ITION EVENTH R E V I S E D & UPDATED S ED COLLEGE COLLEGE EDITION PAUL BAHN COLIN RENFREW Theories, Methods, and Practice

Archaeo ology Archaeology © 1991, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 Thames & Hudson Ltd, London

Text (unless otherwise indicated) Copyright © 1991 and 2016 Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn

For other textual credits see acknowledgments

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in 1991 in the United States of America by Thames & Hudson Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10110 thamesandhudsonusa.com

Seventh edition 2016

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2015943655

ISBN 978-0-500-29210-5

Manufactured in China by Imago

CONTENTS

Preface to the College Edition 9 BOX FEATURES Introduction Experimental Archaeology 53 Wet Preservation: The Ozette Site 60 The Nature and Aims of Archaeology 12 Dry Preservation: The Tomb of Tutankhamun 64 Cold Preservation 1: Mountain “Mummies” 67 Cold Preservation 2: Snow Patch Archaeology 68 PART I Cold Preservation 3: The Iceman 70 The Framework of Archaeology 19 3 Where? 1 The Searchers Survey and Excavation of Sites and Features 73

The History of Archaeology 21 Discovering Archaeological Sites

The Speculative Phase 22 and Features 74 The Beginnings of Modern Archaeology 26 Assessing the Layout of Sites and Features 98 Classification and Consolidation 32 Excavation 110 A Turning Point in Archaeology 40 Summary 130 World Archaeology 41 Further Reading 130 Summary 48 BOX FEATURES Further Reading 48 The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project 76 Sampling Strategies 79 BOX FEATURES Identifying Archaeological Features from Above 82 Digging Pompeii: Past and Present 24 Interpretation and Mapping From Aerial Images 86 Evolution: Darwin’s Great Idea 27 Lasers in the Jungle 89 North American Archaeological Pioneers 30 GIS and the Giza Plateau 96 The Development of Field Techniques 33 Tell Halula: Multi-period Surface Investigations 100 Pioneering Women in Archaeology 38 Geophysical Survey at Roman Wroxeter 106 Processual Archaeology 41 Measuring Magnetism 108 Interpretive or Postprocessual Archaeologies 44 Underwater Archaeology 113 Çatalhöyük: Interpretive Archaeologies in Action 46 Excavating the Red Bay Wreck 114 Jamestown Rediscovery: The Excavation Process 117 2 What is Left? Excavating the Amesbury Archer 120 The Variety of the Evidence 49 Excavating an Urban Site 126

Basic Categories of Archaeological Evidence 49 4 When? Formation Processes 52 Dating Methods and Chronology 131 Cultural Formation Processes – How People Have Affected What Survives in the Relative Dating 132 Archaeological Record 54 Stratigraphy 132 Natural Formation Processes – Typological Sequences 133 How Nature Affects What Survives Linguistic Dating 136 in the Archaeological Record 55 Climate and Chronology 136 Summary 72 Absolute Dating 138 Further Reading 72 Calendars and Historical Chronologies 140

Annual Cycles: Varves, Speleothems, Investigating Maya Territories 210 and Tree-Rings 142 Conspicuous Ranking at Mississippian Spiro 218 Radioactive Clocks 146 Conflict Archaeology 220 Early Intermediate Period Peru: Gender Relations 226 Other Absolute Dating Methods 160 Genetic Dating 162 6 What Was the Environment? Calibrated Relative Methods 163 Environmental Archaeology 233 Chronological Correlations 164 World Chronology 167 Investigating Environments on a Global Scale 233 Summary 176 Studying the Landscape: Geoarchaeology 240 Further Reading 176 Reconstructing the Plant Environment 249 BOX FEATURES Reconstructing the Animal Environment 256 The Maya Calendar 140 Reconstructing the Human Environment 264 The Principles of Radioactive Decay 147 Summary 272 How to Calibrate Radiocarbon Dates 150 Further Reading 272 Bayesian Analysis: Improving the Precision of Radiocarbon Chronologies 152 BOX FEATURES Dating the Earliest West Europeans 158 Sea and Ice Cores and Global Warming 235 Dating the Thera Eruption 164 El Niño and Global Warming 236 Cave Sediments 242 Doggerland 246 Pollen Analysis 250 PART II Elands Bay Cave 262 Mapping the Ancient Environment: Cahokia Discovering the Variety of and GIS 266 Ancient Gardens at Kuk Swamp 268 Human Experience 177 5 How Were Societies Organized? 7 What Did They Eat? Subsistence and Diet 273 Social Archaeology 179 What Can Plant Foods Tell Us About Diet? 274 Establishing the Nature and Scale of the Society 180 Further Sources of Information Information from Animal Resources 278 for Social Organization 186 Investigating Diet, Seasonality, and Techniques of Study for Mobile Domestication from Animal Remains 288 Hunter-Gatherer Societies 195 How Were Animal Resources Exploited? 306 Techniques of Study for Segmentary Societies 198 Assessing Diet from Human Remains 310 Techniques of Study for Chiefdoms and States 209 Summary 316 The Archaeology of the Individual Further Reading 316 and of Identity 222 BOX FEATURES The Emergence of Identity and Society 225 Paleoethnobotany: A Case Study 276 Investigating Gender and Childhood 225 Butser Experimental Iron Age Farm 278 The Molecular Genetics of Investigating the Rise of Farming in Western Asia 284 Social Groups and Lineages 230 Seasonality at Star Carr 290 Summary 232 Taphonomy 292 Quantifying Animal Bones 294 Further Reading 232 Bison Drive Sites 296 BOX FEATURES The Study of Animal Teeth 298 Network Analysis 185 Farming Origins: A Case Study 300 Ancient Ethnicity and Language 194 Shell Midden Analysis 304 Monuments, Polities, and Territories in Early Wessex 204 Interpreting Stonehenge 206

8 How Did They Make and Use Tools? From Written Source to Cognitive Map 401 Technology 317 Establishing Place: The Location of Memory 403 Measuring the World 405 Unaltered Materials: Stone 319 Planning: Maps for the Future 409 Other Unaltered Materials 334 Symbols of Organization and Power 411 Synthetic Materials 342 Symbols for the Other World: Archaeometallurgy 347 The Archaeology of Religion 413 Summary 356 Depiction: Art and Representation 422 Further Reading 356 Music and Cognition 428 BOX FEATURES Mind and Material Engagement 430 Artifacts or “Geofacts” at Pedra Furada? 320 Summary 432 How Were Large Stones Raised? 324 Further Reading 432 Refitting and Microwear Studies at Rekem 330 Woodworking in the Somerset Levels 336 BOX FEATURES Metallographic Examination 348 Clues to Early Thought 396 Copper Production in Ancient Peru 350 Paleolithic Art 398 Early Steelmaking: An Ethnoarchaeological The Ness of Brodgar: Experiment 355 At the Heart of Ceremonial Orkney 406 Maya Symbols of Power 414 9 What Contact Did They Have? The World’s Oldest Sanctuary 418 Recognizing Cult Activity at Chavín 420 Trade and Exchange 357 Identifying Individual Artists in Ancient Greece 424 Sacrifice and Symbol in Mesoamerica 426 The Study of Interaction 357 Early Musical Behavior 428 Finding the Sources of Traded Goods: Cognition and Neuroscience 431 Characterization 365 The Study of Distribution 374 11 Who Were They? What Were They Like? The Study of Production 372 The Study of Consumption 382 The Bioarchaeology of People 433 Exchange and Interaction: Identifying Physical Attributes 435 The Complete System 384 Assessing Human Abilities 445 Summary 390 Disease, Deformity, and Death 453 Further Reading 390 Assessing Nutrition 466 BOX FEATURES Population Studies 467 Modes of Exchange 361 Diversity and Evolution 469 Materials of Prestige Value 362 Analyzing Artifact Composition 368 Identity and Personhood 475 Glassware from the Roman Mediterranean in Japan 372 Summary 475 Amber From the Baltic in the Levant 373 Further Reading 476 Fall-off Analysis 377 BOX FEATURES Distribution: The Uluburun Wreck 380 438 Production: Greenstone Artifacts in Australia 383 Spitalfields: Determining Biological Age at Death 442 Interaction Spheres: Hopewell 389 Facial Reconstructions Finding a Neolithic Family 444 10 What Did They Think? Ancient Cannibals? 450 Examining Bodies 454 Cognitive Archaeology, Art, and Religion 391 Grauballe Man: The Body in the Bog 456 Life and Death Among the Inuit 460 Investigating How Human Symbolizing Richard III 462 Faculties Evolved 393 Genetics and Language Histories 471 Working with Symbols 400 Studying the Origins of New World and Australian Populations 473

12 Why Did Things Change? Archaeological Ethics 551 Explanation in Archaeology 477 Popular Archaeology Versus Pseudoarchaeology 551 Migrationist and Diffusionist Explanations 477 Who Owns the Past? 556 The Processual Approach 481 The Responsibility of Collectors and Museums 560 Applications 483 Summary 564 The Form of Explanation: General or Particular 489 Further Reading 564 Attempts at Explanation: One Cause or Several? 491 BOX FEATURES Postprocessual or Interpretive Explanation 498 The Politics of Destruction 552 Cognitive Archaeology 501 Destruction and Response: Mimbres 561 Agency and Material Engagement 503 Summary 506 15 The Future of the Past Further Reading 506 How to Manage the Heritage? 565 BOX FEATURES The Destruction of the Past 565 Diffusionist Explanation Rejected: Great Zimbabwe 480 The Response: Survey, Conservation, Molecular Genetics, Population Dynamics and Climate Change: Europe 482 and Mitigation 568 The Origins of Farming: A Processual Explanation 484 Heritage Management, Display, and Tourism 580 Marxist Archaeology: Key Features 486 Who Interprets and Presents the Past? 581 Language Families and Language Change 488 The Past for All People and All Peoples 583 Origins of the State: Peru 492 The Classic Maya Collapse 496 What Use is the Past? 583 Explaining the European Megaliths 500 Summary 584 The Individual as an Agent of Change 504 Further Reading 584 BOX FEATURES Conservation in Mexico City: The Great Temple of the Aztecs 570 PART III CRM in Practice: The Metro Rail Project 574 The World of Archaeology 507 Portable Antiquities and the UK “Portable Antiquities Scheme” 576 13 Archaeology in Action 16 The New Searchers Five Case Studies 509 Building a Career in Archaeology 585 Oaxaca: The Origins and Rise of the Zapotec State 510 Lisa J. Lucero: University Professor, USA 586 The Calusa of Florida: Gill Hey: Contract Archaeologist, UK 587 A Complex Hunter-Gatherer Society 519 Rasmi Shoocongdej: University Professor, Research Among Hunter-Gatherers: Thailand 589 Upper Mangrove Creek, Australia 525 Douglas C. Comer: CRM Archaeologist, USA 591 Khok Phanom Di: Shadreck Chirikure: Archaeometallurgist, Rice Farming in Southeast Asia 531 South Africa 593 York and the Public Presentation Jonathan N. Tubb: Museum Curator, UK 594 of Archaeology 538 Further Reading 548

14 Whose Past? Glossary 596 Archaeology and the Public 549 Notes and Bibliography 605

The Meaning of the Past: Acknowledgments 651 The Archaeology of Identity 549 Index 654

WHOSE PAST?14 Archaeology and the Public

This book is concerned with the way that archaeologists These quickly become ethical questions – of right and investigate the past, with the questions we can ask, and wrong, of appropriate and reprehensible actions. Archae- our means of answering them. But the time has come to ologists have special responsibility because excavation itself address much wider questions: Why, beyond reasons of sci- is destructive. Future understanding of a site can never be entific curiosity, do we want to know about the past? What much more than our own, because we will have destroyed does the past mean to us? What does it mean to others who the evidence and recorded only those parts of it we consid- have different viewpoints? And whose past is it anyway? ered important and had the energy to publish properly. Such issues lead us to questions of responsibility, public The past is big business – in tourism and in the auction as well as private. For surely a national monument, such as rooms. But by their numbers tourists can threaten sites; the Parthenon in Athens, means something special to the and the plunder of looters and illegal excavators finds its modern descendants of its builders? Does it not also mean way into private collections and public museums. The past something to all humankind? If so, should it be protected is politically highly charged, ideologically powerful, and sig- from destruction, in the same way as endangered plant nificant. And the past, as we shall see in the next chapter, is and animal species? If the looting of ancient sites is to be subject to increasing destruction through unprecedented deplored, should it not be stopped, even if the sites are on commercial, industrial, and agricultural exploitation of the privately owned land? Who owns, or should own, the past? earth’s surface and through damage in war.

