Prior to about 1980, archaeologists in many regions assumed that the spatial distribution of certain types of material culture could be used to trace the extent of empires ( e.g., Bernal 1966). The Archaeology of Imperialism: Steps Forward, Steps Back After a brief review of the history of research on this topic, I discuss methodological work aimed at answering two key questions: Was there an empire here? and, How was it bounded? I then explore some of the complications that affect research on these questions. My goal in this paper is to discuss the accomplishments and potential of archaeological research on bounding empires and polities. Unfortunately, the idea of using archaeological data to map the extent of an ancient empire is considered outdated by many archaeologists today.
Whereas previously archaeologists had struggled with ways to bound and reconstruct empires, in recent decades such studies have been replaced with post-structural and postcolonial research that avoids territorial reconstruction or measurement. After a heyday of methodological and conceptual work in the 1980s and 1990s, major segments of the archaeological study of complex societies took a postmodern turn, from which it has yet to fully recover. The conceptual / disciplinary hurdle refers to the intellectual development of imperial studies in archaeology. For some empires, in some time periods, archaeologists can reconstruct provincial dynamics in considerable detail, while in other cases little can be done. Like many social dynamics that archaeologists may want to analyze – from social inequality to ritual processes to kingship – the study of empires and territorial processes are most amenable to rigorous archaeological analysis when there is a favorable conjunction of preservation, sampling, field recovery, analytical methods, and research design. The empirical hurdle consists of the rarity of cases where sufficient high-quality archaeological data can be assembled to reconstruct boundaries and territory in the deep past. The use of archaeological data to analyze territory, boundaries and networks in empires and polities faces two major hurdles, one empirical and the other conceptual and disciplinary. Nevertheless, archaeologists have developed a small toolkit to answer two key questions: Was there an empire here? and, How was it bounded? I review the relevant methods and discuss a series of empirical and conceptual caveats and complications. Second, the archaeology of political organization took a postmodern turn in the 1990s, inhibiting quantification, measurement, and the rigorous bounding of ancient networks and polities. First, the conjunction of preservation, data recovery and analysis required for rigorous reconstructions is all too rare archaeologically. The archaeological analysis of territory, boundaries, and networks in empires and polities faces two hurdles.
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