Once Upon a Site - a story of archaeological knowledge production (original) (raw)

This thesis strives to tell a story of archaeological knowledge production at the Uppakra site in Scania, southern Sweden, through focusing upon the actual work on site. Ethnographic study of archaeologists in the field brings the thesis into contact with sites and material practices as well as literary sources and accounts of archaeology and methodological problems. Following these leads the thesis realizes that, when telling the story of archaeology, it subjects itself to whatever the work on site is subjected to. Showing archaeology to be a set of complex material and social practices, and networks of things and people, that need to be held together to tell the truth, the thesis knows it has to do the same thing itself. For it too is on site, right next to its archaeological object of study, rather than on some meta-level.