THE MEANING OF THE PAST: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF IDENTITY

When we ask what the past means, we are asking what the past – our parents, grandparents, and earlier kinsfolk past means for us, for it means different things to different from whom we are descended. Increasingly in the western people. An Australian Aborigine, for example, may attach world there is an interest in this personal past, reflected a very different significance to fossil human remains from in the enthusiasm for family trees and for “roots” gener- an early site like Lake Mungo or to paintings in the Kakadu ally. Our personal identity, and generally our name, are in National Park, than a white Australian. Different commu- part defined for us in the relatively recent past, even though nities have very different conceptions about the past which those elements with which we choose to identify are largely often draw on sources well beyond archaeology. a matter of personal choice. Nor is this inheritance purely a At this point we go beyond the question of what actu- spiritual one. Most land tenure in the world is determined ally happened in the past, and of the explanation of why by inheritance, and much other wealth is inherited: the it happened, to issues of meaning, significance, and inter- material world comes to us from the past, and is certainly, pretation. How we interpret the past, how we present it when the time comes, relinquished by us to the future. (for instance in museum displays), and what lessons we choose to draw from it, are to a considerable extent matters for subjective decision, often involving ideological Nationalism and its Symbols and political issues. Collectively our cultural inheritance is rooted in a deeper 549 For in a very broad sense the past is where we came past: the origins of our language, our faith, our customs. from. Individually we each have our personal, genealogical Increasingly archaeology plays an important role in the

PART III: THE WORLD OF ARCHAEOLOGY

definition of national identity. This is particularly the Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki, within its territo- case for those nations that do not have a very long written rial boundaries. Riots ensued, based, however, more on history, though many consider oral histories of equal value inflamed ethnic feelings than upon political reality. to written ones. The national emblems of many recently The unfortunate war in Sri Lanka between the Tamil emerged nations are taken from artifacts seen as typical of Tigers and the forces of the majority Sinhalese govern- some special and early local golden age: even the name of ment which lasted from 1983 to 2009 should have brought the state of Zimbabwe comes from the name of an archae- peace and an end to ethnic tensions between the Sinhalese ological site. and the Tamil population (about 20 percent of the total) in Yet sometimes the use of archaeology and of images the north of the island. Unfortunately, however, it is felt recovered from the past to focus and enhance national that there are “parochial” forces who want to use archae- identity can lead to conflict. A major crisis related to the ology for political purposes. Principal among them on name and national emblems adopted by the then newly the Sinhalese side is the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a independent Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Buddhist monks’ party, which is part of the ruling coalition. For in Greece, immediately to the south, the name The JHU has petitioned the president to rebuild dozens of Macedon refers not only to contemporaneous provinces Buddhist sites in the north. According to Buddhist tradi- within Greece, but to the ancient kingdom of that famous tion the Sinhalese are descended from an Aryan prince, Greek leader, Alexander the Great. The affront that the exiled from north India around 500 bc, and the Tamils name caused in Greece was compounded by the use by seen as incomers from south India some 200 years later. the FYR Macedonia of a star as a national symbol, using Archaeological research, on the other hand, indicates the image on a gold casket found among the splendid settlements in north Sri Lanka dating from well before objects in a tomb from the 4th century bc at Vergina – a 500 bc, suggesting a rather earlier Tamil migration. The tomb located well within modern Greek territory, thought Tamils see the JHU’s approach as an attempt to undermine to have belonged to either to Philip II of Macedon, the their position. “The archaeological department is the hand- father of Alexander, or Philip III, Alexander’s half-brother. maiden of the government,” one prominent Tamil scholar Territorial claims can sometimes be based on conten- is quoted as saying. There are echoes here of the contro- tious histories, and some Greeks thought that the FYR versy surrounding the Babri Masjid mosque at Ayodhya in Macedonia was seeking not only to appropriate the glori- north India (see box overleaf), except in Sri Lanka it is the ous history of Macedonia but perhaps also to incorporate Buddhists not the Hindus who have the upper hand.

14.1–3 Appropriating the past as propaganda in the present: (below) a mural depicts Saddam Hussein as Nebuchadnezzar, the 6th-century BC king of Babylon (the site is in modern Iraq), surrounded by modern weaponry. (Right and below right) Either Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, or Philip III, Alexander’s half-brother, was buried in a gold casket decorated

550 with an impressive star. This was adopted as the national symbol of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as seen on one of their stamps.

WHOSE PAST? ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC 14

Archaeology and Ideology used to urge that the past should serve the present, and excavation of ancient sites in China certainly continued The legacy of the past extends beyond sentiments of even at the height of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. nationalism and ethnicity. Sectarian sentiments often find Today there is widespread popular concern in that country expression in major monuments, and many Christian for its ancient cultural relics. Great emphasis is placed on churches were built on the site of deliberately destroyed artistic treasures as products of skilled workers rather than “pagan” temples. In just a few cases they actually utilized as the property of rulers; they are seen as reflections of the such temples – the Parthenon in Athens is one example class struggle, while the palaces and tombs of the aristoc- – and one of the best-preserved Greek temples is now the racy underline the ruthless exploitation of the laboring Cathedral in Syracuse in Sicily. Unfortunately the destruc- masses. The Communist message is also conveyed through tion of ancient monuments for purely sectarian reasons is humbler artifacts. The museum at the Lower Paleolithic not entirely a thing of the past (see box overleaf). site of Zhoukoudian, for example, proclaims that labor, as The past, moreover, has ideological roles even beyond represented by the making and using of tools, was the deci- the sphere of sectarian religion. In China Chairman Mao sive factor in our transition from apes to humans.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL ETHICS

Ethics is the science of morals – i.e. what it is right or which often find recognition in the law, for instance in wrong to do – and increasingly most branches of archaeol- the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation ogy are seen to have an ethical (or sometimes unethical) Act (NAGPRA: see p. 558). This then is a second prin- dimension. Precisely because archaeology relates to iden- ciple, which has led to the reburial (and consequent tity (as reviewed in the last section), and to the existence destruction) of ancient human remains whose further of communities and of nations and indeed of humankind study could have been of benefit to science. Which of itself, it touches upon urgent practical problems of an the two principles is right? That is what we may term an ethical nature. These are often difficult problems because ethical dilemma. It is one that is difficult to resolve, and they deal in conflicting principles. which underlies several of the sections in this chapter The Roman author Terence is quoted as saying: and the next. “Homo sum: nihil humanum mihi alienum est” – “I The right to property is another such principle. But am a human being, so nothing human is alien to me.” the legitimate rights of the individual property owner Such thinking is central to the Universal Declaration (including the collector) can come into conflict with the of Human Rights. Many anthropologists feel that “the very evident rights of wider communities. So it is that proper study of (hu)mankind is (hu)man(ity),” to update the commercial property developer can disagree with the the 17th-century English poet Alexander Pope. The impli- conservationist. The ethical tensions between conserva- cation is that the entire field of human experience should tion and development are dealt with in the next chapter. be our study. Such sentiments encourage the study of Similar difficulties arise when the purchasing power of fossil hominins, for instance, and clearly make the study the private collector of antiquities leads to the destruction of Australian Aboriginal remains or those of Kennewick of archaeological sites through illicit excavation (looting). Man (p. 558) a necessary part of the work of the biologi- Increasingly the importance of material culture as some- cal anthropologist. So there is one principle. But, on the thing with significant social meaning is appreciated in other hand, it is usual to have a decent respect for the our society. There are problems here that will not go away, earthly remains of our own relatives and ancestors. In because they are the product of the conflict of principles. many tribal societies such respect imposes obligations, That is why archaeological ethics is now a growth subject.

POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY VERSUS PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY

The purpose of archaeology is to learn more about the to be where we are. Archaeology is not just for archae- past, and archaeologists believe that it is important that ologists. For that reason it is crucially important that we 551 everyone should have some knowledge of the human past communicate effectively with the wider public. But there – of where we have come from, and how we have come are several ways in which this important mission can be

THE POLITICS OF DESTRUCTION

it is identified by some Hindus as the birthplace of the Hindu deity/ hero Rama. In 2003 a court directed the Archaeological Survey of India to commence excavations at the site, to ascertain whether a Hindu temple had stood there.

The Bamiyan Buddhas The destruction in March 2001 by the Taliban in Afghanistan of the two giant Buddhas, carved into the sandstone cliffs at Bamiyan in the Hindu Kush perhaps in the 3rd century AD, shocked the world as an act of senseless destruction. They also destroyed many objects in the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul that belonged to a much more remote past. The statues, ivories, and other finds dated to the Hellenistic period and were not in any sense emblems of a local group that was in conflict with the Taliban. They were simply human images targeted for destruction by religious extremists to whom such depictions appear impious. The Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas seemed all the more anomalous, since their intentions had been announced in advance (and only a small minority of the population practice the Buddhist faith today). The then Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, urged that the statues be spared, and Koichiro Matsuura, Director General of UNESCO, said: “It is Religious extremism is responsible abominable to witness the cold for many acts of destruction. For and calculated destruction of instance, the important mosque, the cultural properties which were the Babri Masjid, at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, constructed 14.4 (Above left) The larger of the colossal by the Moghul prince Babur in the Buddhas of Bamiyan, carved from the cliff face in perhaps the 3rd century AD, and 16th century AD, was torn down by now destroyed. Hindu fundamentalists in December 1992. The mosque was situated at 14.5–6 The shocking destruction (above a location that has at times been right) of the colossal Buddha statue. Such historical monuments have now become 552 equated with the Ayodhya of the targets in politics and war. (Right) What Hindu epic, the Ramayana, where remains of the statue today.

heritage of the Afghan people.” A delegation from the Islamic Conference, at which 55 Islamic nations were represented, went to the headquarters of the Taliban at Kandahar in early March 2001. But the destruction of the statues, which stood to a height of 53 and 36 m (174 and 118 ft) respectively – the tallest standing Buddhas in the world – went ahead. Explosive charges effectively destroyed them totally. And although there has been talk of restoring or rebuilding them from the surviving fragments, there seems little hope of producing images that would be other than 14.7 Islamic State fighters destroying a statue from Hatra in the Mosul Museum, Iraq. a replica or a pastiche. The fate of the Bamiyan Buddhas the most conspicuous acts of fanatical in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. was exceptional: their destruction was destruction in recent years. These Ironically these are among the first not undertaken as an act of war. As included the use of a power drill to Arab rulers in recorded history and with the objects in the Kabul museum, erase the face of a well-preserved, Hatra is the best preserved Arab site they were destroyed not in a struggle man-faced winged bull at the Nergal from the pre-Islamic era. Or rather it between parties competing for power, Gate at Nineveh near Mosul in was the best preserved, since there but simply in fulfillment of an extreme northern Iraq, dating to Neo-Assyrian are reports of systematic destruction religious doctrine. times, from the 7th century BC. The at the site by the forces of IS. video also showed the deliberate An IS video posted in April 2015 Fanaticism in Action destruction in the Mosul Museum showed the destruction by dynamite With a video released in February of life-sized statues of rulers from the of the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, 2015 the regime of the so-called caravan city of Hatra in Iraq’s western 30 kilometres south of Mosul. This, “Islamic State” (IS) in Iraq announced desert, dating from Parthian times the palace of King Ashurnasirpal, ruler of the Assyrian empire in the 9th century BC, was excavated and published by Layard in the 19th century. Its audience hall and throne room with their entrance passages gave a vivid impression of the centre of one of the world’s first empires. The deliberate destruction of the remains of Nineveh was described as a “war crime” by the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon in April 2015. 553 14.8 The face of a large winged bull at Nineveh in Iraq is obliterated with power tools.

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subverted. The first is the development of so-called pseudo- One of the most popular and durable myths concerns a archaeology, often for commercial purposes – that is to “lost Atlantis,” a story narrated by the Greek philosopher say the formulation of extravagant but ill-founded stories Plato in the 5th century bc, and attributed by him to the about the past. Sometimes those telling these stories may Greek sage Solon, who had visited Egypt and consulted actually believe them, but often, as with Dan Brown’s best- with priests, the heirs to a long religious and historical selling and hugely popular novel The Da Vinci Code, it is tradition. They told him of a legend of the lost continent suspected that the primary motive of the author is just to beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the modern Straits of make money. Archaeology can be subverted, also, when Gibraltar), hence in the Atlantic Ocean, with its advanced people actually manufacture false evidence, and perpe- civilization, which vanished centuries earlier “in a night trate archaeological fraud. and a day.” In 1882 Ignatius Donnelly published Atlantis, the Antediluvian World, elaborating this legend. His work was one of the first to seek a simple explanation of all Archaeology at the Fringe ancient civilizations of the world by a single marvellous In the later years of the 20th century “Other means. Such theories often share characteristics: Archaeologies” grew up at the fringe of the discipline, 1 They celebrate a remarkable lost world whose offering alternative interpretations of the past. To the people possessed many skills surpassing those scientist these seem fanciful and extravagant – manifesta- of the present. tions of a postmodern age in which horoscopes are widely read, New Age prophets preach alternative lifestyles, and when many members of the public are willing to believe 14.9 Piltdown Man: dating of the skull, jawbone, and teeth that “corn circles” and megalithic monuments are the proved that they were of different ages, and not associated. work of aliens. Many archaeologists label such popu- list approaches as “pseudoarchaeology,” and place them on a par with well-known archaeological frauds such as Piltdown Man, where deliberate deception can be dem- onstrated or inferred. That case involved some pieces of human skull, an ape-like jawbone, and some teeth that had been found in a Lower Paleolithic gravel pit at Piltdown in Sussex, southern England, in the early 1900s. The discoveries led to claims that the “missing link” between apes and humans had been found. Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni) had an important place in textbooks until 1953, when it was exposed as a complete hoax. New dating methods showed that the skull was human but of relatively recent age (it was subsequently dated at about 620 years old); the jawbone came from an orang-utan and was a modern “plant.” Both the skull and the jawbone had been treated with pigment (potassium dichromate) to make them look old and associated. Today, many suspect that Charles Dawson, the man who made the discovery, was in fact himself the hoaxer. But how does an archaeologist persuade the self-styled Druids who perform their rituals at Stonehenge at the summer solstice (if the governing authority, English Heritage, allows them access) that their beliefs are not supported by archaeological evidence? This brings us back to the central question of this chapter: “Whose Past?” It is not clear that we should question the reality of the Dreamtime of the Australian Aborigines, even if aspects of their belief effectively clash with current scientific inter- pretations. Where do we distinguish between respect for 554 deeply held beliefs and the role of the archaeologist to inform the public and to dismiss credulous nonsense?

