Archaeology and Authenticity in South African Heritage Locales and Public Spaces

Abstract

This article investigates the construction, display and consumption of archaeological authenticity at two museums and two heritage-themed entertainment locales in South Africa. I consider authenticity not simply as intrinsic, but as strongly framed by physical and conceptual locations, before audience experiences and post-colonial priorities. I use as case studies the Maropeng visitor centre at the Cradle of Humankind, the Origins Centre Museum at the University of the Witwatersrand, Sun City's Lost City, and the Monte Casino entertainment complex in northern Johannesburg.     

The Azazo Project: Archaeology and the Community in Ethiopia

Abstract

In this article we discuss the motivations, aims, and preliminary results of working with a local community in Ethiopia. Trying to escape from the (neo)colonial archaeology that is still practised in Africa, this project aims to achieve a cooperative and participative archaeology. This work with the community has been one of our main priorities in our last seasons, and although we have focused on elementary school and university students, we have opened up a number of different paths to follow in future years. The experience has been very positive, and engagement with local people has helped us to create awareness about the importance of cultural heritage, hopefully ensuring the future protection of the sites.     

Community Archaeology in Proto-Historical Tel Bareqet,Israel: School Children and Agency for Active Public Engagement in Cultural Heritage Projects

Abstract

Community archaeology has become very popular over the past decade, and community archaeology projects are yielding interesting results in many regions around the globe (Merriman, 2004). These projects seem to be gaining academic importance as well, and are considered by some people to be vital to the survival of archaeology as a whole (Marshall, 2002: 218).

Still, community archaeology projects often stir debate regarding their importance, role, and existence. A major theme of these discussions is the role played by the community. In particular, the question is often raised of what role, if any, should be given to non-professional local populations in a project's scientific decision-making.

The current article aims to present the controversy between two types of archaeological practices, 'archaeology from above' and 'archaeology from below' (Faulkner, 2000) through the examination of a community archaeological project in which schoolchildren constitute the community participants. The site of the excavation is Tel Bareqet, a 5000-year-old (Early Bronze Age II, c. 3050–2700 BCE) urban settlement located in central Israel. On the one hand, the excavation strives to maintain the highest scientific standard; on the other hand, it depends upon the participation of unskilled young people in the excavation process.

This article presents obstacles that have been encountered in this excavation, and describes the methodological framework that has been developed in order to overcome these obstacles and continue carrying out a successful community archaeology project.     

Saving the Sweet Track: The in situ preservation of a Neolithic wooden trackway,Somerset, UK

Abstract

The Sweet Track is the oldest known wooden trackway in Europe. Part of the trackway is preserved in situ in a nature reserve under an active system of hydrological management, designed to prevent damage to the monument from desiccation. The English Heritage-funded project, reported here, was established to assess the condition of the monument and the effectiveness of the management regime. The results have shown that although the trackway is highly deteriorated it still holds a wealth of archaeological information. The decay of the wood probably occurred gradually over several thousand years but the present management regime should be able to ensure its continued survival.     

Evaluating Community Archaeology in the UK

Abstract

Does community archaeology work? In the UK over the last decade, there has been a boom in projects utilising the popular phrase 'community archaeology'. These projects can take many different forms and have ranged from the public face of research and developer-funded programmes to projects run by museums, archaeological units, universities, and archaeological societies. Community archaeology also encapsulates those projects run by communities themselves or in dialogue between 'professional' and 'amateur' groups and individuals. Many of these projects are driven by a desire for archaeology to meet a range of perceived educational and social values in bringing about knowledge and awareness of the past in the present. These are often claimed as successful outputs of community projects. This paper argues that appropriate criteria and methodologies for evaluating the efficacy of these projects have yet to be designed. What is community archaeology for? Who is it for? And is it effectively meeting its targets? Focusing on the authors' experiences of directing community archaeology projects, together with the ongoing research assessing the efficacy of community archaeology projects in the UK, this paper aims to set out two possible methodologies: one of self-reflexivity, and one of ethnoarchaeological analysis for evaluating what community archaeology actually does for communities themselves.     

Living with Heritage: The Potentials of and Pressures on the Heritage Landscape of Gwollu,Upper West Region,Ghana

Abstract

The impact of development has been identified as one of the most pressing concerns in heritage management in Africa. At the same time, heritage has also been recognized as having the potential to bring tourists, and thus growth, to local economies. Communities that wish to benefit from the latter have to balance developmental pressures against the preservation of heritage, and various sectors of the community may view these priorities differently. In this paper, I discuss some of the potentials of, and pressures on, the heritage landscape of Gwollu, a town in Ghana's Upper West Region. I use Gwollu's brickmakers as a case study to illustrate the small-scale everyday development that can have a lasting impact on a town's heritage resources, and how internal divisions within communities may affect the heritage tourism process.     

