Content:
The third science revolution in archaeology has brought a new hope that the past is ultimately knowable, an optimism that science can ultimately answer almost any question about the past. This has also brought a host of increasingly simplified views and explanations of the past, prehistory understood in modern Wester categories and based on positive, scientific knowledge.
This is a bright, light, positive prehistory.
Our premise is that there is a dark side to the past. This darkness is not simply the absence of knowledge, but it figures as a constitutive element of prehistory. Prehistory is defined by its radical alterity.
This alterity also figures as a condition of reality we humans dwell in. What is unknowable, weird, alien, uncomfortable, painful and negative yet forms a constitutive element of being human? What is inaccessible, dark, and weird but integral to the prehistory itself? The radical alterity of prehistory should not be explained away by Western categories or dismissed as merely a colourful interpretation of reality. Instead, it should be a starting point for rethinking the past itself.
We want to focus on the negative, dark side of prehistory. We are interested in studies that treat prehistory as alien, weird, and inaccessible, defined by lack, negativity, death, absence and loss. We want to explore conceptual shadows, negativities, hidden and dark sides of prehistory.
We are interested in studies that focus on the harsh, hidden, uncomfortable, violent and grittier dimensions of social life; madness, violence, terror, and the subjective experience of these dimensions.
We welcome studies that deal with uncomfortable others, people, animals, and places.
Ultimately, opening to the dark side has revolutionary potential; it should throw us, archaeologists, our materials, and our sources into a state of vulnerability and risk. The dark prehistory opens the radical possibilities of the past.
Keywords:
prehistory, theory, negativity, alterity