranges of issues (e.g., Barrett et al. 1991; Bradley (Schele and Mathews 1998), Both buildings antedate sur-
1987), and I wish here to draw attention to two interpre- rounding structures significantly, and each has been iden-
tive themes. Although each has antecedents in earlier lit- tified on other evidence as the residence of a king critical
erature, both have received noticeably expanded attention to the history of the local reigning dynasty. The precise so-
in recent years. The pair of related and somewhat overlap- cial meaning of such treatment may not always be clear to
ping themes reflect different aspects of the life trajectory: us, but, at minimum, it plausibly marks decisions and dis-
(1) establishment and affirmation, and (2) what happens positions to commemorate a place important in local his-
beyond such affirmation, including "inhabitation" in tory and worldview.
John Barrett's (1999) usage, and the "afterlife of monuments" In all cases, of course, materialized decisions may ob-
per Richard Bradley (1993). These life histories seem to me scure struggle among particular social dispositions. The
to illustrate emergent themes in spatial archaeology. They point is clearer from cases where contest and struggle are
extend significantly beyond stratigraphy and dating, and manifest in the life history of place. A well-known exam-
similar kinds of mechanical, but necessary and useful, ple is the obliteration of the capital of the heretic pharaoh,
chronicles. In so doing, they exemplify current recogni- Akhenaten, shortly after his death. Other illustrations come
tion of social archaeologies of space, and the importance from civic planning among the ancient Maya. In brief,
and identifiability of decisions and dispositions in the ar- and like many cases elsewhere, these civic plans use loca-
chaeological record. tion and orientation of buildings and spaces to transform
Places marked by individual buildings and other dis- the "place" as a microcosm. Within the spatially complex
crete architectural features acquire histories as they are place, the king's authority gains supernatural sanction, in
built, occupied, maintained, modified, partly or wholly part, from where his portrait, residence, and public per-
dismantled, or allowed to fall to ruin. Each of these diverse formances are situated (Ashmore 1989). In some Maya
acts can carry profound, potent social and symbolic mean- civic centers this mapped worldview is apparent fairly
ing. Interment of the dead is frequently recognized as a readily. At centers with more turbulent political history,
powerful means for claiming land tenure and identity marked by upheavals in royal succession and sometimes
with a place (e.g., Buikstra and Charles 1999; McAnany by conquest, the layouts are harder initially to read be-
1998). In a similar manner, repeated construction on a cause we observe an unsorted palimpsest of decisions.
spot, especially involving direct superimposition of build- When sorted by building program, evidence emerges for
ings, is often taken by archaeologists as defining an axis distinct decisions about place, some of which seem tied to
mundi (Eliade 1959); examples from Mesoamerica include shifts between competing dynastic lines (Ashmore and
successive rebuildings of the Aztec Templo Mayor (Matos Sabloff2002).
Moctezuma 1988), or among the Classic Maya, the four- Although it is more challenging to trace life histories
century sequence of superimposed royal tombs and their of places not marked by formal construction, the social
encompassing buildings in the acropolis at Copan (Sharer principles involved are the same. A place is recognized and
et al. 1999). In both cases, sacred mountains were built becomes part of a socially cognized landscape. Current
and rebuilt. While the landscape architectural metaphor is study of landscapes highlights this recognition, and ar-
well known (e.g., Benson 1985), at least as important are chaeologists representing quite diverse theoretical back-
the social implications of its material reiteration in place, grounds are engaged actively in such study (e.g., Ashmore
emphatically re-creating the sacred mountain that centers and Knapp 1999; Bradley 1998; Fisher and Thurston 1999;
the world. Whether or not reflecting the willing disposi- Ucko and Layton 1999). As Paul Tacon remarks concern-
tion of the construction crews, the act of rebuilding re- ing sacred landscapes of Australia and elsewhere, the places
flects at least leaders' decisions and dispositions to repro- recognized are often:
duce the social, political, and moral order.
where concepts of an upper world, a lower world and the
Repetitively rebuilt houses have been attributed simi- earth plain come together visually in a striking manner.