Memory as Archaeology: An Experience of Public Archaeology in the Atacama Desert

Conducting archaeological projects in areas inhabited by Indigenous Communities who dislike both excavations and archaeologists leads to an ethical conundrum, one requiring a reconsideration of the research methodologies utilized in these settings, and a turn toward Public Archaeology as a means to find alternative pathways. This article describes a research project conducted in the Indigenous Atacameño Community of Peine, in the Atacama Desert, Chile, where, through a principal methodology of Participatory Action Research, it became possible to explore the past of this community in ways that were both meaningful and valid for its members. The results drawn from this experience differ markedly from traditional archaeological approaches (i.e. excavations, analysis of material culture), both in terms of the nature of the knowledge recovered and the temporal depth achieved. In this particular instance, collective remembrance and embodied memory featured prominently in accounting for the past of Peine.     

'[...] But it's Not Like I Know Anything About Them!': Immigrants in the Museum in Finland

Abstract

Museum education has undergone a profound transformation from the ideals of the Enlightenment through modernism to those of postmodernism. Museum visitors are no longer perceived as passive receivers of information provided by experts but as active learners who freely construct their own meanings, driven by their personal motivation. Museum education is no longer about educating the masses but facilitating learners in their individual learning processes. Learning outcomes are no longer to be measured by the amount of new information absorbed in an exhibition but by more abstract things: improved quality of life, increased awareness of one's own identity, and better self-esteem or increased ability to cope in society. The question is: how can museums provide their visitors with such learning possibilities? This article presents three projects that have been carried out at the Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova Museum in Turku, Finland, to test methods and models for increased personal experience and involvement, especially in facilitating interaction and understanding between cultures. As a result of this it is proposed that exhibitions and their related activities should be planned in such a way that they facilitate the self-on — the individual's projection and associations through involvement of emotions — thus facilitating connections between the exhibition and contemporary life.     

Scale Locality and the Caribbean Historical Archaeology

Historical archaeologists have become increasingly concerned with regional analysis focusing on the interconnections between different archaeological sites in order to develop a better sense of social relations. This development is in part due to the realization of many years of research and subsequent topical and theoretical syntheses. It also reflects a shifting concern in research towards fluidity of landscape and translocality (Hicks in World Archaeol 37:373–391, 2005; Lightfoot K (2005). University of California, Berkeley; Orser CE Jr (1996) A historical archaeology of the modern world. Plenum, New York; Wilkie LA, Farnsworth P (2005) Sampling many pots: an archaeology of memory and tradition at a Bahamian Plantation. University Press of Florida, Gainesville). The Caribbean as a world area highlights the need for broader regional analyses where tensions between local specificities and global/translocal processes are mediated. These tensions have been explored through discussions of identity, agency, colonialism and political economy. In this volume we explore the utility of scale of analysis in the framing of colonial landscapes between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in the Caribbean. Contributors to this volume have concentrated on the ways in which scale as a concept is explicitly analyzed or implicitly employed to shape how we as archaeologists focus on topics associated with the African Diaspora in the Caribbean to draw out narratives of everyday life.     

Historical Archaeology of France in the New World

The author introduces this special issue of the journal that is focused on the historical archaeology of French colonial and post-colonial settlements in the New World. Case studies from widely separated regions reveal both the similarities and differences that existed in French colonial and descendant communities.     

'Going Local in a Global World': Locating the Public and Evaluating the Synchronic Context in Archaeological Resource Management

Abstract

Locating, and effectively engaging with, the public is part of the discussions that have taken place in the last two decades of archaeological resource management, within the context of changing post-colonial, 'ethically correct', democratic and indigenous-orientated perceptions. This article briefly reviews this wide area of thinking, examining an alternative methodology for locating and engaging with the public based on the notion of 'local', before presenting some results from the island communities of the Aegean.     

Historical Archaeology and the Post-Columbian World of North America

Historical archaeology, with its interest in material culture and its use of the broader perspectives of anthropology and anthropological archaeology, has contributed to a distinctive understanding of the North American experience. Historical archaeologists have, to varying degrees, investigated the material traces of class, race, gender, and state formation. These studies provide an understanding of the origin of many of the social practices that undergird modern culture, a necessary, though neglected, case in a unified anthropological archaeology's goal of writing innovative world histories.     

Globalizing Flowscapes and the Historical Archaeology of the Mormon Domain

Historical archaeology within the Mormon Domain should focus upon the globalizing flowscapes defined by Arjun Appaduri: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes. This perspective moves archaeological scholarship away from attempts to identify a single “Mormon Culture Pattern” and illustrate that pattern's collapse to processes of Americanization and Globalization after Utah achieved statehood. By shifting the focus to the relationships of exchange organized using the flowscapes, the Mormon Domain becomes an ideal venue to explore the roots of globalization's bifurcating tendency to deterritorialize nations and regions by connecting local places with transnational population movements. This intellectual perspective will further align historical archaeology in Utah and the Great Basin with general trends in historical archaeology, New Western History, and New Mormon History.     