WHOSE PAST? ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC 14

2 They account for most of the early pressure of having to discover older sites which forced him accomplishments of prehistoric and early state to fake them by using artifacts from his own collections. societies with a single explanation: all were the Of 65 pieces unearthed at the Kamitakamori site north work of the skilled inhabitants of that lost world. of Tokyo, Fujimura admitted to having faked 61, together 3 That world vanished in a catastrophe of cosmic with all 29 pieces found in 2000 at the Soshinfudozaka proportions. site in northern Japan. He later admitted having tampered 4 Nothing of that original homeland is available for with evidence at 42 sites; but in 2004 the Japanese scientific examination, nor are any artifacts of any Archaeological Association declared that all of the 168 kind surviving. sites he dug had been faked. Japanese archaeological authorities are understandably worried about the poten- The basic structure of Donnelly’s argument was repeated tial impact on evidence for the Early Paleolithic period with variants by Immanuel Velikovsky (meteors and astro- in Japan (in which Fujimara was a specialist) unearthed nomical events) and more recently by Graham Hancock since the mid-1970s. (who sites his lost continent in Antarctica). A popular It seems that this phenomenon may currently be on alternative, elaborated with great financial profit by Erich the rise. Some of this can be blamed on the increased von Däniken, is that the source of progress is outer space, “mediatization” of the field, where, as in Japan, it can be and that the advances of early civilizations are the work of important to generate publicity to further one’s career and aliens visiting earth. Ultimately, however, all such theories scientific publication often takes a back seat to press con- trivialize the much more remarkable story that archaeol- ferences where the latest finds are trumpeted. Spectacular ogy reveals – the history of humankind. discoveries are now sometimes seen as more important than scholarly debate or critical review. Nevertheless, the actual fabrication or planting of fake objects is an extreme Fraud in Archaeology form of fraud. Fraud in archaeology is nothing new and takes many forms – from the manipulation of evidence by Heinrich Schliemann, the excavator of Troy, to the infamous cases The Wider Audience of fakery such as Britain’s Piltdown Man. It has been sug- Although the immediate aim of most research is to answer gested that more than 1200 fake antiquities are displayed specific questions, the fundamental purpose of archaeol- in some of the world’s leading museums. A particularly ogy must be to provide people with a better understanding serious example came to light as recently as 2000 when a of the human past. Skillful popularization – using site and leading Japanese archaeologist admitted planting artifacts museum exhibits, books, television, and increasingly the at excavations. Shinichi Fujimura – nicknamed “God’s Internet – is therefore required, but not all archaeologists hands” for his uncanny ability to uncover ancient objects are prepared to devote time to it, and few are capable of – had been videotaped burying his “discoveries” before doing it well. digging them up again as new finds. He admitted having Excavators often regard members of the public as a buried dozens of artifacts in secret, claiming that it was the hindrance to work on-site. More enlightened archaeolo- gists, however, realize the financial and other support to 14.10 A cluster of handaxes at Kamitakamori faked by Japanese be gained from encouraging public interest, and they archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura. organize information sheets, open days, and on long-term projects even fee-paying daily tours, as at the Bronze Age site of Flag Fen in eastern England. In Japan, on-the-spot presentations of excavation results are given as soon as a dig is completed. Details are released to the press the pre- vious day, so that the public can obtain information from the morning edition of the local paper before coming to the site itself. Clearly, there is an avid popular appetite for archaeol- ogy. In a sense, the past has been a form of entertainment since the early digging of burial mounds and the public unwrapping of mummies in the 19th century. The enter- tainment may now take a more scientific and educational 555 form, but it still needs to compete with rival popular attrac- tions if archaeology is to thrive.

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WHO OWNS THE PAST?

Until recent decades, archaeologists gave little thought to the question of the ownership of past sites and antiquities. Most of the archaeologists themselves came from western, industrialized societies whose economic and political dom- ination seemed to give an almost automatic right to acquire antiquities and excavate sites around the world. Since World War II, however, former colonies have grown into independent nation states eager to uncover their own past and assert control over their own heritage. Difficult ques- tions have therefore arisen. Should antiquities acquired for western museums during the colonial era be returned to their lands of origin? And should archaeologists be free to excavate the burials of groups whose modern descendants may object on religious or other grounds?

Museums and the Return of Cultural Property At the beginning of the 19th century Lord Elgin, a Scottish diplomat, removed many of the marble sculptures that adorned the Parthenon, the great 5th-century bc temple that crowns the Acropolis in Athens. Elgin did so with the permission of the then Turkish overlords of Greece, and later sold the sculptures to the British Museum, where 14.11 Part of the “Elgin Marbles” in the British Museum: a they still reside, displayed in a special gallery. The Greeks horseman from the frieze of the Parthenon in Athens, c. 440 BC. now want the “Elgin Marbles” back. To house them they have built a splendid New Acropolis Museum, situated at 14.12 The New Acropolis Museum in Athens, built to house the the foot of the Acropolis. From its top floor visitors can marbles from the Parthenon (seen through the window) that are look across to a magnificent view of the Parthenon. Those still in Athens and, one day (it is hoped), the “Elgin Marbles” too. 556

WHOSE PAST? ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC 14

Parthenon sculptures that remain in Athens are beauti- The Native Americans. For some North American Native fully displayed in their correct original configuration, with Americans, archaeology has become a focal point for com- plaster casts standing in for the “Elgin Marbles” still in plaints about past wrongdoings. They have expressed their London, whose return is eagerly sought. That in essence grievances strongly in recent years, resulting in legal mech- is the story so far of perhaps the best-known case where anisms that sometimes restrict or prevent archaeological an internationally famous museum is under pressure to excavations, or provide for the return to Native American return cultural property to the country of origin. peoples of some collections now in museums. There have But there are numerous other claims directed at also sometimes been vehement objections to new exca- European and North American museums. The Berlin vations. The Chumash, for example, refused permission Museum, for example, holds the famous bust of the for scientists to remove what may be the oldest human Egyptian queen Nefertiti, which was shipped out of Egypt remains in California, even though an offer was made to illegally. The Greek government has officially asked France return and rebury the bones after a year’s study. The bones, for the return of the Venus de Milo, one of the masterworks thought to be about 9000 years old, were eroding out of a of the Louvre, bought from Greece’s Ottoman rulers. cliff on Santa Rosa Island, 100 km (62 miles) west of Los The Turkish government has been more proactive in Angeles. Under California’s state laws the fate of the bones recent years in seeking the return of antiquities which lay with their most likely descendants – and the Chumash it claims were illegally exported from Turkey. It success- were understandably angry about past treatment of their fully recovered the “Lydian Hoard” from New York’s ancestors’ skeletons, with remains scattered in various uni- Metropolitan Museum of Art (which has also agreed to versities and museums. Like many Maori, they preferred return the now infamous “Euphronios Vase” to Italy, see to see the bones destroyed “in accordance with nature’s below). In 2011, after an official visit to Washington, the law” than to have other people interfere with them. In Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was able to other cases, however, Native American communities have take back to Turkey the top half of the “Weary Herakles” provided for the systematic curation of such remains once (see p.562) from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. This they have been returned to them. was an illegally exported antiquity whose restitution the Museum had for many years resisted. The Turkish gov- 14.13 Seminole bones from Florida are reburied in 1989 by ernment has also been applying pressure for the return archaeologists and Native Americans at Wounded Knee. of antiquities from German museums. It has threat- ened to suspend the excavation permits of the German Archaeological Institute, which undertakes several major excavations in Turkey each year, unless restitution takes place. Turkish statuary and objects in other European countries may now also be pursued.

Excavating Burials: Should We Disturb the Dead? The question of excavating burials can be equally complex. For prehistoric burials the problem is not so great, because we have no direct written knowledge of the relevant culture’s beliefs and wishes. For burials dating from his- toric times, however, religious beliefs are known to us in detail. We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians and Chinese, the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, and the early Christians all feared disturbance of the dead. Yet it has to be recognized that tombs were falling prey to the activities of robbers long before archaeology began. Egyptian pharaohs in the 12th century bc had to appoint a commission to inquire into the wholesale plundering of tombs at Thebes. Not a single Egyptian royal tomb, includ- ing that of Tutankhamun, escaped the robbers completely. Similarly, Roman carved gravestones became building material in cities and forts; and at Ostia, the port of ancient 557 Rome, tomb inscriptions have even been found serving as seats in a public latrine!

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As in Australia (see below), there is no single, unified indigenous tradition. Wide-ranging attitudes are held by Native Americans toward the dead and the soul. Nonetheless demands for reburial of ancestral remains are common. The solution lies in acquiescence, compromise, and collaboration. Often archae ologists have supported or acquiesced in the return of remains of fairly close ancestors of living people. Material with no archaeological context and thus of minimal value to science has also been returned. Repatriation of older and more important material is a difficult issue. The longstanding position of the Society for American Archaeology is that scientific and traditional interests in archaeological materials must be balanced, weighted by the closeness of relationship to the modern group making a claim and the scientific value of the remains or objects requested. With the Society’s support, in 1990 the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed. It requires some 5000 federally funded institutions and government agencies to inventory their collections and assess the “cultural affiliation” of Native American skeletons, funerary and sacred objects, and items of cultural patrimony. If cultural affiliation can be shown, the material must, on request, be returned to the affiliated Native American tribe or Native Hawaiian organization. Difficult problems lie in interpreting key terms in the law, such as “cultural affiliation,” and in weighing diverse forms of evidence. In addition to archaeological and historical information, the law explicitly recognizes the validity of oral 14.14 Facial features of Kennewick Man during reconstruction, traditions. This has led to broad expectations by tribes that with muscles added in clay. remains can be claimed if oral traditions say that its people were created in the region where the remains were found. bones recovered from there are necessarily their ancestors However, when these expectations were tested in court it – and must not be damaged for dating or genetic analysis. was found that the law requires a balanced consideration of In 2002 a magistrate affirmed the right of the scientists to oral tradition with scientific evidence. A 2010 amendment study the bones and, despite subsequent legal appeals, in to the NAGPRA regulations extended tribal rights to cultur- June 2005 the battle (which cost millions of dollars in legal ally unaffiliated remains as long as these were found on fees) was finally won. Examination of Kennewick Man’s tribal lands or areas of aboriginal occupation. This means skull had indicated that he was neither Native American that US museums will now have to relinquish control of nor closely related to the tribes of the Northwest who were many more human remains to tribal groups. claiming an ancestral relationship, but was closer to circum- Controversy has dogged the bones of 8500-year-old pacific groups such as the Ainu and Polynesians. However, “Kennewick Man,” found in 1996 in Washington State. recent DNA analysis has revealed that he is actually closer Eight prominent anthro pologists sued the Army Corps of to modern Native Americans than to any other population. Engineers, which has jurisdiction over the site, for permis- When the burial of “Clovis boy” was discovered on the sion to study the bones, but the Corps wanted to hand the Anzick ranch in Montana in 1968 (see p. 474), the human skeleton to the local Native American Umatilla Tribe for remains were later returned to the Anzick family after some reburial, in accordance with NAGPRA. The scientists were research had been undertaken. At that time the daugh- extremely anxious to run tests, since preliminary examina- ter of the owners, Sarah Anzick, was herself carrying out tion had suggested that Kennewick Man was a 19th-century cancer and genome research, and thought of sequencing settler, so that its early date raised fascinating questions genetic material from the bones, but she was wary of gen- about the peopling of the Americas. The Umatilla, on the erating a debate similar to the one surrounding Kennewick other hand, were adamantly against any investigation, Man. However the success in 2010 of Eskse Willerslev’s 558 insisting that their oral tradition says their tribe has been lab in Copenhagen in sequencing one of the first genome part of this land since the beginning of time, and so all sequences of an ancient human, a Paleo-Eskimo from

WHOSE PAST? ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC 14

Greenland, led to the suggestion that the DNA of the Aznick community and reburied; more recently the first skeleton “Clovis boy” should be similarly sequenced, with brilliantly found at Lake Mungo, the world’s oldest known crema- successful results. At this point Willerslev took advice and tion (26,000 years bp), was returned to the custody of the was told that since the burials had been found on private Aborigines of the Mungo area; and Aboriginal elders have land, the provisions of NAGPRA did not apply and that no announced they may rebury all the skeletal material (up to consultation was needed. Nonetheless Willerslev embarked 30,000 years old) from Mungo. on a tour of Montana Indian reservations, talking to com- Archaeologists are understandably alarmed at the pros- munity members. Here he was helped by the circumstance pect of having to hand over material many thousands of that Shane Doyle, a member of the Crow tribe, was a years old. Some also point out that the Aborigines – like member of his research team (and a co-author of the result- indigenous peoples elsewhere – tend to forget that not all ing paper in Nature, as indeed was Sarah Anzick). Doyle of their recent forebears took pious care of the dead. But, undertook further consultations with the Montana tribes, not least in the light of Aboriginal sufferings at European who wished that the remains of “Clovis boy” should be hands, their views are entitled to respect. reburied. The tactful handling of the issue has the outcome that the ancient DNA data have been obtained and pub- Protecting the Underwater lished, and that the Native American wishes on reburial have been followed. Cultural Heritage The ownership and protection of marine wrecks are often The Australian Aborigines. In Australia, the present contested, and it is clear that they are sometimes plundered climate of Aboriginal emancipation and increased political by salvors to yield antiquities for sale on the commercial power has focused attention on wrongdoings during the market. Ownership of wrecks is determined by the 1962 colonial period, when anthropologists had little respect for United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and Aboriginal feelings and beliefs. Sacred sites were investi- in principle each state has jurisdiction over its territorial gated and published, burial sites desecrated, and cultural waters, which normally extend 12 nautical miles beyond and skeletal material exhumed, to be stored or displayed land at tidal low-water point. Historic wrecks of naval war- in museums. The Aborigines were thus, by implication, ships are also protected. The 2001 UNESCO Convention seen as laboratory specimens. Inevitably, the fate of all this on the Protection of the Underwater Heritage does not material, and particularly of the bones, has assumed great regulate the ownership of wrecks, but it establishes impor- symbolic significance. Unfortunately, here as in other tant principles which signatory states undertake to follow. countries, archaeologists are being blamed for the misde- Preservation in situ is the first option, and the principle meanors of the non-archaeologists who obtained most of of “no commercial exploitation” is of fundamental impor- the human remains in question. tance, with the implication that finds should not be sold or The view of Aborigines in some parts of Australia is that otherwise irretrievably dispersed. all human skeletal material (and occasionally cultural mate- Nations often have legislation protecting wrecks lying rial too) must be returned to them, and then its fate will be in the waters within their jurisdiction. For instance, the decided. In some cases they themselves wish the remains United Kingdom’s Protection of Wrecks Act of 1973 pro- to be curated in conditions that anthropologists would con- vides protection for designated shipwrecks. Moreover a sider to be satisfactory, usually under Aboriginal control. provision for “marine scheduled ancient monuments” is Since the Aborigines have an unassailable moral case, the made under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Australian Archaeological Association (AAA) is willing to Areas Act of 1979, including, for instance, the scuppered return remains that are either quite modern or of “known German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow in the Orkney individuals where specific descendants can be traced,” and Islands. That has not, however, entirely safeguarded them for these to be reburied. However, such remains are some- from unauthorized exploration or looting. what the exception. The University of Melbourne’s Murray The systematic study of shipwrecks is of course the Black Collection consists of skeletal remains from over 800 principal undertaking of maritime archaeology (see boxes Aborigines ranging in date from several hundred years to on pp.113–15 and 380–81). But there are serious concerns at least 14,000 years old. They were dug up in the 1940s that historic shipwrecks will continue to be commercially without any consultation with local Aborigines. Owing to exploited. For example, the Lisbon-based Arqueonautas a lack of specialists the collection has still by no means company has negotiated an exclusive licence with the been exhaustively studied – but nevertheless it has been governments of Cape Verde and Mozambique to conduct returned to the relevant Aboriginal communities. In 1990 maritime archaeological operations, but the firm does sell 559 the unique series of burials from Kow Swamp, 19,000 artifacts, including coins and Chinese porcelain, described to 22,000 years old, were handed back to the Aboriginal by them as “repetitive cargo artifacts.”

