The aim of this research is to outline the frames for a posthumanocentric archaeology. This archaeology attempts to take archaeology back to a realist and materialist ontology since I claim that archaeological theory has entered a road that takes us further away from the materialities. Despite, or perhaps due to, over twenty years of post-processual theories in archaeology, the discipline is still mainly focusing on what is not available in the archaeological record. The focus is set on a universal past human agent and its associated “culture” which are not available to the archaeologist. The prevailing theoretical approaches attempts to study materiality from a strong humanocentric approach (for example, phenomenology, social constructionism, actor-actant networks). Humanocentric archaeologists set their focus on memories, subjectivities, cosmologies, etc. assumed to be reached from materialities or these categories are used a-priori while studying materialities.

Archaeologists therefore claim to study past societies and humans through material remains. For this to be possible, the human or culture must have at least some essential property that is static and remains unchanged from the past to our present. How can we otherwise be sure that past people acted or thought in the way humanocentrism believe they did? This means that archaeologists rely on essentialist ontologies that either are realist or idealist. The main theme in this research is that no such essence exist other than change/temporality/differentiation itself. Humanocentric archaeology is therefore not only a post-processual phenomenon. In fact, the gap between empirical data and theory is widening in all forms of archaeology, no matter what prefix we use.

The first theme and objective is to outline the weakness of the humanocentric paradigm, its emphasis on either natural categories, general laws or transcendent principles that have no connection to the materialities archaeologists work with. Once these weaknesses have been outlined the research will develop a neo-materialist and neo-realist ontology for archaeological materialities, largely based on three interrelated philosophers: Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda. The ideas from these philosophers are not only the basis for a conceptualization of matter and reality that is largely unknown to most archaeologists, the renaissance of Bergsonian ideas in Deleuze’s philosophy has also created a stream of new perspectives that will affect the very core of humanocentric archaeology; its reliance on hylomorphic explanations (the need for external and transcendent sources to explain changes in “inert” matter). The main theme in the research is that materialities are not substances but immanent processes. Materialities are therefore not even seen as symmetrical with humans as is argued in the so-called “symmetrical archaeology” by Olsen, Shanks, Webmore and Witmore, which is inspired by Latourian ideas. Symmetrical archaeology deals with how materialities affect people, but this is still humanocentric. The symmetry evolves around a centre from where symmetry emerges. This centre is still the human and its culture. Symmetrical archaeology therefore only becomes a difference of degree to asymmetrical archaeology. Posthumanocentric archaeology focus on differences in kind and therefore seeks explanations in the intensive and virtual processes that lead up to the actual and extensive materialities all humanocentric archaeologists deal with. Humanocentric archaeology deals with entities or substances taken out of their own duration. Posthumanocentric archaeology attempts not to violate this duration or virtuality of the materialities. Change and differentiation do not take place between finished and static products, but in the intensive process concealed by the actual form.

Humanocentric archaeology sees materialities as actual multiplicities. A multiplicity is a unit that is multiple in itself. An actual multiplicity has a spatial, metric (Euclidean) and material presence in the present. It is only seen as a substance in an instantaneous present moment when it can be analyzed free from its own becoming. Since archaeology focuses on temporality, we could rather see “materialities” as virtual multiplicities, where each state of matter interpenetrates with earlier ones, forming a differentiating continuum. “Materiality” is then no longer a substance, but a process. The relation between “materialities” with duration is called polyagency. This is my concept used to replace the humanocentric concepts of agency and practice. Polyagency lies in-between actual bodies. It is an intensive process that let the virtualities affect polyagents (“materialities” with duration) in different directions.