Archaeogaming Theory: Explaining Post-Entanglement Dualist Artifacts

Summary

Archaeogaming, the study of the intersection of archaeology in (and of) video games), explores a unique class of ordinary artifacts that effortlessly occupy both real and virtual worlds. This presentation explains archaeogaming's many branches while providing a new way of discussing digital games, dismissing their appearance as simply media objects, treating them instead as both archaeological artifact and site created by both hardware and software into vehicles of iconoclasm. As archaeologists, we must get beyond the primary entanglements of people and things, of production, economics, history, technology, and various intertwining narratives, to include real artifacts created through emergent, complex behaviors, something apart from the intended gameplay experience. In the gameworld, different rules apply to everything ranging from interacting with material culture to ethics, and archaeology requires new, next-level theory when dealing with these virtual spaces.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Archaeogamine: A New Frontier in Public Archaeology

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 523