Archaeology did not begin as a neutral inquiry into the human past. It emerged within,
and helped sustain, the same colonial structures that dispossessed Indigenous peoples, ordering
them into racial hierarchies and narratives of disappearance that positioned conquest as
inevitable. In doing so, it did not simply misrepresent Indigenous societies – it actively
participated in the removal of their agency, legitimacy, and autonomy, embedding these absences
within systems of knowledge that appeared empirical and authoritative. Indigenous histories
were not lost; they were structured out of recognition. Archaeological knowledge has long been
entangled with power, shaping not only how the past is understood but what is allowed to count
as history in the first place (Shackel, 2913 pp. 1-11; McGuire, 2008).
To engage archaeology critically, then, is not simply to use its methods, but to confront
its history as a discipline embedded within colonial systems of knowledge production and
comprehension. This requires more than identifying bias. It demands a deeper interrogation of
how archaeological knowledge is produced – what it can see, what it cannot, and why. It is in
this tension that archaeology’s most meaningful contribution lies: not in fixing Indigenous
identities or stabilising timelines, but in unsettling the very frameworks that once rendered them
invisible. Through material evidence, archaeology reveals worlds that were never empty,
societies that were never static, and histories that resist the linear logic of progress imposed upon
them.
The Invention of Inequality
The transition from foraging to farming, the emergence of private property, and the rise
of urbanism have all been framed as key turning points in a universal trajectory from simple to
complex (or equal to hierarchy). Yet this narrative reflects the assumptions rooted in
Enlightenment thought, itself shaped by colonial encounters. It is less a discovery about the past
than a story told to stabilise the present; continuing to reproduce this narrative perpetuates a
fundamentally distorted view of human history.
The dominant account of early human societies oscillates between two familiar poles. On
one side stands the Rousseauian vision of primordial equality: small, egalitarian bands of huntergatherers
living in harmony until disrupted by agriculture and private property. On the other is
the Hobbesian alternative: a violent, competitive state of nature in which hierarchy and
domination are inherent, requiring the emergence of the state to impose order. Despite their
differences, both models share a linear structure. They assume that human societies move
through identifiable stages, each associated with increasing complexity and inequality.
Archaeology has long adopted this framework, embedding it within typologies such as
“hunter-gatherer,” “chiefdom,” and “state.” Rather than a single trajectory, the archaeological
record reveals a multiplicity of social forms. Hunter-gatherer societies were not uniformly
egalitarian; some exhibited marked hierarchies, while others alternated seasonally between
different political arrangements. Early agricultural communities did not inevitably produce
inequality; many remained relatively non-hierarchical for extended periods. Even the first cities
often show little evidence of kings, bureaucracies, or rigid class divisions (Graeber and
Wengrow, 2021, pp. 276-440). The implication is clear. Inequality is not an inevitable outcome
of social complexity. It is one possibility among many. Archaeology’s contribution lies in
making this multiplicity visible, and in doing so, quietly dismantling one of the most enduring
fictions of modern thought: that hierarchy is the natural endpoint of human society.
To understand why the linear model is so persistent, it is necessary to examine its
intellectual origins. As Graeber and Wengrow (2021, pp. 27-77) demonstrate, the Enlightenment
question of “the origin of inequality” did not emerge in isolation. It developed in the context of
sustained encounters between European colonists and Indigenous American societies. These
encounters were not simply observational; they were dialogical. These were not
misunderstandings between cultures, but disagreements about how life should be organised and
lived.
Indigenous critiques of European society were both consistent and profound. They
condemned Europeans for their greed, lack of generosity, and obsession with material
accumulation. More fundamentally, they identified European societies as lacking in freedom. As
missionary accounts record, Indigenous observers viewed Europeans as constrained by
hierarchical authority, property relations, and coercive institutions- conditions that resembled
forms of enslavement. By contrast, their own societies were characterised by autonomy,
reciprocity, and collective responsibility. There was no such thing as poverty and homelessness
within their communities.
The impact of this “Indigenous critique” on European thought was dangerous. Graeber
and Wengrow (2021, pp. 40-76) argue that the familiar narrative of human history as a fall from
equality to inequality can be understood as a response to these critiques. By locating freedom and
equality in a distant, irrecoverable past, European thinkers were able to acknowledge and
appropriate Indigenous criticisms while neutralising their political implications. If such societies
belonged only to a vanished stage of human development, then they posed no viable alternative
to existing institutions.
This reframing had lasting consequences. It established a model of social evolution in
which inequality was both naturalised and historicised. Early excavations were often conducted
in territories under imperial control, where Indigenous populations were marginalised or
displaced. Material remains were removed from their contexts, reinterpreted through European
theoretical frameworks, and displayed in museums as evidence of universal human development.
Indigenous societies were positioned as an early stage of European progress, just not quite
civilised yet. This process actively contributed to the erasure of alternative social and political
possibilities.
