Citation:
Campbell PB. (2023) Chapter 10: Octopodology and Dark Amphorae: alien archaeologies, reflexivity, and the non-human afterlives of objects in the sea. In: Contemporary philosophy for maritime archaeology: flat ontologies, oceanic thought, and the Anthropocene, Sidestone Press Academics, March 2023
Abstract:
When Christopher Columbus presented his argument for the existence of lands across the
Atlantic Ocean, the “eminent men of Genoa” apocryphally replied that to the west were only
“the mist of darkness” (Abulafia, 2019, p. 610). This self-limiting conception of the world
resulted in Genoa missing the European “discovery” of the western continents to the benefit
of Spain. Anthropology and archaeology have their own ‘mists of darkness’, self-imposed
limits or blindness due to culture, gender, or social status. There are aspects that observers
cannot perceived due to their proximity to the subject. Anthropology sought to address this
through the “reflexive turn”, where researchers seek to identify and understand their own
inherent biases (Hymes, 1999).