lar implications, re-creating the world by commemorating These are places where the center of the world may be ex-
place and social continuity on a domestic scale. Drawing perienced, where an axis mundi is located . . . for it is at
on structural and practice analyses, this kind of social re- these places that it is claimed a powerful connection be-
production within domestic space and place has been in- tween different levels and states of existence can be en-
countered. [Tacon 1999:37]
ferred for many societies around the world, by both eth-
nographers and archaeologists (e.g., Joyce and Gillespie Memories about these and other kinds of places accrue, as
2000). people visit repeatedly across the seasons or the years, im-
Safeguarding an established place, whether a building buing places like Ayers Rock or Lascaux Cave with layered
or open space, amid other rising construction may also meanings, if not necessarily stratified physical markings.
signal a disposition of reverence, commemorating histori- The markings materialize decisions and dispositions in
 Ashmore • "Decisions and Dispositions" 1179

social space, but the absence of formal markings cannot be of many socially significant places in the Balkans were
taken to imply lack of meaning—only uncertainty as to its abruptly truncated as part of interethnic strife in the re-
presence and nature. cent wars there (e.g., Chapman 1994). Struggle for control
Of course, the meanings attached to a place may of interpretation of a place can also be heated; particularly
change within its life history.3 John Barrett's and Richard well-documented instances are Great Zimbabwe (Kuklick
Bradley's concepts of "inhabitation" and "afterlife of monu- 1991) and—as already mentioned—Stonehenge.
ments/' both mentioned earlier, draw attention in part to In other cases, the life history of place has inspired
this larger point, concerning the longevity of places and stewardship and preservation. Examples include historic
the mutability of their meanings. preservation of architecture and UNESCO's steps toward
In examining British landscapes of the Neolithic, Bronze, protecting cultural landscapes of varying age (Cleere
and Iron Ages, Barrett argues the following: 1995). That these steps and other decisions about place are
Traditionally archaeologists studying the Iron Age in sometimes born of struggle is clear. Writing of archaeolog-
southern Britain have operated as if [mounds created in ical research in the U.S. Southwest, Maria Nieves Zedeno
earlier times] were simply lost at this point; they do not describes the current "compliance-driven" milieu as "a
for example appear on the distribution maps which we so
often produce of Iron Age monuments. However, it is my golden field of untapped possibilities for theoretical and
case that these monuments remained a crucial and inte- methodological advance" (2000:102), including what she
grated component of the Iron Age landscape, and that their sees as new ways of examining landscapes, from place-ori-
lack of further modification holds a key to understanding how ented Native American perspectives rather than expanse-
the inhabitation of that landscape accommodated them. [Bar-
rett 1999:258, emphasis added] oriented Western views (see also Snead and Preucel 1999).
As Crumley captures the point, "while [elements of pre- CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
vious landscapes] may be differently interpreted, [they] al-
Where are we now with respect to spatial archaeology?
ways modify current thinking" (Crumley 1999:272). Dif-
Can spatial inquiry be considered "socialized"? How do
ferent theoretical wellsprings inspired parallel lines of
these matters contribute to understandings beyond ar-
research (e.g., Buikstra and Charles 1999; Crumley 1995b),
chaeology?
but, in all, the composite place—the local landscape and
Unquestionably, archaeologists of multiple theoreti-
its constituent natural and accumulated cultural elements—
remained a critical arena and set of referents for mapping cal persuasions actively and productively pursue spatial
social and political change. analyses and, particularly, the social implications of evi-
Inhabitation, in the foregoing sense, extends life his- dence about space and place. These are informed by quite
tories of place and, whether pertaining to landscapes or variable notions of what constitutes social theory and of
more discrete places within them, ties into what Bradley how central such theories are to archaeological inquiry.
calls the "afterlife" of monuments, continuing into the Sometimes this diversity within archaeology generally has
present day. I focus here, however, on place rather than actively impeded communication, within and beyond the
monument, per se, to emphasize the role of the place it- discipline: the interpretive message stops at the dooi—oi
self, however complex in composition, rather than any the ear or the eye—of potential collegial audiences.