Material Evidence and the Collapse of Colonial Assumptions
Indigenous societies were categorised within evolutionary hierarchies that positioned
them as primitive, static, and outside of historical progression. These frameworks were
reinforced through temporal distinctions such as “pre-contact,” which defined Indigenous
histories in relation to European arrival and implicitly centered colonialism as the primary
historical event.
The “Mound Builder” myth provides a clear example of this process. Monumental
earthworks across North America were attributed to a vanished, non-indigenous population,
despite clear cultural continuity with Indigenous communities (Oland, Hart, and Frink, 2012).
This misattribution was not the result of insufficient data, but of an interpretive system that could
not accommodate Indigenous complexity. Archaeology, in this context, functioned not as a
corrective to colonial ideology but as one of its mechanisms. What appears, in retrospect, as an
error of interpretation reveals a deeper issue: Indigenous presence was not invisible, but illegible
within the dominant framework of knowledge.
Archaeology’s capacity to challenge these frameworks emerges through material
evidence that exceeds them. Sites such as Cahokia demonstrate forms of social organisation that
fundamentally contradict colonial assumptions of simplicity and stasis. Cahokia, located in
present-day Illinois, was a large and complex urban centre characterised by monumental
architecture, planned landscapes, and coordinated labour systems. The construction of Monks
Mound alone required the movement of tens of millions of cubic feet of earth (Shilling, 2012, pp.
302-313). Archaeobotanical and isotope evidence indicate intensive maize agriculture supporting
dense populations and complex social organisation (Emerson et al. 2020, p. 241-262). Cahokia
represents a dynamic and politically organised centre, challenging earlier models that framed
Indigenous societies as environmentally constrained or socially static (Alt et al., 2010, pp. 131–
146; Pauketat, 1998, pp. 45–89).
The significance of Cahokia lies not only in its scale, but in the interpretive failure it
exposes. The persistence of the Mound Builder myth in the face of such evidence demonstrates
that the limitation was not empirical but conceptual. Archaeology’s contribution, therefore, is not
simply to provide new data but to reveal the inadequacy of the frameworks through which that
data was once understood. Cahokia does not simply complicate these assumptions; it renders
them untenable. A society of this scale cannot be reconciled with narratives of indigenous
simplicity without collapsing the framework itself.
Deep Time and the Instability of Archaeological Knowledge
Archaeological evidence has also extended Indigenous histories far beyond the temporal
limits imposed by colonial frameworks. Sites such as Monte Verde in Chile, initially dated to at
least 14,500 years ago, challenged the long-standing “Clovis-first” model of human migration
into the Americas (Dillehay, 2017). More recent evidence, including the White Sands footprints
dated to approximately 23,000 years ago, suggests even earlier occupation (Bennet et al., 2021,
pp. 1528–1531).
Yet these findings do more than revise timelines. They reveal the instability of
archaeological knowledge itself. The chronology on Monte Verde, for example, has been reevaluated
by Surovell et al. (2026), who argue for a more recent occupation based on
stratigraphic reanalysis. While these claims remain contested, they highlight a fundamental issue:
archaeological conclusions are provisional and subject to reinterpretation. Debates surrounding
early human occupation do not weaken the discipline; they reveal its limits. Archaeology does
not produce fixed knowledge of the past, but interpretations shaped by evidence, method, bias,
and theory. Deep time dislocates Indigenous history from the confines imposed by colonial
narratives, refusing the idea that history begins the moment it is written down.
Language, Translation, and the Limits of Knowing
Archaeology does not access the past directly; it renders it legible through acts of
translation. These acts are not passive; they impose structure. The categories through which
archaeological data is interpreted – “environment,” “resource,” “subsistence,” “society” – are
products of particular epistemological traditions. They reflect a worldview that separates humans
from the natural world and organises life into distinguishable categories. Yet in many Indigenous
ontologies, no such separation exists. Land, water, and non-human beings are not external
environments to be managed and exploited, but participants in relational systems of reciprocity
and care (Arias, 2018 p. 614). Archaeology, therefore, operates within a paradox: it materially
challenges colonial narratives while simultaneously translating Indigenous worlds into
conceptual frameworks that fragment them and reshape them. Confining them within categories
that do not exist in their worldview.
Crucially, Archaeological evidence aligns with indigenous oral traditions that have long
preserved accounts of deep time. In the Pacific Northwest, oral histories describing ancient
coastal landscapes correspond closely with geological evidence of post-glacial sea level rise
(Williams, 2018). Similarly, oral traditions associated with volcanic events, such as those linked
to the eruption that formed Crater Lake, align closely with geological timelines (Deur, 2002, p.
18). These narratives preserve knowledge of environmental change across millennia, embedded
within relational and place-based frameworks (Williams, 2018).
What archaeology presents as discovery is often recognition. Oral histories did not lack
historical depth; they were excluded from systems that defined what counted as history.
Archaeology’s contribution lies in revealing that exclusion, and in demonstrating that indigenous
histories were never absent, only rendered illegible.
