Archaeology and the Time of Modernity

In this article an archaeological critique of the time of modernity is proposed. This critique is developed through three main themes: materiality, multi-temporality, and ethics. Materiality is key to producing relevant archaeological accounts of the time of modernity: historical archaeology has to follow the time of things, rather than the temporal frameworks inherited from history and other fields. Multitemporality is at the heart of modernity, which has to be understood as a heterogeneous phenomenon in which multiple, often incompatible, temporalities coalesce and clash, rather than as an homogeneous time of change and acceleration. Finally, the blurring of the past/present divide that is manifested through universal justice, political temporalities, and indigenous memory practices poses an important challenge to archaeology, but, at the same time, provides a unique opportunity to make the discipline socially relevant

Archaeology of the contemporary past. Time. Temporality. Materiality.