Multi-sited archaeology

Multi-sited archaeology?
Or, how to account for heterogeneous elements distributed in space and time:
A case of boundary arbitration between two Greek poleis

Christopher Witmore
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
Brown University

Grazing flocks and boundary lines between poleis; the arbitration of a land dispute in the 2nd-century BCE and 7m diameter piles of unhewn rubble along a ridgeline in the southern Argolid, Greece; a reference to the boleoi mentioned in Pausanias' Periegesis and two stone stelae, one in Epidaurous and one in Hermion: all are linked up in a complex network of relations. All are simultaneously, located and dislocated, defined and distributed, singular and collective. How do archaeologists establish associations between heterogeneous elements distant in time and space?

While anthropology has given us a rich suite of practices to account for relations distributed across various locales (whether near or far), in my contribution I aim to explore the possibilities of what some, following in the wake of this multi-sited ethnography, have called a 'multi-sited archaeology.' To this end, I focus on a case of group maintenance in the form of an arbitration dispute between Hermion and Epidaurous in the 2nd-century BCE. I then unpack the complex and nonlinear ways in which archaeology accounts for (tracks) such distributed relations. Once we arrive at this destination, we will determine whether the term 'multi-sited' has stood up to the rigorous road conditions connected with an archaeological trial of strength.