Preservation Bias and the Limits of Evidence
The nature of the archaeological record itself compounds this instability. What
archaeologists study is not the past in its entirety, but what survives. What remains is not what
existed, but what endured. Early sites are particularly vulnerable to destruction through sea-level
rise, erosion, and sediment displacement. Coastal migration routes, now submerged, may contain
critical evidence that remains inaccessible. Organic materials decay, leaving uneven traces of
past activity, while entire landscapes remain undiscovered. This has significant implications for
how absence is interpreted. The absence of evidence cannot be taken as evidence of absence.
Archaeological visibility is shaped not only by past human activity, but by preservation
conditions and detection methods. Mobile populations, for example, may leave minimal material
traces, yet this does not imply their non-existence.
Landscapes, Labour, and the Myth of Emptiness
If colonial narratives depended on the idea of empty land, archaeology demonstrates that
landscapes were actively produced through Indigenous labour. Across multiple contexts,
archaeological evidence reveals long-term environmental management practices. Hohokan
irrigation systems transformed arid landscapes into productive agricultural zones through
coordinated labour and governance (Hunt et al, 2005, pp. 433-456). Clam gardens along the
northwest coast demonstrate sustained marine management over millennia (Lepofsky et al.,
2015, pp. 236–259). In Amazonia, terra preta soils indicate deliberate soil engineering through
human activity (Schmidt et al., 2023)
These practices demonstrate that landscapes were not passive environments, but
outcomes of sustained human activity. Indigenous land was embedded within systems of
political economy and governance, rather than existing as unclaimed territory. Archaeology’s
contribution lies in making this labour visible, challenging the foundational assumption of
colonial land claims: that land was empty, unused, and available for private ownership.
Archaeology’s contribution here is decisive. It demonstrates that the foundational assumption
was never empirically true, only politically useful.
Relational Worlds and Archaeological Limits
While archaeology reveals the material presence of Indigenous worlds, its interpretation
remains shaped by limited conceptual frameworks that do not align with Indigenous ontologies
or worldviews. The framework of communing offers a critical alternative. Rather than
interpreting archaeological evidence through models of resource extraction or economic
optimisation, communing foregrounds relationships of reciprocity, care, and responsibility that
structure human-environment interactions. Governance in Indigenous contexts cannot be reduced
to institutional regulation; it emerges through lived relationships with land, water, and morethan-
human beings (Jenkins et al., 2025, pp. 1-7; Arias, 2008, pp. 131–146).
This reframing has significant implications for archaeological interpretation. Practices
such as fishing, burning, or harvesting are not simply subsistence strategies, but expressions of
relational governance embedded within cultural and cosmological systems. Archaeological
evidence from the Chesapeake region, for example, reveals long-term patterns of oyster reef
management and fishing practices that reflect systems of collective care rather than individual
exploitation (Jenkins et al., 2025, pp. 1-7).
Such evidence challenges the conceptual boundaries through which archaeology
interprets the past. Landscapes are not external environments to be managed, but co-produced
worlds shaped through ongoing relationships. Archaeology, in translating these relationships into
categories such as “resource use,” risks fragmenting what is inherently relational.
Archaeology, Responsibility, and the Present
Indigenous communities continue to exist, and the narratives produced by archaeology
have consequences in the present. The framing of Indigenous peoples as primitive or
disappearing justified dispossession and continues to shape political and social realities.
Scientific and academic institutions have played a role in constructing and sustaining these
narratives (Jones et al., 2024, pp. 1-7). Archaeology must confront not only its interpretations but
its position within systems of knowledge production. As Smith (2021) emphasises, research itself
is embedded within colonial structures. Archaeology cannot claim neutrality; it must recognise
its entanglement with power and its consequences.
At the same time, archaeology has the potential to contribute to processes of recognition
and repair. By challenging narratives of absence and demonstrating long-term continuity (Pinotti,
2025, pp.125–132), it can support Indigenous claims to land, sovereignty, and cultural heritage.
Collaborative approaches that center Indigenous perspectives offer pathways toward more ethical
and accountable practice.
Conclusion
Archaeology’s most meaningful contribution to the study of Indigenous histories in North
America lies not in its ability to produce definitive accounts of the past but in revealing the limits
of the systems that have sought to define it. Material evidence demonstrates that Indigenous
worlds were never empty, never static, and never absent. At the same time, it exposes the
fragility of its own historical methods – its reliance on incomplete records, unstable
interpretations, and inherited conceptual frameworks. In doing so, archaeology does more than
reconstruct the past. It unsettles the narratives that have long structured it, opening space for
histories that were never lost, but systematically excluded.
By challenging entrenched narratives and engaging with diverse perspectives,
archaeology can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the past—one that recognises the
agency of all beings and the multiplicity of human experiences. In doing so, it not only enriches
our knowledge of history but also expands our capacity to imagine alternative futures.
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