The Archaeology of Communication Technologies

Accessing ancient meaning and sound from graphic notations is an immense challenge to archaeologists, whether with respect to marked objects, petrographs, or phonic writing. Two paths clear the way: the detection or reasoned reconstruction of “situation,” how graphic notations were used in the past and in what social and cultural setting, and the process of “extraction,” the hermeneutic scholarship that decodes such messages and establishes the relative plausibility of an interpretation. Situation is easier to study and extraction more likely to occur in cases of phonic writing, where varieties or types, physical inspection, decipherment, origins, and extinction permit multiple inroads into past sound and meaning.