The Archaeology of Industrialisation, livre ebook

This book offers a critical view of the archaeology of industrialisation, which is presented as one of the different practices coexisting within a broader industrial archaeology.

The main ideas, research frameworks, sources of information, and tools for recording, analysing and explaining industrial sites are examined. The archaeology of industrialisation is defined as the study of the industrial period through its material remains. The industrialised society is not understood as an isolated nor as a homogeneous group, but as a complex social system of global dispersion and impacts. Thus, it is argued that the archaeology of industrialisation is an archaeology of the Contemporary Age focused on the industrial production, distribution and consumption of things. Some space is dedicated to theorising about industrial heritage, which is approached as a related topic through a critical and archaeological lens. The ideas presented are illustrated with examples from Spain, Brazil and the People’s Republic of China. These cases help us rethink industrial archaeology and heritage from the Global South while observing alternative industrialization processes and industrial societies.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXI

CHAPTER 1

Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 A Touch of Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.2 Archaeologies of the Contemporary Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.2.1 Garbology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

1.2.2 Space Age Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

1.2.3 Archaeogaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1.2.4 Digital and Media Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

1.2.5 Conflict Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

1.2.6 Homeless Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

1.2.7 The Archaeology of the Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

1.2.8 The Archaeology of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

CHAPTER 2

Industrial Archaeology and the Archaeology of Industrialisation . . . . . . . . . . 31

2.1 Brief History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

2.1.1 Precedents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

2.1.2 A New Academic Field. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.1.3 Industrial Archaeology as Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

2.2 Debates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

2.2.1 Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

2.2.2 Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

2.2.3 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

2.2.4 Industrial Archaeology and the Archaeology of Industrialisation . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 65

2.3 The Archaeology of Industrialisation: a Research Framework . . . . . . . 67

2.3.1 Beyond the Documentary Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

2.3.2 Research Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

CHAPTER 3

Industrial Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

3.1 Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

3.2 Archaeological Sites, Archaeological Heritage, and Modern Ruins . . . . 84

3.3 Industrial Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

3.3.1 Normative Text and Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

3.3.2 Critical Industrial Heritage Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

3.4 Reanimating Industrial Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

CHAPTER 4

Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

4.1 Written . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

4.1.1 Primary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

4.1.2 Secondary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

4.2 Oral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

4.3 Visual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

4.3.1 Cartographic Materials and Technical Drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

4.3.2 Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

4.3.3 Fine Arts, Publicity, and Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

4.4 Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

4.4.1 Landscapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

4.4.2 Buildings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

4.4.3 Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

CHAPTER 5

Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

5.1 Field Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

5.1.1 Text Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

5.1.2 Graphic Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

5.1.3 Inventories and Catalogues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

5.2 Prospection and Landscape Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

5.3 Stratigraphy and Archaeological Excavation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

5.4 Archaeology of Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

5.5 Dating and Other Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

CHAPTER 6

Practical Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

6.1 The Smelting Plant of the Cerro Muriano Copper Mine, Spain . . . . . . 195

6.2 Wooden Floors in the Companhia Paulista’s Railway Workshops, Brazil .. . . .. . . . . . 198

6.3 Wangpingcun Coal Mine (China) Explained through its Physical Evidence . . . . .. . . . 202

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Filmography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253