Learning by Doing: Archaeological Excavations as ‘Communities of Practice’

The international and multidisciplinary Keban Dam Rescue Project, which took place between 1966 and 1975 in Eastern Turkey, brought scientists together to document and study the past of a landscape about to be submerged. The archaeological teams at Keban each constituted separate groups united around what they were to do in the field. This article examines the manner in which members of these archaeological ‘communities of practice’ learned how to undertake Turkey’s first salvage excavations. If such communities can form the basis for both archaeological knowledge and learning, they can also become the source of exclusionary practices, historical erasures and epistemic injustices.