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Considerable anxiety was aroused in Britain when UK government (which would have to approve any excava- Odyssey Marine Exploration announced in 2008 that it tion project) adheres to the “no commercial exploitation” had located the wreck of HMS Victory, the flagship of the provision of the 2001 UNESCO Convention. The govern- British fleet, wrecked beyond the United Kingdom’s terri- ment has recently reasserted its adherence to that principle torial waters in 1744, and lying at a depth of 75 m (250 ft). so that there remain questions as to how any salvage oper- The United Kingdom government has jurisdiction over its ation will be financed. After a judicial review of the naval wrecks, but occasioned surprise when it gifted Victory government’s decision was sought by concerned maritime to the Maritime Heritage Foundation, a charitable trust. In archaeologists early in 2015, the government itself with- a press release shortly after, Odyssey announced that the held permission for the Maritime Heritage Foundation or Maritime Heritage Foundation had signed an agreement Odyssey to continue salvage work on the wreck of HMS allowing it to excavate the wreck and had agreed to pay the Victory. So the issue is not yet adequately resolved. This is firm its project costs as well as a percentage ranging from regarded by many maritime archaeologists as a test case as 50 to 80 percent of the coins and other artifacts recovered. to whether the commercial exploitation of British historic This announcement provoked much controversy, since the wrecks will be permitted in the future.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF COLLECTORS AND MUSEUMS

It has become clear in recent years that private collectors In the American Southwest, 90 percent of the Classic and even public museums, for centuries regarded as guard- Mimbres sites (c. ad 1000) have now been looted or ians and conservators of the past, have become (in some destroyed (see box opposite). In southwestern Colorado, cases) major causative agents of destruction. The market 60 percent of prehistoric Ancestral Pueblo sites have in illegal antiquities – excavated illegally with no published been vandalized. Pothunters work at night, equipped with record – has become a major incentive for the looting of two-way radios, scanners, and lookouts. It is very difficult archaeological sites. The funding comes, whether directly to prosecute them under the present legislation unless or indirectly, from unscrupulous private collectors and they are caught red-handed, which is almost impossible. unethical museums. Several languages have a word for the The huaqueros of Central and South America, too, are looters: in Greece they are archaio kapiloi, in Latin America interested only in the richest finds, in this case gold – huaqueros. Italy has two special words: clandestini and whole cemeteries are turned into fields of craters, with tombaroli. The beautiful, salable objects they unearth are bones and grave-goods smashed and scattered. The deprived of their archaeological context, and no longer have remarkable tombs excavated between 1987 and 1990 at the power to tell us much that is new about the past. Many Sipán, northwest Peru, of the Moche civilization, were end up in some of the world’s less scrupulous museums. rescued from the plunderers only by the persistence and When a museum fails to indicate the context of discovery, courage of the local Peruvian archaeologist, Walter Alva. including the site the exhibit came from, it is often a sign So far as illicit antiquities are concerned, the spotlight that the object displayed has come via the illicit market. has indeed turned upon museums and private collectors. One clandestino, Luigi Perticarari, a robber in Tarquinia, Many of the world’s great museums, following the lead Italy, published his memoirs in 1986 and makes no of the University Museum of Pennsylvania in 1970, now apology for his trade. He has more first-hand knowledge decline to purchase or receive by gift any antiquities that of Etruscan tombs than any archaeologist, but his activity cannot be shown to have been exported legally from their destroys the chance of anyone sharing that knowledge. He country of origin. But others, such as the Metropolitan claims to have emptied some 4000 tombs dating from the Museum of Art, New York, have in the past had no such 8th to the 3rd centuries bc in 30 years. So it is that, while scruples: Thomas Hoving, at that time Director of the the world’s store of Etruscan antiquities in museums and museum stated: “We are no more illegal in anything we private collections grows larger, our knowledge of Etruscan have done than Napoleon was when he brought all the burial customs and social organization does not. treasures to the Louvre.” The J. Paul Getty Museum, with The same is true for the remarkable marble sculptures of its great wealth, has a heavy responsibility in this, and has the Cycladic islands of Greece, dating to around 2500 bc. recently adopted a much more rigorous acquisition policy. We admire the elegance of these works in the world’s Museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which museums, but have little idea of how they were produced in 1990 put on display the collection of Shelby White 560 or of the social and religious life of the Cycladic communi- and the late Leon Levy, and the Getty Museum, which ties that made them. Again, the contexts have been lost. in 1994 exhibited (and then acquired) that of Barbara

UNITED STATES DESTRUCTION AND RESPONSE: MIMBRES Mimbres

One of the most melancholy stories and all hope of establishing an sources to undertake excavations in in recent archaeology is that of archaeological context for the the remains of some of the looted Mimbres. The Mimbres potters of the material was lost. sites. They also made good progress American Southwest created a unique Since 1973 there has at last been in explaining to the owners of those art tradition in the prehistoric period, a concerted archaeological response. sites how destructive this looting painting the inside of hemispherical The Mimbres Foundation, under process was to any hope of learning bowls with vigorous animalian and the direction of Steven LeBlanc, was about the Mimbres past. From 1975 human forms. These bowls are now able to secure funding from private to 1978 a series of field seasons much prized by archaeologists and at several partially looted sites art lovers. But this fascination has led succeeded in establishing at least 14.15 Mimbres bowl from the Classic to the systematic looting of Mimbres period showing a ritual decapitation. the outlines of Mimbres archaeology, sites on a scale unequaled in the and in putting the chronology upon United States, or indeed anywhere a sure footing. in the world. The Mimbres Foundation also The Mimbres people lived along reached the conclusion that a small river, the Rio Mimbres, archaeological excavation in mud-built villages, similar in is an expensive form of some respects to those of the conservation, and decided later Pueblo peoples. Painted to purchase a number pottery began, as we now of surviving (or partially know, around AD 550, and surviving) Mimbres sites reached its apogee in the in order to protect them. Classic Mimbres period, from Moreover, this is a lesson about AD 1000 to 1130. that has been learned Systematic archaeological more widely. Members of work on Mimbres sites began the Mimbres Foundation in the 1920s, but it was not in have joined forces with general well published. Looters other archaeologists and soon found, however, that with benefactors to form a national pick and shovel they could unearth organization, the Archaeological Mimbres pots to sell on the market Conservancy. Several sites in the for primitive art. Nor was this activity United States have now been necessarily illegal. In United States law purchased and conserved in this way. there is nothing to prevent excavation The story thus has, in some sense, of any kind by the owner on private a happy ending. But nothing can land, and nothing to prevent the bring back the possibility of owner permitting others to really under standing Mimbres destroy archaeological sites culture and Mimbres art, in this way. a possibility that did exist In the early 1960s, at the beginning a method of bulldozing of this century before Mimbres sites was the wholesale and developed that did not devastating looting. destroy all the pottery. Unfortunately, in other The operators found that parts of the world there by controlled bulldozing are similar stories to tell. they could remove a relatively small depth of soil at a time

14.16 Animalian forms were 561 and extract many of the pots a popular Mimbres subject. unbroken. In the process sites were The “kill” hole allowed the of course completely destroyed, object’s spirit to be released.

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Fleischman and the late Lawrence Fleischman – both col- However, there are signs that things may be improv- lections with a high proportion of antiquities of unknown ing. The Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act was provenience – must share some responsibility for the approved by the United Kingdom Parliament in 2003. For prevalence of collecting in circumstances where much of the first time it is now a criminal offence in the UK know- the money paid inevitably goes to reward dealers who are ingly to deal in illicitly excavated antiquities, whether from part of the ongoing cycles of destruction, and thus ulti- Britain or overseas. And in New York in June 2003 the mately the looters. It has been argued that “Collectors United States Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of are the real looters.” Peter Watson in his revealing survey the antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz for conspiring to The Medici Conspiracy (2006) has outlined the surprising deal in antiquities stolen from Egypt. Frederick Schultz is events that led the Italian government to bring criminal a former president of the National Association of Dealers charges against the former curator of antiquities at the in Ancient, Oriental, and Primitive Art and has in the past Getty (see below), and to recover from the Metropolitan sold antiquities to some leading museums in the United Museum of Art one of their most celebrated antiquities, States. A jail term for so prominent a dealer sends a clear the “Euphronios Vase,” for which they had in 1972 paid message to some conspicuous collectors and museum a million dollars, but without obtaining secure evidence directors that they should be more attentive in future in of its provenience. As the Romans had it: “caveat emptor” the exercise of “due diligence” when acquiring unprove- (“buyer beware”). nienced antiquities. The exhibition of the George Ortiz collection of antiq- Recent cases include: uities at the Royal Academy in London in 1994 excited controversy and was felt by many to have brought no credit The “Weary Herakles.” Two parts of a Roman marble to the Royal Academy. The art critic Robert Hughes has cor- statue of the 2nd century ad are now reunited. The lower rectly observed that “Part of the story is the renewed cult of part was excavated at Perge in Turkey in 1980 and displayed the collector as celebrity and of the museum as spectacle, as in the Antalya Museum, while the joining upper part was much concerned with show business as with scholarship.” purchased by the late Leon Levy shortly afterwards, and until 2011 was on view at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, to which Levy gave a half share. For more than 20 years the Museum and Levy’s widow, Shelby White, declined to return the piece to Turkey, but did do “voluntarily” after the personal intervention of the Prime Minister of Turkey.

The Sevso Treasure. A splendid late Roman assemblage of silver vessels was acquired as an investment by the Marquess of Northampton, but was subsequently claimed in a New York court action by Hungary, Croatia, and Lebanon. Possession was awarded to Lord Northampton,

14.17 The “Weary Herakles” (left): the lower part, excavated in Turkey in 1986, and held by the Antalya Museum, was belatedly reunited with the upper part in 2011, on its return from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

14.18 A splendid silver dish (right) from the looted Sevso Treasure, one of the major scandals in the recent story of illicit antiquities. This is one of 562 the seven items returned to Hungary in 2014.

WHOSE PAST? ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC 14

14.19 The Getty kouros (left), a statue of unknown provenience bought by the Getty Museum in 1985, and now believed to be a fake.

14.20 Miniature bronze shields (right) recovered (and now in the British Museum) from the Salisbury Hoard, a massive treasure looted by metal detectorists in 1985. who then found the treasure unsalable and sued his from their country of origin. UCL received the Report of former legal advisors in London for their poor advice at the the Committee in July 2006, but subsequently returned time of purchase; an out-of-court settlement, reportedly in the bowls to Schøyen with whom it had concluded a con- excess of £15 million, was agreed on confidential terms fidential out-of-court settlement preventing publication in 1999. In 2014 the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor of the Report, and agreeing to pay an undisclosed sum to Orbán, announced that seven of the fourteen vessels in Schøyen. The Report was later posted on Wikileaks. This the custody of Lord Northampton had been returned to episode highlights the need for “due diligence” when Hungary, for a payment reputed to be 15 million euros. antiquities are accepted, on loan as well as through gift or purchase, by public institutions. The full story of the The Getty Affair. The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los UCL Aramaic incantation bowls remains to be told. Their Angeles found itself in the spotlight of publicity in 2005 present whereabouts are unknown. when its Curator of Antiquities, Marion True (subse- quently fired), went on trial in Italy on charges relating 14.21 Aramaic incantation bowl from the 6th to 7th century to the purchase by the Getty of antiquities allegedly ille- AD with a text, written in black ink, intended to bind demons, deities, and other hostile forces who might harm the owner. gally excavated in Italy. The trial ran out of time, without verdict, but the Getty Museum meanwhile by agreement returned many looted antiquities to Italy.

