"Die Erinnerung ist das einzige Paradies , aus welchem wir nicht getrieben werden können."
- The memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.
Johann Paul Richter otherwise known as Jean Paul, 1812
Do archaeologists create paradises of the past? The authors of Genesis did. While we might not write stories that so explicitly include a descent from a state of grace, we surely do place emphasis the extraordinary and the great from the past, to the exclusion of the mundane.The impression can be left that the past is a land of heroes, greater than the present day. Yet archaeology should be the stuff of the ordinary - for that is a large part of what we find. We should be able to tell an unvarnished version of the past. What are the enemies of that objective? - why ourselves in large part - we want to see what we do as important and illustrative and tend to present it in that light.
Who else? - why ourselves again - if we are the descendants of those who's history we presenting. We want to see ourselves as the descendants of noble people of achievement. Colonised indigenous people can suffer particularly from this. They have good historical reasons to want to represent their ancestors well, better than the way they were stigmatised, or at best stereotyped by colonists. Non-indigenous archaeologists are often more aware of the colonial history than their contemporaries and sympathise with this - but have we not all endured some new-age version of the past presented from an indigenous point of view in silence - and suffering - through the distortions!
An Australian archaeologist once said that the only people over whom aboriginal people had any power were archaeologists, and if offered the opportunity they would inevitably use it. Of course they should have domain over their cultural heritage. But should that be to the extent that it must be distorted in presentation?
So what are the counters to this? Intellectual rigor and debate are a good start. Another is simply the people themselves. Their physical remains tell the stories of their lives - brutish and short as they sometime are. We need not pursue those placed to rest by their contemporaries - there are chance discoveries or disturbances often enough in our development obsessed world . But we should make a respectful study of these remains before their re-internment. We can find their life histories not otherwise accessible to us - how long they lived, how many children women had, what stresses they placed on their bodies, their health, injuries and illnesses. Their DNA if it survives, can tell vast amounts more Too often a study is not happening and it is because of the exertion of power referred to above.
It is time for debate on that. Archaeologists should not forego this important window on the past and need to assert its value - and its particular value is that it is a strong dose of reality.
- The memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.
Johann Paul Richter otherwise known as Jean Paul, 1812
Do archaeologists create paradises of the past? The authors of Genesis did. While we might not write stories that so explicitly include a descent from a state of grace, we surely do place emphasis the extraordinary and the great from the past, to the exclusion of the mundane.The impression can be left that the past is a land of heroes, greater than the present day. Yet archaeology should be the stuff of the ordinary - for that is a large part of what we find. We should be able to tell an unvarnished version of the past. What are the enemies of that objective? - why ourselves in large part - we want to see what we do as important and illustrative and tend to present it in that light.
Who else? - why ourselves again - if we are the descendants of those who's history we presenting. We want to see ourselves as the descendants of noble people of achievement. Colonised indigenous people can suffer particularly from this. They have good historical reasons to want to represent their ancestors well, better than the way they were stigmatised, or at best stereotyped by colonists. Non-indigenous archaeologists are often more aware of the colonial history than their contemporaries and sympathise with this - but have we not all endured some new-age version of the past presented from an indigenous point of view in silence - and suffering - through the distortions!
An Australian archaeologist once said that the only people over whom aboriginal people had any power were archaeologists, and if offered the opportunity they would inevitably use it. Of course they should have domain over their cultural heritage. But should that be to the extent that it must be distorted in presentation?
So what are the counters to this? Intellectual rigor and debate are a good start. Another is simply the people themselves. Their physical remains tell the stories of their lives - brutish and short as they sometime are. We need not pursue those placed to rest by their contemporaries - there are chance discoveries or disturbances often enough in our development obsessed world . But we should make a respectful study of these remains before their re-internment. We can find their life histories not otherwise accessible to us - how long they lived, how many children women had, what stresses they placed on their bodies, their health, injuries and illnesses. Their DNA if it survives, can tell vast amounts more Too often a study is not happening and it is because of the exertion of power referred to above.
It is time for debate on that. Archaeologists should not forego this important window on the past and need to assert its value - and its particular value is that it is a strong dose of reality.