Between Memory Sites and Memory Networks
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Between Memory Sites and Memory Networks Kerstin P. Hofmann Reinhard Bernbeck Ulrike Sommer (eds.) BERLIN STUDIES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD their past? And how did they do so before the age of computers, print- ing, writing? This book takes stock of earlier work on memory in the fi elds of history and the social sciences. Our collection also takes a new look at how past and present social groups have memorialized events and rendered them durable through materializations: con- tributors ask how processes and incidents perceived as negative and disruptive are nonetheless constitutive of group identities. Papers also contrast the monumental- izing treatment given to singular events imbued with a hegemonic meaning to more localized, diverse memory places and networks. As case studies show, such mem- oryscapes invite divergent, multivocal and subversive narratives. Various kinds of these imagined geographies lend themselves to practices of manipulation, preserva- tion and control. The temporal scope of the volume reaches from the late Neolithic to the recent past, resulting in a long-term and multi-focal perspective that demonstrates how the perception of past events changes, acquires new layers and is molded by di erent groups at di erent points in time. As several contributions show, these manipula- tions of the past do not always produce the anticipated results, however. Attempts at “post-factual history” are countered by the socially distributed, but spatially and materially anchored nature of the very process of memorialization. 45 · 45 Between Memory Sites and Memory Networks Kerstin P. Hofmann Reinhard Bernbeck Ulrike Sommer Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © Edition Topoi / Exzellenzcluster Topoi der Freien Universität Berlin und der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Cover image: Menhirs by ludovic. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ludovicmauduit/ (minor modifications by Stefan Fiedler). Licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA .. Typographic concept and cover design: Stephan Fiedler Printed and distributed by PRO BUSINESS digital printing Deutschland GmbH, Berlin ISBN ---- URN urn:nbn:de:kobv:-fudocsseries- First published The text of this publication is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC . DE. The legal code is available under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/./de/. For the terms of use of the illustrations, please see the reference lists. www.edition-topoi.org CONTENTS Preface — 7 , . , Mapping Memory, Space and Conflict — 9 The Appropriation or the Destruction of Memory? Bell Beaker ‘Re-Use’ of Older Sites — 33 Ritual Practice and Topographic Context. Considerations on the Spatial Forms of Memory in the Central Alps During the Late Bronze Age — 71 The Multipolarity of Athenian Social Memory: Polis, Tribes and Demes as Interdependent Memory Communities — 97 Geese and Gauls – the Capitol in the Social Memory of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ — 127 The Varus Battle in the Year CE – or How to Escape the ‘Memory’ Trap — 151 . Chaco Canyon: A Contested Memory Anchor in the North American Southwest — 199 Memory Spaces and Contested Pasts in the Haudenosaunee Homeland — 227 Lieux de Mémoire and Sites of De-Subjectivation — 253 á- Excavating Memory, Burying History. Lessons from the Spanish Civil War — 279 Public Archaeology beyond Commodities, Alienation and the Fourth Wall — 303 Making Memory – Culturescapes and the Communication of Archaeological Meaning — 315 Staging Migration – Staging the Nation. Imagining Community at Immigration Museums — 341 Preface This book has been a long time in the making. The set of contributions had its origin in a workshop that took place on the rd and th of May . One of our main goals was to assess the usefulness of Pierre Nora’s concept of “memory sites” or “realms of memory”,as the translation of his compendium is titled in English. Beyond Nora’s Francocentric case, books about memory sites are a fast-growing type of compendium in historical disciplines. The genre has been extended to a variety of archaeological con- texts, including Greek and Roman antiquity. The uncritical broadening of Nora’s idea that collective memory is concentrated in a select group of places and topics seemed to us a problem in need of reflection and discussion. Therefore, our suggestion for the workshop included three potential issues involving the relation between memory and place: What is the influence of disputes over the past for the construction of memory sites? What are general implications of the historically and politically controlled con- densation