The Salisbury Hoard. A hoard of bronze axes, daggers, and other items forming a massive assemblage of Bronze and Iron Age metalwork was illegally excavated by “night- hawks” (clandestine metal detectorists working at night) near Salisbury in southwest England in 1985. Much of the material was later recovered in a police raid following detective work by Ian Stead of the British Museum.

The UCL Aramaic Incantation Bowls. In 2005 University College London established a Committee of Inquiry into the provenience of 654 Aramaic incantation bowls (dating to the 6th to 7th centuries ad, and believed to come from Iraq) that had been lent for purposes of study by a 563 prominent Norwegian collector, Martin Schøyen. It did so following claims that the bowls had been illegally exported

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It is ironic that a love and respect for the past and for our shared heritage and about the processes by which we the antiquities that have come down to us should lead to have become what we are. In that sense we may well ask such destructive and acquisitive behavior. “Who owns the “Does the past have a future?” That is the theme addressed past?” is indeed the key issue if the work of archaeology is in the next chapter. to continue, and to provide us with new information about

SUMMARY

The past has different meanings for different people, to ask “where is the evidence?” Knowledge advances and often personal identity is defined by the past. by asking questions – that is the central theme of Increasingly archaeology is playing a role in the this book, and there is no better way to disperse the definition of national identity where the past is used lunatic fringe than by asking difficult questions, and to legitimize the present by reinforcing a sense of looking skeptically at the answers. national greatness. Ethnicity, which is just as strong a force today as in earlier times, relies upon the past The archaeology of every land has its own contribu- for legitimization as well, sometimes with destructive tion to make to the understanding of human diversity consequences. and hence of the human condition. Although earlier scholars behaved with flagrant disregard for the feel- Ethics is the science of what is right and wrong, or ings and beliefs of native peoples, interest in these morality, and most branches of archaeology are seen matters today is not an attempt further to appropriate to have an ethical dimension. Until recent decades the native past. archaeologists gave little thought to such questions as “who owns the past?” Now every archaeological deci- Perhaps the saddest type of archaeological destruc- sion should take ethical concerns into account. tion comes from the looting of sites. Through this act, all information is destroyed in the search for highly We cannot simply dismiss the alternative theories salable artifacts. Museums and collectors bear some of fringe archaeology as farcical, because they have of the responsibility for this. Museums are also under been so widely believed. Anyone who has read increasing pressure to return antiquities to their lands this book, and who understands how archaeology of origin. Police now consider the theft and smug- proceeds, will already see why such writings are a delu- gling of art and antiquities to be second in scale only sion. The real antidote is a kind of healthy skepticism: to the drug trade in the world of international crime.

FURTHER READING

Brodie, N., Kersel, M., Luke, C., & Tubb, K.W. (eds.). 2008. Logan, W. & Reeves, K. (eds.). 2008. Places of Pain and Shame: Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and the Antiquities Trade. Dealing with ‘Difficult’ Heritage. Routledge: London. University Press of Florida: Gainesville. Lynott, M.J. & Wylie, A. 2002. Ethics in American Archaeology. Burke, H., Smith, C., Lippert, D., Watkins, J.E., & Zimmerman, (2nd ed.) Society for American Archaeology: Washington D.C. L. 2008. Kennewick Man: Perspectives on the Ancient One. Renfrew, C. 2009. Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership: The Ethical Left Coast Press: Walnut Creek. Crisis in Archaeology. Duckworth: London. Fairclough G., Harrison J., Schofield J., & Jameson H. (eds.). Tubb, K.W. 1995. Antiquities Trade or Betrayed: Legal, Ethical 2008. The Heritage Reader. Routledge: London. and Conservation Issues. Archetype: London. Feder, K. 2010. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Vitelli, K.D. & Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C. 2006. Archaeological Pseudoscience in Archaeology. (7th ed.) McGraw-Hill: New York. Ethics. (2nd ed.) Altamira Press: Walnut Creek. Graham, B. & Howard, P. (eds.). 2008. The Ashgate Research Watson, P. & Todeschini, C. 2006. The Medici Conspiracy. Companion to Heritage and Identity. Ashgate Publishing: PublicAffairs: New York. Farnham. Greenfield, J. 2007. The Return of Cultural Treasures. (3rd ed.)

564 Cambridge University Press: Cambridge & New York.

T H E F U T U R E15 OF THE PAST How to Manage the Heritage?

What is the future of archaeology? Can our discipline Some of those forces of destruction have been discussed continue to produce new information about the human earlier, and others are confronted here. The big question past, the evolution of our species, and the achievements continues to be: what can be done? That is the problem that of humankind? This is one of the dilemmas that currently faces us, whose solution will determine the future both of confront all archaeologists, and indeed all those con- our discipline and of the material record which it seeks to cerned to understand the human past. For just as global understand. Here we review two parallel approaches: con- warming and increasing pollution threaten the future servation (protection) and mitigation (damage reduction). ecology of our planet, so the record of the past is today The two, working together, have generated in recent years faced by forces of destruction that demand a coherent and new attitudes toward the practice of archaeology, which energetic response. may yet offer viable solutions.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PAST

There are three main agencies of destruction, all of them Construction and Commercial Development. By the human. One is the construction of roads, quarries, dams, 19th century it was widely realized that ancient monu- office blocks, etc. These are conspicuous and the threat is ments and historic buildings should be preserved. But it at least easily recognizable. A different kind of destruction was not until the middle of the 20th century that it was – agricultural intensification – is slower but much wider fully recognized that any work of construction or recon- in its extent, thus in the long term much more destruc- struction could present a threat to the archaeological tive. Elsewhere, reclamation schemes are transforming heritage. In Europe, in the systematic rebuilding that fol- the nature of the environment, so that arid lands are lowed World War II, it became clear that the foundations being flooded and wetlands, such as those in Florida, are of new buildings in ancient town centers were revealing being reclaimed through drainage. The result is destruc- much important material. This was the birth of modern tion of remarkable archaeological evidence. A third agent urban archaeology. There followed the realization that new of destruction is conflict, the most obvious current threat construction work, including the building of new roads, being in the war zones of the Middle East. yielded archaeological sites whose existence had not pre- There are two further human agencies of destruction, viously been observed. In many countries this brought which should not be overlooked. The first is tourism, about the first systematic rescue archaeology and cultural which, while economically having important effects on resource management, as discussed in the next section. archaeology, makes the effective conservation of archaeo- Unfortunately the protection of the state does not always logical sites more difficult. The second, as we have seen secure the welfare of ancient monuments. In July 2013 in Chapter 14, is not new, but has grown dramatically property developers in Peru bulldozed a 5000-year-old in scale: the looting of archaeological sites by those who temple construction of pyramidal form at El Paraiso near dig for monetary gain, seeking only salable objects and Lima. The building, one of the earliest monumental con- destroying everything else in their search. More ancient structions in the Americas, was seriously damaged; this 565 remains have been lost in the last two decades than ever was a particularly flagrant episode, since the monument before in the history of the world. was already an excavated site open to the public. Damage to

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archaeological sites that are not well known or recognized Damage in Conflict and War. Among the most dis- is very much more common. That is why cultural resource tressing outrages of recent years has been the continuing management has become such an important undertaking. destruction, sometimes deliberate, of monuments and of archaeological materials in the course of armed conflict in Agricultural Damage. Ever increasing areas of the earth, various countries around the world. Already, during World once uncultivated or cultivated by traditional non-intensive War II, historic buildings in England were deliberately methods, are being opened up to mechanized farming. targeted in German bombing raids. In other areas, forest plantations now cover what was for- In the 1990s the ethnic wars in the former Yugoslavia merly open land, and tree roots are destroying settlement led to the deliberate destruction of churches and mosques. sites and field monuments. One of the saddest losses was the destruction of the Old Although most countries keep some control over Bridge at Mostar, constructed in 1566 by order of Sultan the activities of developers and builders, the damage to Suleiyman the Magnificent. A symbol of significance to the archaeological sites from farming is much more difficult (mainly Muslim) inhabitants, it collapsed on 9 November to assess. The few published studies make sober reading. 1993 after continued shelling by Croatian guns, though it One shows that in Britain even those sites that are notion- has since been rebuilt. As J.M. Halpern (1993, 50) ironically ally protected – by being listed on the national Schedule observed, we may now anticipate an “ethnoarchaeology of of Ancient Monuments – are not, in reality, altogether architectural destruction.” safe. The position may be much better in Denmark and The failure of Coalition forces in the 2003 invasion of in certain other countries, but elsewhere only the most Iraq to secure the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad conspicuous sites are protected. The more modest field allowed the looting of the collections, including the cele- monuments and open settlements are not, and these are brated Warka Vase, one of the most notable finds from the the sites that are suffering from mechanized agriculture. early Sumerian civilization – although, like many other

15.1–2 The Warka Vase (left) was looted from the Iraqi National Museum, Baghdad, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Fortunately it was recovered (far left) and though in pieces, these were probably ancient breaks. 566

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST: HOW TO MANAGE THE HERITAGE 15

15.3 The bridge at Mostar, in Bosnia, dating from the 16th century, was destroyed in fighting in 1993 but has now been rebuilt. important antiquities, this was later recovered. The failure who are likely to have taken the Museum’s collection of was all the more shocking since archaeologists in the Mesopotamian cylinder seals, the finest in the world, for United States had met with representatives of the Defense sale to collectors overseas. Department some months prior to the war to warn of the It seems all the more extraordinary that the United risk of looting, and archaeologists in Britain had similarly Kingdom has still not ratified the 1954 Hague Convention indicated the dangers to the Prime Minister’s office and the for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Foreign Office months before the war began. Only parts of Armed Conflict, and its protocols – something which the the collection were taken, and it seems that it was the work United States finally managed to do several years ago. The both of looters from the street and also perhaps some well- British Government has announced its intention of doing informed individuals who knew what they were looking for so, but claims – some 50 years after the initial drafting of and who had access to keys to the storerooms. It is these the Convention – that “to do so will require extensive con- sultation on legal, operational, and policy issues relating to 15.4 Objects from Tutankhamun’s tomb looted from the Cairo Museum in 2011, and subsequently recovered by the implementation of the Protocol.” Egyptian authorities. Fortunes of War. In the 21st century war continues to bring the same harvest of misfortunes to the cultural heritage. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in 2001 (p. 552) and the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad have been followed by renewed insta- bility in Egypt, Iraq and Syria. In 2011, during the “Arab spring” in Egypt, civil unrest gave the opportunity for thieves to break into the Cairo Museum and steal a number of significant antiquities, although the authorities rapidly restored order. The unrest also gave looters the opportunity to damage a number of ancient sites in the quest for salable antiquities. The Antiquities Museum in the Egyptian town of Malawi, 200 km (125 miles) south of Cairo, was broken into and looted in 2013 by supporters of the deposed presi- 567 dent Mohamed Morsi, and two of the mummies curated there were burnt. Sarcophagi and statues were damaged,

PART III: THE WORLD OF ARCHAEOLOGY

and curators revealed that 1040 of 1080 objects in the col- the search for artifacts for sale, has been even more exten- lection were missing, most presumably heading for the sive. The bronze age site of Mari in Syria was seriously burgeoning trade in illicit antiquities. damaged by looting, and the site of Dura Europos in Syria The breakdown in order has also led to renewed looting has too been extensively looted, as satellite images taken of many archaeological sites in Iraq and in Syria. The in 2013 document. And IS has reportedly imposed a “tax” videos by the self-styled “Islamic State” (IS) of deliber- on looted antiquities. One of these, an Assyrian black ate destruction in the Mosul Museum and at the sites basalt royal stele, was withdrawn from sale by the London of Nineveh, Nimrud and Hatra were widely publicised auctioneer Bonham’s (pre-sale estimate £795,000) after early in 2015 (see p. 553). But the damage by looting, in representations from Interpol.

THE RESPONSE: SURVEY, CONSERVATION, AND MITIGATION

In many countries of the world where the material remains significance and are simply recorded and destroyed in the of the past are valued as an important component of the course of construction. national heritage, the response has been the development In China the rapid recent pace of development has led of a public archaeology: the acceptance that the public and to great regional disparities in the extent to which rescue therefore both national and regional government have a or salvage archaeology is undertaken in advance of new responsibility to avoid unnecessary destruction of that construction works. In Sichuan province the Jinsha Site heritage. And of course there is an international dimen- Museum is one that has led the way, but other develop- sion also. ments have been less adequately treated. The Three This acceptance implies that steps should be taken to Gorges Project on the Yangtze River was allocated $37.5 conserve what remains, often with the support of protec- million for archaeological salvage, although archaeolo- tive legislation. And when development is undertaken, gists felt that ten times more than that would have been which is often necessary and inescapable – to build appropriate. However, in 1997 the government made freeways for instance, or to undertake commercial devel- violations of cultural heritage laws a criminal act. The opment, or to bring land into cultivation – steps need to be Liangzhu Archaeological Site, an urban center of the taken to research and record any archaeological remains Neolithic period in southeast China, has UNESCO World that in the process are likely to be destroyed. In this way Heritage status and a fine new museum. So in recent the effects of development can be mitigated. years the potential for visitors and for tourism is certainly These approaches have highlighted the need, in advance being realized. But, as in most developing economies, the of any potential development, for reliable information response to development is not a uniform one. about whatever archaeological remains may be located in the areas to be developed. This puts crucial emphasis on one of the key developments in recent archaeologi- Survey cal methodology: site location and survey. The actions It has been widely realized that before major develop- undertaken in response to the threat to the heritage need ments are undertaken, a key part of the planning phase to have a logical and natural order: survey, conservation, must be a survey or assessment of the likely effects of mitigation. such development upon what may be termed the archaeo- Within the United States, what are termed “preserva- logical resource. In the terminology employed in the USA tion” laws to protect heritage resources do not guarantee (see below) this requires an “environmental assessment” that archaeological remains will be preserved. The laws (which will often lead to an “environmental impact state- mandate a weighing of options and dictate the process ment”). Such an assessment extends beyond archaeology by which the value of the resource is assessed against to more recent history and other aspects of the environ- the value of the development project. In rare cases, the ment, including threatened plant and animal species. value of a site is so great that it will be preserved and a The cultural heritage, and especially its material remains, project canceled or re-routed. In most cases, though, needs to be carefully assessed. important archaeological remains that cannot be avoided Such assessment today will often involve the use of sat- are destroyed through scientific excavation. This is a ellite imagery as well as aerial photography. It requires compromise between development needs and heritage mapping with the aid of GIS. And it also needs to involve 568 values. The vast majority of archaeological sites that are field survey, using on-the-ground evaluation through found during survey, though, do not meet the criteria for fieldwalking (sometimes known as “ground truthing”) so

