Archaeology has always been situated in a borderland between disciplines. However, in recent years a vigorous debate about the relationships between the humanities and the natural sciences has emerged within the field, warning that with the “Third Science Revolution” in archaeology, the important perspectives provided by the humanities are being marginalised, and that this can have long-lasting and detrimental effects on the discipline. This article critically examines the debate and situates it in the context of the development of the neoliberal university and its impact on research and intellectual work more broadly and identifies the underlying ideologies of ever-increasing research output and quantification as the real threat to an intellectually rich and engaged archaeology, not the natural sciences.

In this paper I focus on the way in which identity is framed in the context of multi-disciplinary work and explore this concept alongside that of interdisciplinarity. The reason for doing so is that many multidisciplinary studies claim that they are interdisciplinary, which they are not. But interdisciplinarity remains a desideratum. When trying to combine different datasets, there are several challenges inherent in the fact that the data are very different in nature: (1) each discipline might have its own ontological reading of the studied object, and (2) the scale the data operates on differs. Thus, instead of viewing interdisciplinarity as a framework that can integrate different strands of data, a “meta-model” that can be applied across cases, I propose that the solution is to see interdisciplinarity in looser terms as the creation of “trading zones,” to use Peter Galison’s concept. As an example, I will focus on the use of DNA data alongside other kinds of data when trying to reconstruct past identities.

It is rare to engage with archaeology nowadays without stumbling upon references to inter-, multi-, cross-, and transdisciplinary research. It seems that any archaeological project that wishes to be successful must engage somehow with disciplines other than archaeology. However, a closer look into interdisciplinary archaeology and its cognates is not as straightforward as it first appears. The aim of this introduction is to outline the context of interdisciplinarity in archaeology and introduce the several topics discussed in the papers composing this current theme issue.

Marginalisierung und Diskriminierung von Menschen aufgrund ihrer Herkunft, Religion, sexuellen Orientierung, ökonomischen Stellung, Alter, Geschlecht, oder aufgrund besonderer Körper sind in unserer Gesellschaft allgegenwärtig. Ausgrenzungsprozesse und die ihnen innewohnende Ungerechtigkeit samt der Herausbildung sozialer Ungleichheiten bleiben jedoch nicht unbeantwortet. Ihnen stehen Ermächtigungstendenzen benachteiligter Gruppen oder Bemühungen der Mehrheitsgesellschaften gegenüber, die eine gesellschaftliche Teilhabe aller zum Ziel haben: eine inklusive Gesellschaft (Hähn u. a. 2020).

Der Beitrag diskutiert die Impulse, die von den Disability Studies auf die archäologischen Fächer ausgehen und die Anforderungen, die der Inklusionsgedanke an die Archäologien stellt. Trotz aller methodischen Schwierigkeiten kann eine interdisziplinär aufgestellte Altertumsforschung zum Erkenntnisstand der Disability History beitragen, wenn sie einen reflektierten bio-sozio-kulturellen Zugang zur Vergangenheit entwickelt. Die Geschichte von Menschen mit Beeinträchtigungen zum Forschungsgegenstand zu machen, kann auch dazu beitragen, den Inklusionsgedanken in den Archäologien zu festigen. Der Inklusionsauftrag stellt jedoch auch neue Forderungen an die Lehre und akademische Praxis, an das archäologische Berufsfeld, an Kommunikation und die Vermittlung archäologischer Inhalte. Diesbezügliche Ansätze und Probleme werden anhand von Beispielen skizziert.