constructed monuments that mark it. Moving toward and For example, Michael Schiffer views current archaeology
into present times often reveals dramatic decisions and as characterized by "near-debilitating fragmentation" (2000a:
dispositions about place. vii) and offers several explanations for why archaeologists
Writing of Stonehenge, Barbara Bender (e.g., 1998) are either unable or unwilling to try to reintegrate across
and Christopher Chippindale (e.g., 1986) contribute to these fractures. Although varied theoretical programs are
one of the best-known instances of a life chronicle of place often cast as irrevocably incompatible epistemically (e.g.,
extending to today. They set archaeologists' interpreta- Meskell 1999; Patterson 1990), a considerable number of
tions of the ancient construction and use record within a archaeologists have found fruitful complementarity in
longer-term history, reaching to present-day political reading across the different approaches (e.g., Paddayya
struggles over control of access and interpretation about 1990; Preucel 1991; Trigger 1991), or in attempting to
the place. Decisions and dispositions of the ruling class in "build bridges" of social theory to facilitate communica-
recent times are most obtrusive, expressed tangibly in tion among them (Schiffer 2000b). Others seek to enhance
fences, roads, and other modern features that will leave communication across fields, between archaeology and
traces in the archaeological record. other domains of inquiry (e.g., Joyce and Gillespie 2000;
Indeed, struggle for control surrounds many places, Meskell et al. 2001).
ancient and modern. In the Americas, 16th-century Span- I suggest here that a socialized spatial archaeology em-
ish invaders promptly and deliberately obliterated vibrant bodies areas where this kind of discussion is possible, and
cities such as Tenochtitlan and Tihoo, usurping the places that there is perhaps a growing readiness to embrace such
of consummate native authority, and transforming indige- an opportunity. Landscape studies have been offered as
nous capitals into colonial ones on the spot, as today's one fruitful domain, as has been argued recently by sev-
Mexico City and Merida (e.g., Low 1995). The life histories eral scholars, themselves of mutually distinct theoretical
1180 American Anthropologist • Vol. 104, No. 4 • December 2002

backgrounds (Crumley 1999; Feinman 1999). Attempts ex- 1. My comments here should not be construed as critique of
Clarke, by any means. A brilliantly innovative archaeologist,
pressed in symposia, edited volumes, or journal issues do Clarke did not survive to develop his own ideas further; some of
not resolve or homogenize the differences, of course. his students, however, have been among those contributilig cen-
However, in introducing a set of landscape studies for a trally to these very themes. Indeed, some have characterized many
aspects of current archaeological theory as playing out themes em-
special section of Antiquity, Bender (1999) simultaneously bodied in Clarke's works (e.g., Malone and Stoddart 1998). Rather,
acknowledged the quite marked theoretical, methodologi- I take his 1977 expression of skepticism as reflecting thinking com-
cal, and reading-list differences between contributions of mon at the time, a stock taking stated succinctly by an eminent
theorist (cf. Hawkes 1954).
American and British authors and concluded that "together,
[the articles] present [ed] an exciting set of potentials" 2. For anthropology alone, Denise Lawrence and Setha Low (1990)
reviewed publications on the built environment for the 1990 An-
(1999:632, emphasis added). nual Review of Anthropology. To keep their article within manage-
I propose that "life histories of place" constitute an- able bounds, they explicitly excluded archaeological literature,
urging a comparable treatment by archaeologists. By emphasizing
other promising arena, where multiple distinct approaches the built environment, as well as by dint of their publication date,
offer complementary approaches and insights. This arena, that extremely valuable review also necessarily omitted the volu-
at least as emphatically as landscape, also articulates an- minous literature of the decade since.
cient spaces and places with their social roles today, em- 3. Alternatively, the meaning may remain while its localization
bedding them within ongoing sets of political and moral changes, as in Tollan of Mesoamerica (e.g., Carrasco et al. 2000;
Tedlock 1985) or the White House of the Puebloan Southwest (e.g.,
decisions and dispositions. At the same time, this kind of Lekson 1999).
study meshes with and complements consideration of dis-
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