of memory in specific sites? And to what extent does the emphasis on such sites encourage commodification of the past? Many of the original presenters at the workshop wrote papers for this volume, while some others could not do so for a variety of reasons. In addition, we asked several scholars who had not been at the workshop to contribute. In terms of the cases discussed, the book still represents, for the most part, the original framework. However, we had already noticed during the workshop that the topic of memory sites sensu Nora was not as crucial to the assembled group as it seemed to us originally. As a consequence, this set of papers is more diverse than we had originally imagined. One aspect of the relationship between archaeology and memory came particularly to the fore: the role of politics and power, an issue that has also been highlighted recently in “critical heritage studies” as well as a “Competing Memories” conference in Amsterdam in October . During the workshop, Wolfgang Wippermann offered a guided tour to “Dahlem Memory Sites”,a practical, ambulatory addition to our discussions. It revealed the com- plexities of the academic landscape where the workshop took place. It was a peripheral urban space during the Second World War, when Werner Heisenberg and others worked on the Uranprojekt to make atomic energy useable for the Nazi wars, where the Kaiser Wil- helm Institut für Anthropologie, menschliche Erblehre und Eugenik analyzed human remains sent by Josef Mengele from Auschwitz to Berlin, but also where Rudi Dutschke is buried, the leader of the Berlin student protests of . The Topoi villa of the Freie Universität, where the workshop took place, is itself part of these contaminated mnemoscapes. In the s, Carl Neuberg lived with his family in this house. He was the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Biochemie. As a Jew, he was lucky to be able to leave for the U.S. shortly after the Nazis came to power in . Following that, SS henchmen usedthe rooms in which our discussions took place. As is often the case, memories are loaded both emotionally and ethically. “Negative heritage” and lieux de discorde come up repeatedly in this book. These notions are not simply of scholarly interest: unfortunately, conflicts over memory are part and parcel of extremely violent conditions in our present world. Disputes about the archaeological past have become ideological and economic fuel for present armed conflict, particularly in WesternAsia. This reaches from careless destruction of Iraqi archaeological sites under the eyes of Western occupation forces to the razing of Palmyrean monuments at the hands of the so-called Islamic State. The innocuous profession of being an archaeologist can become life-threatening in these regions, as the murder of Khaled al As’ad in August shows. The point is not to bemoan the destruction of monuments from a long gone past. Rather, we are in need of a new and peaceful role for memory and remembering. One step in this direction is an analysis of the multifaceted relations between memory and politics, a field of research in need of much more attention. Various people and institutions made this book possible. We thank especially Ste- fan Schreiber, Julia Schönicke, and Blandina Stöhr for assistance during the workshop. Stefanie Gänger, Claudia Näser, Susan Pollock and Felix Wiedemann kindly agreed to be our workshop discussants. Without Gisela Eberhardt, Nadine Riedl and Nicola Gaedicke the volume would never have appeared. We are grateful to the excellence clus- ter Topoi and its directors Michael Meyer and Gerd Grasshoff for financing the event and the labor connected with the resulting book. Kerstin P. Hofmann, Reinhard Bernbeck and Ulrike Sommer Berlin, August Reinhard Bernbeck, Kerstin P. Hofmann, Ulrike Sommer Mapping Memory, Space and Conflict Summary Our introduction to the volume sets the discussion about memory in archaeology into cur- rent contexts, establishes our reasons for producing this book and discusses a number of crucial aspects of memory, space, and identity. We provide a brief history of memory stud- ies with a focus on contributions from archaeology and discuss a number of topics that play important roles in the papers. These include the relations between forgetting and remem- bering, and between space, place and memory. Along with our authors, we emphasize that memory is a matter of practices, not just of mindsets. A further element in our discussions is the interface between memory, duration, and history. All of these issues coalesce in an important background theme, the political nature of various modes of memory. Keywords: Memory; cultural memory; realms of memory; Pierre Nora; forgetting. In der Einführung des vorliegenden Sammelbands