Der Internationale Museumstag 2020 stand unter dem Motto „Das Museum für alle – Museen für Vielfalt und Inklusion“. Doch wer ist alle? Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrags steht eine Zielgruppe, die nicht nur in archäologischen und kulturhistorischen Museen in Deutschland kaum einbezogen wird – Menschen mit psychischen, neurologischen oder kognitiven Beeinträchtigungen. Der Artikel ist aus der Praxis heraus entstanden und als Werkstattbericht zu verstehen. Anhand von drei Praxisbeispielen aus dem Kulturhistorischen Museum Magdeburg werden Stolpersteine und Gelingensfaktoren aufgezeigt. Darüber hinaus sollen mögliche Gründe für die Marginalisierung dieser Zielgruppen in deutschen Museen identifiziert werden. Im Fokus steht dabei die personale Vermittlung für Gruppen. Selbstverständlich ebenfalls sehr wichtig, aber nicht Gegenstand des Artikels, sind Angebote für Individualbesucher*innen. Darüber hinaus ist die Gruppe der Menschen mit Beeinträchtigungen sehr vielfältig, sodass zwar allgemeine Empfehlungen abgeleitet werden können, aber immer auch individuelle Bedürfnisse zu berücksichtigen sind.

In the UK, accessibility for blind and partially sighted people in museums and cultural heritage sites has seen substantial progress thanks to the civil rights movement and the Equality Act of 2010. In recent years, there has been significant development of projects in UK museums for disabled people that aim to be socially inclusive. The concept of “motivation”, coming from Museum Studies literature, is central to understanding blind and partially sighted visitors’ experiences. This paper aims to investigate the motivation and expectations of blind and partially sighted visitors, providing a general understanding of why they decide to visit museums and how accessible resources affect their experience. Findings show that participants have multiple motivations for visiting, and they do not consider different motivations to be conflicting. The social and educational aspects seemed to be the most valued elements regarding visitors’ experience. The analysis suggests clear links between the way participants use resources in the museum and their motivation for visiting museums. The results show that the use of accessible resources has the potential to enhance the museum experience of blind and partially sighted people.

Im Zuge des Forschungsprojekts NMsee (2019–2021) entwickelte der Betroffenenverband BSVN e.V. gemeinsam mit dem Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann sowie blinden und sehbehinderten Menschen einen inklusiven Rundgang, welcher Gäste durch die Dauerausstellung des Museums führt. Eine wichtige Komponente dieses neuen Konzepts ist das Mobile Game Neanderthal: Memories. Das Game dient dabei als inklusive Museums-Tour und ist eine Teilkomponente eines inklusiven Gesamtkonzepts für das Archäologiemuseum im Neandertal, das auch eine neue Infrastruktur in der Dauerausstellung enthält. Der nachfolgende Beitrag stellt das Projekt NMsee und das Game Neanderthal: Memories vor und reflektiert die Zusammenarbeit von Archäologiemuseum und Game Development aus beiden Perspektiven.

Joint disease is one of the most common bone changes identified in skeletal populations. This paper presents a methodological discussion of the medical and bioarchaeological grading systems for describing intervertebral disc disease (IDD). A comparison of the bioarchaeological and medical grading systems helps to estimate the impact of IDD in the spine on the functioning of an individual and potential disability. The case study is focused on a male from the 14th to 16th centuries CE (late medieval and early modern period) who was buried in Łekno, Poland. The cemetery in the Łekno settlement complex consists of approximately 400 burials of Cistercian monks and local people. The individual was buried in the same body position and orientation as contemporaries. Analysis of the lesions in specimen indicate mild, moderate and severe IDD, classified as grades 1 to 3 on the Bioarchaeological Intervertebral Disc Disease Grading System. Moreover, the analysis indicated osteoarthritis, possibly early stage of DISH and healed and stable fracture of the left clavicle. Archaeological context and texts were used to evaluate the possibility that this individual was disabled. The spinal disease might have caused limitations of flexibility and temporal and chronic pain. This would become more evident as the age of the individual progressed. The individual could be regarded as sick and temporarily unable to work, thus needing help and healing. Due to his challenging conditions, it seems that he was cared for and supported by family, other people from the village and/ or the Cistercian Order.