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST: HOW TO MANAGE THE HERITAGE 15 that unknown archaeological sites – and extant historical and practices of protecting, preserving, and managing buildings and infrastructure, historic landscapes, and tra- archaeological resources on federal lands in the United ditional cultural properties – can be located and evaluated States (see the following section on Cultural Resource before development begins. Management (CRM) and “applied archaeology”). Similar provisions hold for the major monuments of many nations. But in the field of heritage management Conservation and Mitigation it is with the less obvious, perhaps less important sites Most nations today ensure a degree of protection for their that problems arise. Above all, it is difficult or impossible major monuments and archaeological sites. In England, for sites to be protected if their existence is not known or as early as 1882, the first Ancient Monuments Act was recognized. That is where the crucial role of survey is at passed and the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments its clearest. appointed: the energetic archaeologist and pioneer exca- The conservation of the archaeological record is a fun- vator Lieutenant-General Augustus Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers damental principle of heritage management. It can be (see box, p. 33). A “schedule” of ancient monuments was brought about by partnership agreement with the land- drawn up, which were to be protected by law. Several of owner – for instance to avoid plowing for agricultural the most important monuments were taken into “guard- purposes on recognized sites. Measures can be taken to ianship,” whereby they were conserved and opened to the mitigate the effects of coastal erosion (although this can public under the supervision of the Ancient Monuments be very difficult) or inappropriate land use. And above all, Inspectorate. effective planning legislation can be used to avoid com- In the United States, the first major federal legislation mercial development in sensitive archaeological areas. for archaeological protection, the American Antiquities Indeed, increasingly the approach is to think of entire Act, was signed into law in 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt. landscapes and their conservation, rather than focusing The act set out three provisions: that the damage, destruc- upon isolated archaeological sites. tion, or excavation of historic or prehistoric ruins or When considering the impact of commercial or indus- monuments on federal land without permission would trial development, one aspect of mitigation is the carefully be prohibited; that the president would have the author- planned avoidance of damage to the archaeological record. ity to establish national landmarks and associated reserves A well-considered strategy in advance of development will on federal land; and that permits could be granted for the usually favor this approach. In some cases, however, the excavation or collection of archaeological materials on development necessarily involves damage. It is at this federal land to qualified institutions that pursued such point that salvage or rescue archaeology becomes appro- excavations for the purpose of increasing knowledge of priate. Rarely, when particularly important archaeological the past and preserving the materials. remains are unexpectedly uncovered, development may The American Antiquities Act set the foundation and be halted entirely (for an example from Mexico City, see fundamental principles for archaeology in the United box overleaf). States. These include that federal protection is limited It is inevitable in the case of some major developments, to federal land (although some individual states and for instance the construction of a freeway or a pipeline, local governments have their own laws), that excava- that in the course of the undertaking many archaeologi- tion is a permitted activity for those seeking to learn and cal sites, major as well as minor, will be encountered. In conduct research in the public interest, that unpermitted the survey stage of the planning process, most of these archaeological activities and vandalism are criminally pun- will have been located, observed, noted, and evaluated. ishable, and that archaeological resources are important A mitigation plan would address what steps are required enough that the president may create reserves for protec- to protect the archaeological record or recover signifi- tion independent of the other branches of government. cant information if it cannot be protected by avoidance. These principles continue through the many other federal In some cases it may be possible to alter the route of the laws that followed. Today, the principal laws that practic- highway so as to avoid damage to important sites: that is ing archaeologists must know and follow include the one aspect of mitigation. But usually, if the project is to go National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National ahead, the “preventive” archaeology will involve the inves- Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the Archaeological tigation of the site by appropriate means of sampling, and Historic Preservation Act of 1974, the Archaeological including excavation. Resources Protection Act of 1979, the Abandoned In Britain, for example, the important Neolithic site of Shipwrecks Act of 1987, and the Native American Graves Durrington Walls was first located and then systematically 569 Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. These laws, and a excavated in the course of road construction. It turned out host of others, updated and expanded the basic principles to be a major “henge” monument – a very large ditched

MEXICO

CONSERVATION IN MEXICO CITY: Mexico City THE GREAT TEMPLE OF THE AZTECS

When the Spanish Conquistadors destruction of archaeological remains The Museum of Tenochtitlan under Hernán Cortés occupied the during the continuing growth Project, under the direction of Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, in 1521, of the city. In 1977, a Museum of Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, became they destroyed its buildings and Tenochtitlan Project was begun, with the Great Temple Project, which established their own capital, Mexico the aim of excavating the area where over the next few years brought to City, on the same site. remains of what appeared to be light one of the most remarkable In 1790 the now-famous statue of the Great Temple of the Aztecs had archaeological sites in Mexico. the Aztec mother goddess Coatlicue been found in 1948. The project was No one had realized how much was found, and also the great radically transformed early in 1978 would be preserved of the Great Calendar Stone, but it was not until when electricity workers discovered Temple. Although the Spaniards had the 20th century that more systematic a large stone carved with a series of razed the standing structure to the archaeological work took place. reliefs. The Department of Salvage ground in 1521, this pyramid was Various relatively small-scale Archaeology of the National Institute the last of a series of rebuildings. excavations were carried out on of Anthropology and History took Beneath the ruins of the last temple remains within the city as they came charge. Within days, a huge monolith, the excavations revealed those of to light in the course of building 3.25 m (10 ft 7 in.) in diameter, was earlier temples. work. But in 1975 a more coherent revealed depicting the dismembered In addition to these architectural initiative was taken: the institution body of the Aztec goddess remains was a wonderful series of by the Department of Pre-Hispanic Coyolxauhqui who, according to offerings to the temple’s two gods, Monuments of the Basin of Mexico myth, had been killed by her brother, Huitzilopochtli and the rain god Project. Its aim was to halt the the war god Huitzilopochtli. Tlaloc – objects of obsidian and jade, terracotta and stone sculptures, and other special dedications, including rare coral and the remains of a jaguar buried with a ball of turquoise in its mouth. A major area of Mexico City has now been turned into a permanent museum and national monument. Mexico has regained one of its greatest pre-Columbian buildings, and the Great Temple of the Aztecs is once again one of the marvels of Tenochtitlan.

15.5 The Great Stone, found in 1978, provided the catalyst for the Great Temple excavations. The goddess Coyolxauhqui is shown decapitated

570 and dismembered – killed by her brother, the war god Huitzilopochtli.

15.6 The skeleton of a jaguar (above) from a chamber in the fourth of seven building stages of the Great Temple. The jade ball in its mouth may have been placed there as a substitute for the spirit of the deceased.

15.7 The Great Temple excavation site (right), with stairways vis ble of successive phases of the monument. The building was originally pyramidal in form, surmounted by twin temples to the war god Huitzilopochtli and the rain god Tlaloc. Conservation work is in progress here on the Coyolxauhqui stone, just vis ble at the center of the image at the base of a flight of steps.

15.8 A recent discovery: this massive stone slab (below) depicting the god Tlaltecuhtli (“Lord of the Earth”) was found at the site in 2006. The monolith was moved to the Templo Mayor Museum in 2010. 571

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the US government to consider the environmental impacts of their actions (through an “environmental assessment,” which may lead to an “environmental impact statement”), including effects on historical, archaeological, and cultural values. The role of “State Historic Preservation Officer” (SHPO) was created in each US state. Each agency runs its own compliance program. Construction and land use projects in which US govern- ment agencies are involved – whether on federal land or on other lands but federally funded or requiring a federal permit – must be reviewed to determine their effects on environmental, cultural, and historical resources. CRM programs in state and local governments, federal agencies, academic institutions, and private consulting firms have grown out of this requirement. The SHPOs coordinate many CRM activities, and keep files on historic and prehis- toric sites, structures, buildings, districts, and landscapes. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act requires federal agencies to identify historic places of all kinds (archaeological sites, historic buildings, Native American tribal sacred sites, etc.) that may be affected 15.9 Threats to our heritage: concrete piles – foundations for by their actions, in consultation with SHPOs, tribes, and a modern office block – were driven into the ground around others. They are then required to determine what to do about the archaeological remains of the Rose theater, London, where project effects – all in consultation with SHPOs and other some of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed in the 1590s. interested parties. Identification often requires archaeologi- cal surveys both to find and evaluate archaeological sites. enclosure (see box, pp. 204–05) – and was the first of its Evaluation involves applying published criteria to deter- class to give clear indications of a series of major circular mine eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places timber buildings. – the US schedule of significant historic and cultural land In many countries a significant proportion of the areas, sites, structures, neighborhoods, and communities. budget available for archaeological research is now delib- If the agency and its consulting partners find that signifi- erately assigned to these projects, where damage to the cant sites are present and will be adversely affected, they archaeological record seems inevitable and where it can be seek ways to mitigate the effect. Often this involves rede- mitigated in this way. There is a growing presumption that signing the project to reduce, minimize, or even avoid the sites that are not threatened should not be excavated when damage. Sometimes, where archaeological sites are con- there is a potentially informative site that can provide com- cerned, the decision is to conduct excavations to recover parable excavation whose future is in any case threatened significant data before they are destroyed. If the parties by damage through development. It is increasingly real- cannot agree on what to do, an independent body known ized that important research questions can be answered as the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation makes a in the course of such mitigation procedures. recommendation and then the responsible federal agency makes its final decision. The Practice of CRM in the Most surveys and data recovery projects in the USA are carried out by private firms – sometimes companies that United States specialize in CRM work, but otherwise by branches of large North American archaeology has become embedded in engineering, planning, or environmental impact assess- Cultural Resource Management (CRM), a complex of laws, ment companies. Some academic institutions, museums, regulations, and professional practice designed to manage and non-profit organizations also carry out CRM work. historic buildings and sites, cultural landscapes, and other CRM-based surveys and excavations now comprise at least cultural and historic places. The practice of CRM is often 90 percent of the field archaeology carried out in the USA. known as “applied archaeology.” The review system under Section 106 can produce excel- The National Historic Preservation Act and the National lent archaeological research, but research interests must 572 Environmental Policy Act are the major legal bases for be balanced with other public interests, especially the con- CRM in the United States. These laws require agencies of cerns of Native American tribes and other communities.

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST: HOW TO MANAGE THE HERITAGE 15

The quality of work depends largely on the integrity and finds. Of course these can lead to the systematic looting skill of the participants – agency employees, SHPOs, of archaeological sites. The problem of the deliberate tribal and community representatives, and private-sector destruction of sites to provide collectible artifacts for col- archaeologists. Among the recurring problems are quality lectors and museums was addressed in Chapter 14. Yet control in fieldwork, applying the results of fieldwork it remains the case that many archaeological discoveries to important research topics, publication and other dis- are made by chance. In recent years the metal detector semination of results, and the long-term preservation and has increasingly been used in countries where metal management of recovered artifacts. finds can be expected. Although in many countries the One example of this process is the Metro Rail project use of metal detectors to search for antiquities is illegal, in Arizona (see box overleaf), although not all CRM proj- this is not the case in the United Kingdom. And while ects are so well or responsibly managed. Particularly in some archaeologists have argued that a ban on metal the case of small projects, which are carried out by the detecting would better protect the heritage, the pastime thousands, it is easy for very shoddy work to be done and has become popular. But at least state funding has been little useful data to be produced. But on the other hand, established for the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS; see large excavation projects find huge numbers of artifacts, box, p. 576), whereby metal detectorists can voluntarily and these have to be stored in environmentally controlled report their finds to a reporting officer, and many in fact facilities – and this becomes more and more of a problem do so. Moreover the PAS has become a major source of as time passes and new excavations are conducted. Large- information, providing more data about the distribution scale CRM excavations also tend to be underfunded. of some artifact types than professional archaeological Since the vast projects of the 1970s and 1980s, such surveys have been able to do. as the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway investigations, which covered 234 miles of new canals running through Mississippi and Alabama and identified 682 sites, it is International Protection certainly the case that the emphasis has shifted toward Since world government is currently based upon the effec- remote sensing and planning for the management of tive autonomy of the nation states of the United Nations, archaeological resources in ways that minimize the need measures of conservation and mitigation likewise operate for excavations. at the level of the nation state. Only in a few cases does Many agencies in the United States now mandate some broader perspective prevail, often through the such plans. For example, the Department of Defense agency of UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, prepares Integrated Cultural Resource Management Scientific and Cultural Organization) whose headquarters Plans (ICRMPs) for all lands under DoD stewardship. are located in Paris, France. These plans integrate activities necessary for the preser- vation of cultural resources with those necessary to the The World Heritage List. One effective initiative arises mission of the installation. Similarly, the Bureau of Land from the World Heritage Convention of 1972, under which Management (BLM) prepares Integrated Resource and the World Heritage Committee can place major sites on Recreation Area Management Plans (IRRAMPs). Such the World Heritage List. At the time of writing there are plans can be extremely effective in protecting archaeologi- 779 cultural sites on the List (some of which are illustrated cal resources, so long as they are prepared by those with on pp. 578–79), along with 197 natural sites and 31 classi- adequate training and sensitivity to those resources. fied as mixed. Although election to the list does not in itself The Society for American Archaeology has also helped afford protection, and certainly does not in reality bring to fund a Register of Professional Archaeologists in an additional international resources to assist in conservation, attempt to improve standards. Professional require- it does act as an incentive for the responsible nation state ments and qualifications have been established by the to ensure that recognized standards are met. Department of the Interior, various land-managing There is in addition a World Heritage in Danger List agencies, and even some local governments. Permits to that highlights the needs of specific threatened sites. The undertake archaeological work are designed to require Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan is still on it (see box p. 552), credentials, experience, and acceptable past performance. although the great Buddha sculpture there has already been destroyed. Newly added are several sites in Syria, including Palmyra and the ancient cities of Aleppo and Finders Keepers? Damascus. Not yet on it at the time of writing are several In addition to the problems to the archaeological heri- key sites in northern Iraq, including ancient Nineveh, 573 tage through industrial, residential, or agricultural Nimrud and Hatra: sadly they are indeed in peril, and development, there is the issue of chance archaeological great damage has already been done. Many early mosques

