In this engaging volume, Anna Källén takes on the interplay between aDNA analysis and the stories we tell about the past, within academia and to a wider public. This is not an easy topic, but Källen navigates it with a light touch, without becoming preachy or moralizing. The text flows well, with many personal reflections on the experiences which shaped the author’s thoughts. Heavy jargon is avoided, and key terminology is explained.
The book’s introduction sets out the long-standing entanglements of archaeology and colonialism, showing how all interpretations are situated in the preoccupations of their own time. This is all the more true of the media frenzy around some aDNA-based research. The chapter clearly sets out the tension between aDNA research promising a glimpse of ‘true’ identities, and actual research practice with its interpretive choices and sometimes conflicting data.
The following four chapters each take on one aspect of this uneasy relationship. The first expertly introduces what DNA can and cannot tell us, juxtaposing the messiness of lived identities with the clear-cut answers that many DNA studies purport to provide. In this process, images and imagination play a key role, and drawing this out is one of the strengths of the book. Much genetic analysis offers probabilities rather than certainty, but this remains undercommunicated, creating the illusion of greater reliability. Källén shows that we need to honour ambiguity, insist on the value of different kinds of information, and scrutinize the questions being asked of molecular data. These questions, it turns out, are rooted in some very old narratives.
These narratives are taken up in the following chapter, which focuses on culture, history and the visual representation of the arrow on the map. Using case studies from Europe, Asia and the Americas, Källén makes some crucial points: the simplest model of admixture is not always best, scales of analysis must be carefully chosen, and we must be wary of methodological nationalism and of the assumptions inherent in the use of ethnic or national labels (such as ‘Dutch’) when applied to aDNA-based populations. Publications in aDNA often compress time and geographical distance to create a coherent storyline with purposeful protagonists, transporting many unreflected modern assumptions into the past. These points are not new to scholars familiar with the field, but they are clearly, concisely and convincingly explained. I for one will add this chapter to my undergraduate reading lists.
Källén next takes on ancestry and its political implications, starting from the cultural capital that purported belonging to certain groups confers in modern society. She then contrasts the very different fates of the Human Genome Diversity project, heavily criticized for the way it tackled modern-day genetic diversity, and the Genographic project, which largely escaped such scrutiny in spite of its similar starting point. The legacies from projects like these are specific and rarely questioned ways of presenting DNA and aDNA data, for example as dendrograms or as clusters in a PCA graph. These practices hide interpretive choices and transport essentialist readings that are appropriated in modern political debates. For me, this thoughtful chapter was one of the highlights of the volume.
Finally, based on the case study of Cheddar Man, the volume turns to so-called palaeopersonalities and how they transport political messages by directly engaging the public’s imagination. DNA data in these examples often serves as an apparent seal of approval, legitimizing what are uncertain or downright imaginative reconstructions. This is a strategy employed by all sides of the political spectrum – but should this practice be universally condemned? The concluding chapter takes up this difficult question and warns against ‘reckless storytelling’ (p. 111). Even if our intentions are sound, we must acknowledge our own positionality, and the uncertainties in our data; we must be clear that we are both ‘finders of facts and tellers of stories’ (p. 119).
Overall, the volume is nicely produced and written with broad dissemination in mind. Having references as endnotes instead of a full bibliography, and with no cross-reference as to where a title is first quoted in full, is a little annoying, but probably not the author’s fault. Otherwise, I have only small criticisms. For example, it could have been pointed out that Pääbo’s early analyses of mummies were likely impacted by contamination (p. 18). Further, in her important effort to decentre aggressive males as the heroes of archaeological migration stories (p. 55), Källén perhaps overemphasizes refugees as the main agents of present migrations, somewhat flattening what is a complex phenomenon with many different actors and motivations (see e.g. De Haas 2023).Footnote 1 Yet in general the scholarship is impeccable. But I was most impressed with the writing style. This slim book tackles some hefty themes developed over several years of interdisciplinary project work by the author. It would have been easy to make it forbiddingly complicated. Instead, the book is a delight to read, and guides readers in their own reflections, rather than providing ready-made answers. It is not easy to write like that.
I must admit that initially I was a little deflated at the overall conclusion, which at times seems sceptical of all interpretation and does not offer any rallying points. On second reading, I appreciate that this is probably a sensible stance to take – rather than gunning for glory and then running away, we need to ‘stay with the trouble’ (p. 118), clean up the mess and take the difficult conversations about different kinds of interpretation and their partiality. Yet I would maintain that to fulfil archaeology’s responsibilities in contributing to equitable societies in the present, we must also be decisive.
Overall, while this book is primarily aimed at students and interested members of the public, it is also a great culmination to the author’s research project, and is challenging and thought-provoking even in seasoned hands. I highly recommend it!