While interdisciplinarity has definitely enriched archaeological research, especially in light of what has been called the “Third Science Revolution,” little has changed in terms of epistemology and methodology in archaeology. In fact, what counts as interdisciplinary research in archaeology nowadays is usually the application of natural science techniques to data that have been recovered archaeologically. Nevertheless, this form of archaeological research has become the gold standard, monopolising funding at various scales. Interdisciplinarity at its most basic simply means the collaboration between different disciplines. If this is true, one should ask why the term “interdisciplinary” is usually reserved for the combination of archaeology and the natural sciences, rather than the vast panoply of collaborative efforts in archaeology, such as those between art and archaeology or philosophy and archaeology? The aim of this paper is to argue that current interdisciplinary research is theoretically impoverished and non-transgressive. In fact, current interdisciplinary research relies on very basic methods and premises, oftentimes relying only on C14 dates or bone material recovered by standard archaeological methods. Rather than interdisciplinary research, it might make sense to think in terms of methodological anarchism. As the name indicates, methodological anarchism focuses more on methodologies than disciplines, giving priority to the different ways that the archaeological past can be explained. Rather than following strict formulas, as some interdisciplinary research tends to do, methodological anarchism advocates flexibility and choice of the methods that provide multi-faceted understandings of past reality.

Archaeology is very interdisciplinary in its orientation. Therefore, it presents a good case study for thinking about interdisciplinary cooperation. Most, if not all, problems with interdisciplinary cooperation ultimately reduce to problems of communication. An important part of these is due to cultural differences between academic disciplines. Real cultural differences underlie disciplinary divides, and these shape the ways people communicate. Such cultural differences can cause serious (and difficult to detect) communication problems. With careful attention to communication that is sensitive to disciplinary cultural differences, a lot of problems that are practical in nature but are fundamental to effective cooperative research can be mitigated. The importance of translators in interdisciplinary research teams is highlighted. Archaeology can use its slowly growing experience with intercultural communication to enhance its interdisciplinary effectiveness. In order to reap such benefits, it is important that attention is paid to training and employing people with a broad interdisciplinary basis, so that there are people equipped to fill the important role of translator.

With interdisciplinarity increasingly being emphasised as an unquestionable asset in archaeology and prioritised amongst research funding institutions and university strategists, it may be worthwhile exploring the nature of collaborative research: What are the political mechanisms of interdisciplinary research and how does epistemic dissonance affect collaborative efforts? In this article, I contend that truly interdisciplinary research should be capable of emphasising the sometimes radical differences between disciplinary research designs, ontologies, epistemologies, and definitions of knowledge. To this end, I pursue atmosphere as an example of a phenomenon that can, or should, be studied in a way that attends to epistemic differences, since atmosphere has different implications in different disciplinary settings. I will favour postmodern eclecticism – however altmodisch and unoriginal it may seem in the 2020s – as my methodical approach to atmosphere, since it lends itself to a messy and noisy multiplicity of epistemologies and research designs doing justice to the cross-disciplinary concept of atmosphere. The strength of eclecticism is its lack of consistency and stringency, and its capacity for sustaining epistemic dissonance instead of concealing it.

Die Space Archaeology beschäftigt sich mit Facetten der Weltraumarchäologie. In der englischsprachigen Forschung existiert diese Strömung seit fast 20 Jahren als Teil der Contemporary Archaeology, im deutschsprachigen Raum hingegen ist sie als wissenschaftliches Betätigungsfeld bislang fast unbekannt. Das möchte dieser Beitrag ändern. Ziel ist es, etablierte Forschungsschwerpunkte der Weltraumarchäologie mit Ansätzen und Medien anderer Kulturwissenschaften, wie den Literatur- und Filmwissenschaften zu verknüpfen. Dafür schlage ich eine neue Taxonomie der Weltraumarchäologie vor: 1) die Erforschung zivilisatorischer Hinterlassenschaften im Zusammenhang mit Reisen ins Weltall sowie im All. Dieser Punkt lässt sich weiter differenzieren: 1a) die archäologische Erschließung von auf der Erde befindlichen (Infra-)Strukturen für Weltraumreisen, 1b) die archäologische Erschließung menschlicher Hinterlassenschaften im Weltraum oder auf anderen Himmelskörpern, 1c) die archäologische Erforschung vergangener extraterrestrischer Zivilisationen und Kulturen auf anderen Planeten. Als zweites relevantes Betätigungsfeld wird 2) die archäologische Erforschung des Heute in der Zukunft in den Blick genommen.