UNITED STATES CRM IN PRACTICE: THE METRO RAIL PROJECT Phoenix

Investigations conducted by Archaeological Consulting Services (ACS) in 2005–2008 along the 31.5-km (19.6-mile) Central Phoenix/East Valley Light Rail corridor in Arizona discovered nine new sites, and greatly increased knowledge of 20 previously recorded sites in this busy urban area. Most of the work was carried out at the Hohokam site of Pueblo Grande in the City of Phoenix, and that of La Plaza in the City of Tempe, but additional finds were made while monitoring the rest of the project corridor. The project confirmed that the Phoenix area was home to several different peoples during 1500 years of occupation. The Light Rail Transit Project was constructed by Valley Metro Rail Inc. (METRO) and, as with any project that receives federal funding, METRO 15.10 Excavations in progress at the Pueblo Grande site. was legally required to undertake archaeological investigations before 1000 features were encountered, and was occupied for about 1000 years, and during construction. More than over a quarter of a million artifacts, from c. AD 450/500 to 1450/1500. since the rail route traversed numerous 15.11 Map of the Phoenix metropolitan prehistoric villages occupied by the Native American Involvement area, showing the course of the new rail Hohokam. It was already known that The work – which was restricted to corridor in red. the important site of Pueblo Grande pre-defined areas of direct impact

0 2 km 0 1 mile 19th Ave. Camelback Rd

N PHOENIX

Central Avenue Central SCOTTSDALE 44th St

Dos Casas McDowell Rd

202 Turney 3 Original 101 Phoenix Washington St Townsite Los Pueblos Arriba Pueblo Grande Pueblo Dutch Patricio Canal Ruin MESA La Plaza 16th St Salt River TEMPE

Apache Blvd/ 10 Tempe Townsite Main St Las Acequias 574 Archaeological site Municipal boundary Project centerline

15.12 Artifacts found by the Metro Rail Project at La Plaza included (clockwise from left): stone axe heads; stone palettes; a shell dog pendant; and a “three orifice” red-on-buff jar.

Zone 2 was defined as prehistoric habitation sites with the potential for human remains. Once again, all ground-disturbing activities were closely watched, and the procedure was the same as for Zone 1, except that a single archaeologist monitored the excavations. Zone 3 comprised areas outside known site locations that were considered to have moderate sensitivity for cultural resources – most likely to be historic and prehistoric canal alignments. Excavations here required spot checking. Finally, – involved early and continuous monitoring. Zone 1 comprised Zone 4 was defined as locations where consultation with a wide range prehistoric habitation sites with there were no known archaeological of groups, including local Native known human remains. Construction resources, with no systematic American communities, the City of in these areas required monitoring monitoring required. Contractors Phoenix Archaeologist, and the Four by professional archaeologists of were merely instructed to notify Southern Tribes Cultural Resources all ground disturbance. Trenches archaeologists if any cultural materials Working Group. It was of paramount were mechanically excavated to a were found. Sensitivity training of importance to build trust and respect depth of less than 1.5 m (5 ft), and construction crews was carried out, with all such bodies, especially with features identified. At the same and contact was maintained with regard to burials, and the project time, excavated soil was examined them throughout, with occasional certainly met this aim, since an for artifacts. If any were found, spot checks of open trenches. excellent working relationship was construction would be stopped Both prehistoric and historic developed and maintained with all briefly so that archaeologists could materials were discovered during the consulting parties. evaluate whether further investigation project. Among the most important For example, the Salt River was needed. Important finds such were some rare Hohokam copper bells Pima-Maricopa Indian Community as burials would be excavated and from the site of La Plaza at Tempe, expressed its appreciation for being removed before work resumed. found in a burial under a mound. contacted in a respectful manner 15.13 A Hohokam adobe-walled room at La Plaza. regarding all discoveries, and more generally for ACS’s informative and cooperative nature. Other groups involved included the Gila River Indian Community, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation and the Hopi Tribe. It was agreed that, if tribal consultations concluded that excavation and recovery were appropriate, any human remains and associated objects found would be repatriated to the Communities.

Archaeological Investigation Four “sensitivity zones” were 575 defined (by a URS archaeologist), each of which required different

ENGLAND PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES AND THE UK “PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES SCHEME” Frome

All countries face the problem acquired by museums. However, finds, attending meetings of metal- of how to protect their movable the Act is restricted in scope: it only detecting clubs and holding events archaeological heritage. While applies to objects of gold and silver at which the public bring finds in approaches to the issue vary widely, or groups of coins from the same find for recording. in most countries there is a legal that are more than 300 years old, and An important part of PAS’s requirement to report all objects of objects associated with them (see role is to educate finders in good archaeological importance and in www.finds.org.uk/treasure). practice, for example not to damage many cases the state claims ownership archaeological sites. When detector of them; there are mechanisms How the PAS Works user Dave Crisp discovered the Frome for paying rewards to the finders The PAS, based at the British hoard of 52,500 Roman coins in and there is usually protection for Museum, encourages the voluntary April 2010, he did not dig up the pot archaeological sites and controls over reporting of all archaeological finds himself but allowed archaeologists to the use of metal detectors. Britain made by the public, especially those excavate it, thus preserving important was very slow to legislate in this area who search for them with metal archaeological information. – only in 1996 was the Treasure Act detectors. A network of 36 locally A team of specialist Finds Advisers passed in England and Wales – and based Finds Liaison Officers record ensure the quality of the data, which are entered onto an online database. By the end of 2014 this contained over a million objects within over 650,000 records, and is a unique resource which is increasingly being exploited for research (over 90 MA and PhD dissertations have used PAS data). The data are giving us a far richer understanding of distributions of artifact types than previously and are revealing many new archaeological sites: for example, a study has shown that the number of known Roman sites in Warwickshire and Worcestershire has increased by over 30 percent through PAS data.

15.14–16 The Frome hoard of Roman coins, buried around AD 305 in a large pot (above left). One of the largest coin hoards ever found in England, it was discovered by a metal-detectorist who at once notified the PAS, so that the whole find could be transported to the laboratories of the British Museum and excavated there (above right). Many of the coins bear the head of the emperor Carausius (below).

because of this a different approach has been adopted: the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS). The approach is a dual one: finds that qualify under the Treasure Act are legally required to be reported and are offered to museums to acquire. If a museum wishes to acquire the object then it has to pay a reward fixed at the full market value of the find, and that reward is divided equally between the finder and the owner of the land. In

576 2013 996 finds were reported under the Act, about a third of which were

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST: HOW TO MANAGE THE HERITAGE 15 in the historic city of Mosul (north Iraq) have also been destroyed as a result of Islamic factionalism and the his- toric heritage of Iraq is gravely compromised. “Cultural” sites on the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger, 2014 Countering the Traffic in Illicit Antiquities. The prin- cipal international measure against the traffic in illicit Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of antiquities is the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means the Bamiyan Valley (Afghanistan) of Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. But its principles are Minaret and Archaeological Remains of Jam not directly enforced by international law, and depend (Afghanistan) rather on national legislation and on bilateral agreements between nations. The responsibilities of collectors and City of Potosí (Bolivia) museums were reviewed in Chapter 14. There are signs Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works that it is becoming more difficult to sell recently looted (Chile) antiquities on the open market, at any rate in some coun- tries, but the problem remains a massive one. Abu Mena (Egypt) Bagrati Cathedral and Gelati Monastery (Georgia) Protecting the Cultural Heritage in Times of War. The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Historical Monuments of Mtskheta (Georgia) Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its proto- Ashur (Qal’at Sherqat) (Iraq) cols in principle offer a degree of protection. In practice, however, they have not been effective and, as noted earlier, Samarra Archaeological City (Iraq) have not yet been ratified by the United Kingdom (and Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls (Israel) only recently by the United States of America). Both nations were criticized for their shortcomings during the Timbuktu (Mali) invasion of Iraq in 2003. Tomb of Askia (Mali) Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativity and the These international initiatives are all important, and poten- tially significant. But at present they are very limited in Pilgrimage Route, Bethleham (Palestine) their effectiveness. In the future they may be better sup- Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines – Cultural ported, but most of the effective measures safeguarding Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir (Palestine) the future of the past still work primarily at a national level. Fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama: Publication, Archives, and Resources: Portobelo-San Lorenzo (Panama) Serving the Public Chan Chan Archaeological Zone (Peru) The pace of discovery through the surveys conducted to Medieval Monuments in Kosovo (Serbia) assess environmental impact and the excavation proce- Ancient City of Aleppo (Syria) dures undertaken in mitigation is remarkable. But the results are often not well published or otherwise made Ancient City of Bosra (Syria) available either to specialists or to the public. In the Ancient City of Damascus (Syria) United States there is an obligation that environmental impact statements and a summary of any measures taken Ancient Villages of Northern Syria (Syria) in mitigation should be lodged with the state archive, but Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El-Din (Syria) not that they should be published. In Greece the govern- ment has for some years failed to fund publication of the Site of Palmyra (Syria) Archaiologikon Deltion, the official record of nationally Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi (Uganda) funded excavations. The record is better in France and to some extent in Germany. But few countries can boast Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City (UK) effective publication of the quite considerable activities

Coro and its Port (Venezuela) 577 undertaken, generally with a measure of state funding. In some countries this has led to a division between Historic Town of Zabid (Yemen) the practice of academic archaeologists (working in

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UNESCO World Heritage Sites 15.17–22 (Clockwise from left): A 12th-century minaret at Jam, Afghanistan, decorated with stucco and glazed tile; one of 500 statues of Buddha at the 8th-century Buddhist temple at Borobodur, Indonesia; 12th-century rock-cut Ethiopian orthodox church at Lalibela; a spiral minaret, part of the great 9th-century mosque at Samarra, Iraq; the oval “pyramid” at the wonderfully preserved Maya city of Uxmal, Mexico; Fatehpur Sikri, India, capital city of the 16th-century Mughal emperor Akbar. 578

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST 15 579

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universities and museums) and of those undertaking making the catalogues of their collections available online. contract archaeology, whether funded by the developer Few contract archaeologists currently make their environ- or by the state, but in both cases working to mitigate mental impact statements or mitigation reports available the impact of development. The work of the former is in that way, but this may one day become a requirement: supposed to be problem-oriented and often does indeed a condition for funding in the first place. In the United lead to publication in national or international archaeo- Kingdom data from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (see logical journals and in detailed monographs. The work above) are being made available online, helping to break of the contract archaeologist is sometimes carefully coor- down some of the traditional barriers between profes- dinated, leading to informative regional and national sional researchers and the wider public. It is likely that surveys. But in too many instances its publication is not in the future excavation data will also become available well coordinated at all. online and thus more rapidly accessible than is often cur- The solution to these problems is not yet clear. But one rently the case. The obligation to inform the public, who possibility is certainly emerging: online publication. In ultimately provide the resources for much of the research, this respect some of the major museums have led the way, is being met.

