To most of the world, the image of an archaeological dig comes from the movies. You remember: in the first Indiana Jones movie, there's an iconic moment when Indy is standing at the archaeological site in Tanis, peering through a theodolite, with hundreds of Nazi-paid workmen around him. He is alone, above the crowd—the only crew member he talks to in the whole movie is Sallah, his faithful foreman. The perfect, tanned, obsessed, isolated scholar.
Toutswemogala Hill, Botswana. Photo by James R. Denbow (c) 2007
The reality of modern archaeology is far more interesting, not to mention more complicated and dangerous. The modern archaeologist is engaged with the local community. She or he works hard to bring in the participation of locals, descendant communities and other stakeholders in the process.
But you don't often see that process described; and further, there are few records that describe how that sea-change from a profession practiced in isolation on the unprotesting dead to one conducted in and among living people occurred. For one thing, it's not easy, in any sense of the word, and the archaeologist doesn't always come out looking particularly heroic or even completely professional.
African Iron Age Site of Bosutswe, Botswana
Photo Credit: James R. Denbow (c) 2007
But, in "Finding Bosutswe", a brave, fascinating article recently published in the journal History in Africa, archaeologist James Denbow, his field assistant and PhD student Morongwa Mosothwane, and Nonofho Ndobochani, a Senior Curator at the National Museum of Botswana, reflect on Denbow's struggles with his own post-colonial fieldwork in the 1980s and 1990s, and how they all worked together on the African Iron Age sites of Bosutswe and Toutswemogala. The article is a collaboration among the three, with the voices of Batswanas Mosothwane and Ndobochani clear and distinct from Denbow's recollections of how he worked as part of the local community.
I was lucky enough to see an early draft of this article, and am truly pleased to see it published. More than anything else I've read, "Finding Bosutswe" really expresses the difficulties and joys of modern fieldwork, and how dangerous, hilarious and exciting working within a community, as opposed to above and apart from it, can be.
Eat your heart out, Indiana Jones.
Denbow, James, Morongwa Mosothwane, and Nonofho M. Ndobochani 2008 Finding Bosutswe: Archeological Encounters with the Past. History in Africa 35:145-190.
Note: If you don't have access to a university library, you might be able to buy a copy of this article through the African Studies Association, who publishes History in Africa.
- Bosutswe, Botswana
- Toutswemogala, Botswana
- About.com Guide to the African Iron Age
Comments