Imagining the future, few people think of how discrimination and poverty will affect the shape of urbanization. Comics and Sci-Fi usually speak about the advanced technological progress of human beings, climate change, and superheroes. Meanwhile, a critical look at our modern lives indicates that this image is only a small part of a big puzzle. Rapid mass production and consumption in modern society has resulted in huge mountains of dumped objects and landfills where garbage communities live or manage their daily lives by collecting garbage. The growing valley between poor and rich gives us enough evidence to predict that garbage communities will continue to exist in the future. These communities have been ignored by archaeologists for many years. In the present article, I would like to propose that we have a look at the future of garbage communities and see whether garbage collecting can be identified as a form of subsistence and studied through archaeology.

This article responds to a growing tide of critique targeting select new materialist and object-oriented approaches in archaeology. Here we take a stand against this critical discourse not so much to counter actual and legitimate differences in how we conceive of archaeology and its role, but to target the exaggerations, excesses, and errors by which it increasingly is articulated and which restrict communication to the impoverishment of the field as whole. While also embracing an opportunity to clarify matters of politics and archaeological theory in light of object-oriented approaches and the material turn at large, we address a number of concerns raised by this critical discourse, which are, we contend, of relevance to all archaeologists: 1) the importance of ontology; 2) working with theory; 3) politics as first philosophy; 4) the concept of the subaltern; 5) binaries and the rhetorical desire for an enemy; and 6) the matter of misrepresentation.

Intrigued by repeated visits of Trump administration officials to the archaeological tunnels at the foot of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, I examine the extraordinary connection between American and Israeli nationalism, “Judeo-Christian values,” and Holy Land archaeology, and propose a “Pompeo premise” that equates Jewish antiquities and settlement with bedrock values of “Western civilization,” promotes a political narrative of redemption (even if accompanied by massive violence) and relegates Palestinian Muslims to an ephemeral existence. The “recovery” of a “true” Jerusalem, purified of any Islamic content, beneath the contested, chaotic surface of Palestinian and Israeli Jerusalem is delegated to archaeologists, who have for the most part accepted their task.

This article critically reflects upon the relationship between the local workmen (all male) of the Asyut Project and the international scientific team working at the site. There are still noticeable traces of the colonial past within Egyptology. Interactions between local communities and archaeologists have only recently led to projects that focus on community engagement and multivocality. This article argues that community engagement can be a promising way not only to further decolonise Egyptology, and especially archaeological work in Egypt, but also to broaden the horizon of scholars by including other voices, methods and interpretations in their research. The local workmen have been almost invisible in published records of archaeological research. In 2011, together with the Egyptian artist Ammar Abu Bakr, I was able to study the relationship between the scholars of the Asyut Project and the local workmen by using methods from the field of social and cultural anthropology. The research comprises 21 semi-structured interviews and 56 structured questionnaires. Based on an analysis of the interviews, I conclude that the relationship between the workmen and the Asyut Project is mainly capitalistic and the workmen are alienated labourers. This is further manifested by a social distance between the international scholars and the local workmen, the language barrier, and the limited time available during fieldwork. It will be shown that the local workmen are interested in the ancient sites and in more communication concerning their meaning and interpretations.

Aus der Perspektive der Zentralgewalt stellt eine Hauptstadt die wichtigste Stadt eines Staates dar. In den Altertumswissenschaften bestimmt die Frage, ob eine Stadt „Haupt“stadt war oder nicht die Forschungsfragen und lenkt damit oft das Interesse an subalternen Räumen. Dieser Beitrag widmet sich der Hauptstadt des hethitischen Reiches und stellt dar, wie zum einen die moderne Erforschung der antiken Hauptstadt marginale Räume geschaffen hat, zum anderen wissenschaftliche Traditionen „subalterne Räume“ verfestigt haben. Die Untersuchung von Archivquellen aus der „Hauptstadt der Hethiter“ zeigt, dass bewusst oder unbewusst bestimmte handelnde Personen unsichtbar gemacht wurden. Ich zeige anhand einiger Beispiele, wie Subalterne, ihre Räume und Geschichten mittels quantitativer und räumlicher Analysen sichtbar gemacht werden können.