Recursive Archaeology: An Ontological Approach to Interpreting Anthropomorphic Ceramics from Northwest Argentina

The question driving this paper is how to understand anthropomorphism in archaeological material, particularly in three-dimensional artefactual form. Typically, anthropomorphism in artefacts is interpreted as a result of a scheme transfer, in which meanings associated with the human body are transferred to other materials. Alternatively, it is understood as a representational practice through which cultural narratives are played out in material form. It may even be understood as an externalized cognitive process. Such approaches rely on specific concepts of ‘body,’ ‘representation’ and ‘materiality,’ among others. What I call a ‘recursive approach,’ in contrast, puts into question these concepts by working with our material in a way that maximizes the potential for ontological difference to emerge. The goal of a recursive archaeology is to recognize and feel the impact of the alterity latent in our materials, which can then form the basis for analysis and conceptual innovation. Recursion occurs when concepts developed locally through encounters with alterity are allowed to stand against archaeological ones, such that the latter are transformed by the former. By way of example, I develop an alternative theory of anthropomorphism in relation to a series of anthropo-, zoo- and biomorphic ceramics from first-millennium AD Northwest Argentina.