HERITAGE MANAGEMENT, DISPLAY, AND TOURISM

The future of the material past, the remains of what has begin to crumble. In 2013 officials of the Pakistan govern- come down to us from earlier times, is partly a matter ment drew up a plan for the conservation of the site, but of luck, of what has been preserved. Often this preserva- how effective it will be remains to be seen. tion has simply been through neglect, the result of being Even seemingly well-conserved sites, like the great city left undisturbed. But increasingly, as we have seen, it is of Teotihuacan in Mexico (pp. 98–99), can present unde- a matter of conservation, and of mitigation against the tected problems. The Pyramid of the Sun, the largest at the forces of destruction. site, is suffering from differential drying, the south side being drier than the north. The problem was diagnosed The Heritage at Risk. Serious problems of conserva- in an unusual way. A research team from UNAM (the tion and management can occur where the archaeological National Autonomous University of Mexico), with a sophis- remains are well known, and in principle protected. The ticated project to study the interior of the pyramid and seek most obvious case is Roman Pompeii, the city buried in for internal chambers, used muon detectors placed under ash in the eruption of Vesuvius in ad 79 (see box, pp. the center of the pyramid. Muons are sub-atomic particles 24–25). Now, through neglect and bureaucratic corruption, which pass through most materials but are deflected by its excavated remains are in a very poor state of conserva- denser ones, and so offer the possibility of mapping the tion. Rainwater causes serious damage. Pompeii’s sister interior of the pyramid. But the main finding of the project city, Herculaneum, has fared better. The Herculaneum was instead that the density of the earth was 20 percent Conservation Project was set up in 2001. In the past lower on one side of the pyramid than the other, as a result decade, with an expenditure of 20 million euros, the decay of difference in moisture. The jury is still out on how to has been reversed and the town put on a sustainable con- mitigate the disparity. But at least the problem has been servation footing. In February 2013 the European Union diagnosed, and hopefully a collapse of the pyramid averted. and the Italian government launched an emergency 105 million euro project to reverse the decades of neglect at Promoting the Heritage. It is important to recognize the Pompeii: the Great Pompeii Project. Problems are on a importance in all this of what has become a new indus- larger scale at Pompeii, but the success at Herculaneum try, widely designated in English-speaking lands as “the gives grounds for hope. Heritage.” This is a manufactured terminology whose The situation at the great urban center of the Indus civi- inception can be traced back to 1983 and to the repackaging lization, Mohenjodaro in modern Pakistan, is even more of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission serious. Like Pompeii, Mohenjodaro is on UNESCO’s list for England into a remodeled entity with the title “English of World Heritage Sites. But it has more to cope with than Heritage” and with a brand new logo and marketing strat- lack of funding and a degree of government neglect. The egy. English Heritage, along with the National Trust, now problem is salt. Groundwater, evaporating in the summer runs most of the historic sites and buildings in England 580 heat of over 50 °C (122 °F), makes the sun-dried and baked that are in public ownership. The policy, in England, as in bricks of which the site is constructed saline, and they many countries, was to make “the Heritage” pay its way,

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST: HOW TO MANAGE THE HERITAGE 15

15.23 Crowds of tourists at Pompeii, Italy. For more than 200 years the site has been promoted as a major visitor attraction, and it is now one of the most popular in Italy.

presentation of the remains of the past, in an informa- tive and authentic way, forms an important component of the tourist industry in nearly every country in the world. In some, such as Greece or Egypt, or in Peru or Mexico (see, for example, the box on pp. 570–71), it is the source of the greater part of the considerable resources that are devoted to archaeology. Such is increasingly the case in many countries, such as China, where the tourist indus- try is of more recent origin. And a significant proportion of visitors are “internal” tourists, citizens of the nation in question. Increasingly museums are regarded as temples of culture, and play a major role in attracting overseas visi- tors, to the considerable benefit of the national economy. The material heritage means more than archaeologi- cal tourism: it draws upon national, ethnic, and religious loyalties. To quote Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (the first cathedral and mother church of the Church of England), writing in 1922: “It is the bounden duty of every English-speaking man and woman to visit Canterbury at least twice in their lives.” There can be no tourist guide who would disagree! In this chapter emphasis has been placed upon conser- and so the designation often has come to have commer- vation, on Cultural Resource Management as an activity in cial overtones that are not universally welcome. Indeed the the public interest. In consequence it is the public’s right National Trust, which runs many of the traditional “stately to visit these sites and monuments that are conserved in homes of England,” has been accused of “Disneyfication,” its name. Their management and display is a responsible for instance by staffing the properties in its care with task. It is now an industry that employs many people, uniformed personnel impersonating the inhabitants of whether in an active archaeological role as fieldworkers or earlier centuries in a manner more often associated with in a less specialized role as custodians and tourist guides. Disneyland and its fictitious renditions of Snow White The profession of museum curator, which dates back to and the seven corporeally diminutive persons. the 18th century, is older than that of salaried archaeolo- The promotion of the heritage for economic gain is gist (the career and work of one such curator is described not, of course, a new phenomenon. In Chapter 1 we have in Chapter 16). Indeed the two activities have developed seen how for more than two centuries the Roman sites of together. The great world museums and the major archae- Pompeii and Herculaneum have been promoted for tour- ological site museums may have had their beginning in istic purposes, and even earlier the monuments of Rome the traditional Mediterranean heartlands of civilization: were part of the traditional aristocratic Grand Tour. The they now have their rivals in every part of the world.

WHO INTERPRETS AND PRESENTS THE PAST?

Some of the ideological questions raised by the public feminist archaeology were touched on. And of course one “presentation” of the past were noted earlier: nationalist of the reasons that male bias leads to androcentric views in aims, sectarian objectives, and political agendas are often so much archaeological writing is that the majority of the served by the partisan interpretation and presentation of writers, and indeed the majority of professional archaeolo- what is alleged to be the cultural heritage. But there are gists, are men. In the academic world today, while women 581 other issues here beside nationalistic or religious sen- students in general do have the opportunities they were timents. In Chapters 1 and 5, some of the concerns of formerly denied, it remains the case that there are far

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15.24 The Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, one of the world’s best archaeological museums. On the ground floor, ancient cultures are exh bited, with separate halls for Maya, Aztec, Olmec, and Mixtec societies. The material culture of the corresponding modern indigenous cultures is shown on the floor above, establishing a close relationship between ancient and modern.

fewer women than men among the teaching staff. (Two a situation where they are divorced from all historical female teaching professionals – one in the US and one in context, as simple “works of art” – thus encouraging a Thailand – who have succeeded in this male-dominated somewhat sanitized quest for beauty (“In Pursuit of the world describe their careers in Chapter 16.) Up till now – Absolute” was the title of a 1994 public exhibition of the and this is broadly true for the museum profession also Ortiz collection of largely unprovenienced antiquities). – the past has generally been interpreted by men. This outlook, where the archaeological context is disre- Victorian views and interpretations, or at least 19th- garded, can easily lead on to the ruthless acquisition of century ones, persist in many areas of interpretation and “works of art” and to a disregard of ethical standards in display. This is true in the West and, as noted in Chapter archaeology (see pp. 560–64). 14, most archaeological displays in China are still based Museum Studies has, over the past two decades, very almost directly upon the writings of Marx and Engels a properly become a well-established discipline in which the century ago. great complexity of the task of interpreting and displaying And while some colonialist and racist preconceptions the past is now being recognized. A few years ago it was have been rooted out, more subtle assumptions remain. estimated that there are now 13,500 museums in Europe, Minoan Crete, for instance, is still often presented as it 7000 in North America, 2800 in Australia and Asia, and appeared to its great discoverer Sir Arthur Evans a century perhaps 2000 in the rest of the world. But who visits these ago. As John Bintliff observes (1984, 35): “Evans’s revital- museums, and at whom are the displays targeted? These ization of a wondrous world of peaceful prosperity, stable are questions that are now systematically being addressed. divine autocrats and a benevolent aristocracy, owes a great It is now widely appreciated that museums are “dream deal to the general political, social and emotional ‘Angst’ spaces” where different views of the past and of the in Europe of his time.” present can be conveyed. They are “theaters of memory” In museum displays, moreover, it is aesthetic con- in which local and national identities are defined. The very 582 cerns that often predominate. This can easily lead to act of displaying an artifact may establish it as an art work an approach where ancient artifacts are displayed in or as a historic witness to a shared belief.

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST: HOW TO MANAGE THE HERITAGE 15

THE PAST FOR ALL PEOPLE AND ALL PEOPLES

There is one potential obstacle to the vision that many colonial or imperial expansion – quite the contrary in fact. would share where every region (and every nation, and The position is in reality much more acute in those lands every ethnic group) has its own archaeology, contributing to that were indeed subjected to colonial rule, as the increas- its own history, and with that archaeology and history being ing appreciation of Australian aboriginal archaeology or produced and published by local and often indigenous that of the “First Nations” is leading us to recognize. These workers according to the best international standards. The are issues that the World Archaeological Congress, as dis- obstacle to achieving such a goal might, paradoxically, be cussed in Chapter 1, seeks to address, and they have not yet the English language. That may seem a strange assertion been resolved. when English seems to be close to becoming an interna- Nor is it a matter simply of European or American colo- tional lingua franca, already everywhere used for air traffic nial influence upon indigenous populations. For in other control, and in the international financial markets. It must areas of the world the distinction between autochthonous certainly be the most popular second language in the world. and metropolitan goes back way before the European Yet, as the Russian archaeologist Leo Klejn has pointed expansions of the 15th century ad. The Indian archaeolo- out, there is in some quarters a perceived resentment at the gist Ajay Pratap has recently addressed this issue in his dominance in archaeological discourse of the English lan- Indigenous Archaeology in India, where the contrast is not guage. It is observed that a conference attended by British between European colonists and autochthonous popula- and North American archaeologists is often somehow con- tions, but rather the distinction that the Constitution of sidered “international,” whereas one featuring less widely India makes between scheduled castes and tribes. That is a spoken languages is not. Some of the resentful scholars to dichotomy which goes back long before colonial rule. Even whom Klejn refers are Spanish and others Scandinavian, if the caste system may be less prominent, the distinction including the Norwegian archaeologist Bjornar Olsen. between “tribal” and “non-tribal” remains an active one Indeed it is admittedly true that the theoretical debates today. In China the ascendancy of the Han Chinese goes between processual archaeologists and interpretive or back to the 1st millennium bc, and in Japan and elsewhere postprocessual archaeologists reviewed in this book were in Asia the relationship between ethnic minorities and initially largely conducted between British or American dominant majorities likewise extends back over millennia. scholars, with some Scandinavian scholars taking part (but Yet in a sense archaeology, and especially prehistoric often speaking in the English language). Olsen speaks of archaeology, is particularly well placed to overcome these “scientific colonialism.” And certainly the historical back- problems of linguistic hegemony and ethnic distinction. ground that underlies what might be described as the For the primary subject matter of archaeology involves linguistic hegemony of the English language today involves material things not words, and the communication that the colonial role of Britain a century and more ago, fol- the prehistoric archaeologist seeks to monitor and inter- lowed by the outcome of the two World Wars, and then, in pret is essentially non-verbal in character. That is the the late 20th century, the Anglophone political dominance greatest strength of archaeology. Every territory and every of the United States of America. population has its own archaeology. To interpret that is But note that neither Spain nor Scandinavia have in indeed a challenge. To meet this challenge has been the the modern era been at the receiving end of a successful principal preoccupation of this book.

WHAT USE IS THE PAST?

The popularity of archaeology has markedly increased in curiosity of the world’s citizens? Is their main purpose recent years, if television programs, magazine articles, simply to create agreeable historic sites to visit? and museum visitors are used as a measure. Certainly the We think that there is more at work than this. There is number of archaeology students has increased greatly in a growing awareness that humankind needs to feel and to many countries. As we have seen, in many countries public know that it has a past – a past that can be documented resources are invested in conservation, and developers are by concrete material evidence which we can all access, obliged to ensure that proper measures are undertaken in examine, and assess for ourselves. For without our roots we 583 mitigation of their impact upon the cultural environment. are lost. Over recent generations those roots are well repre- But are these resources expended simply to satisfy the idle sented by our friends, families, and existing communities.

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But in a deeper sense, and in a deeper past, we are all in this It is abundantly clear, from the pace of archaeological dis- together. The religions of the world provide meaning for covery, that there is more to learn. That is one reason why the lives of many people. But they do not all agree, or so it the subject is so interesting. And it always will be. So long might seem, about some of the questions of human origins as the practices of conservation and mitigation are main- and early history that we have been discussing in this book. tained we shall continue to learn more about the human Some offer creation stories that are profound and illumi- past, and in that sense about what it means to be human. nating – each can be enriched by knowledge of the material We hope that such will be the future of the past. And we do evidence for early human development. not doubt that it will be useful.

SUMMARY

Many nations believe that it is the duty of the govern- Archaeologists have a duty to report what they find. ment to have policies with regard to conservation, and Since excavation is, to a certain extent, destructive, these conservation laws often apply to archaeology. published material is often the only record of what was Construction, agricultural intensification, conflict, found at a site. Perhaps up to 60 percent of modern tourism, and looting are all human activities that excavations remain unpublished after 10 years. The damage or destroy sites. Internet and the popular media can help to fulfill one of archaeology’s fundamental purposes: to provide the Built on a strong legal foundation, Cultural Resource public with a better understanding of the past. Management (CRM) or “applied archaeology” plays a major role in American archaeology. When Besides nationalistic or religious views in the inter- a project is on federal land, uses federal money, or pretation and presentation of the past, we have to be needs a federal permit, the law requires that cultural aware of gender-bias in the often still male-dominated resources are identified, evaluated, and if they cannot world of archaeology. Museums are increasingly seen be avoided, addressed accordingly in an approved as “theaters of memory” in which local and national mitigation plan. A large number of private contract identities are defined. archaeology firms employ the majority of archae- ologists in the US. These firms are responsible for Another source of bias is the ubiquity of the use of the meeting mitigation requirements, overseen by a lead English language in archaeological discourse, and the agency and an SHPO. Publication of final reports is dominance of one ethnic group or class over another required, but the variable quality and usually limited in different parts of the world. Prehistoric archae- dissemination of these reports remain a problem. ology, with its emphasis on material, non-verbal culture, is well-placed to overcome these difficulties.

FURTHER READING

Carman, J. 2002. Archaeology and Heritage, an Introduction. Smith, L. & Waterton, E. 2009. Heritage, Communities and Continuum: London. Archaeology. Duckworth: London. Graham B. & Howard P. (eds.). 2008. The Ashgate Companion to Sørensen, M.L. & Carman, J. (eds.). 2009. Heritage Studies: Heritage and Identity. Ashgate Publishing: Farnham. Approaches and Methods. Routledge: London. King, T.F. 2005. Doing Archaeology: A Cultural Resource Tyler, N., Ligibel, T.J., & Tyler, I. 2009. Historic Preservation: Management Perspective. Left Coast Press: Walnut Creek. An Introduction to its History, Principles and Practice (2nd ed.). King, T.F. 2008. Cultural Resource Laws and Practice, W.W. Norton & Company: New York. an Introductory Guide (3rd ed.). Altamira Press: Walnut Creek. Pratap, A. 2009. Indigenous Archaeology in India: Prospects of an Archaeology for the Subaltern (BAR International Series 1927). Archaeopress: Oxford. Sabloff, J.A. 2008. Archaeology Matters: Action Archaeology in the

584 Modern World. Left Coast Press: Walnut Creek.