后疫情时代博物馆服务提升策略探究——以邯郸市博物馆为例

后疫情时代,博物馆服务出现了安全性作用更为凸显,观众观展需求强烈反弹,观众对服务质量的要求进一步提升等新特征,社会对博物馆承担的社会责任和义务有了更多的期待。博物馆既要有效发挥“大学校”和“城市会客厅”的服务功能,又要勇于承担应对和处理公共卫生事件的义务。为此,博物馆需要完善常态化防控机制,助力城市提升应对突发公共卫生事件的综合能力;在抗疫宣传、文物征集和科学研究等方面要因时而为、因势而为,回馈社会;通过线上和线下有效联动,丰富教育服务形式,充实活动内容,满足社会公众对文化产品更高层次的期待和要求,推动自身服务水平的提升。     

The Historical Tradition and Mission of Chinese Archaeology

Chinese President Xi Jinping, gave an important speech describing the great achievements and significance of Chinese archaeology, pointing out the way forward for the development of Chinese archaeology in the new era. By reviewing the century-long history of Chinese archaeology, its historical tradition and the mission of the times are distinctive. Since 1949, under the guidance of archaeological culture theory and regional systems and cultural types theory, Chinese archaeology has made a series of significant achievements and taken up the mission of the times in inheriting historical traditions and exploring major issues including the origins of Chinese civilization. The current development of Chinese archaeology should further the historical tradition of Chinese archaeology under the guidance of the spirit of Xi Jinping’s speech. From a longitudinal perspective, Chinese archaeology should strengthen the research on the origin of Chinese civilization and its characteristics, development trajectory, major landmark achievements, and the way of civilization inheritance after its formation, especially to strengthen the exploration of how the“5,000-year continuous unity” was formed after the unification of the Qin and Han dynasties. From a horizontal perspective, with the Belt and Road Initiative as the main thread, we should continue to strengthen archaeological research on cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, advocate mutual appreciation of civilizations, tell the Chinese story well, and contribute Chinese historical wisdom and experience to the world. On the whole, we should strengthen the theoretical construction and ability training of archaeology, strive to build Chinese archaeology with salient Chinese features, style, and ethos, and realize the historical mission of the new era of the Centennial“Chinese Dream.”     

职业道德语境下博物馆的公众服务功能

为社会公众提供优质的服务,无疑是所有现代意义博物馆的天职,其对博物馆事业健康发展的重要性是毋庸置疑的。博物馆公众服务功能的发挥需要多维度的考虑,既有诸如《博物馆条例》等制度性设计作为保障,更要有博物馆职业道德准则的自律与约束,而后者是衡量博物馆行业是否成熟的重要标准。在博物馆界,《国际博物馆协会博物馆职业道德准则》被公认为博物馆及其从业者的最低标准,比较清晰地反映了当代博物馆发展的新形势和新要求。它的相关原则在博物馆公众服务领域的引入,不仅约定了博物馆与公众的关系,弥补了博物馆法律工具的滞后性,而且帮助博物馆在利益博弈中做出正确判断。值得关注的是,中国博物馆在引入上述职业道德准则的过程中,如何制定资助和创收政策,如何解读和展示敏感文化物品,如何尊重所处或所服务的社区,如何对待非传统服务对象等,仍需要业界理性面对、深入讨论。     

Presenting the San Hunter-Gatherer Past to the Public: A View from the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park,South Africa

Abstract

The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (UDP) was declared a World Heritage Site in 2000 on the basis of its magnificent scenery, biodiversity, and archaeological richness, comprising a rich corpus of rock paintings and occupation deposits relating to the San hunter-gatherers. The desire to encourage heritage tourism to the UDP following the declaration, along with the wish to present a more positive picture of the San hunter-gatherers, led to the development of the Kamberg (in 2002) and Didima Rock Art Centres (in 2003). These centres, together with the Main Caves visitor attraction, which had been redeveloped in 1998, distinguish the UDP as the premier region in South Africa for the interpretation of the San past. Cognizant of the critical role that public interpretation plays in the management of archaeological resources, this paper investigates which aspects of the archaeological record have been stressed and which have been overlooked, the relationship between the interpretations and the findings of UDP archaeological research since the 1970s, and whether these findings enhance the significance and value of the resources and thereby promote their management. It is shown that the overall interpretive emphasis is on rock art and that information derived from Later Stone Age hunter-gatherer excavations since the 1970s have been neglected. Furthermore, it is revealed that the display of Early and Middle Stone Age material at Didima is inconsistent with regional archaeological findings and that there is a neglect of local archaeological remains. It is concluded that the development of any further attractions should be based on an interpretive plan which considers the interpretive requirements of the region as a whole.     

Mortimer Wheeler's Theatre of the Past

Abstract

This paper examines the nature of Mortimer Wheeler's work as a public archaeologist, and in particular his efforts to display the archaeological process to interested members of the public. By focusing on the excavations at Maiden Castle, Dorset, from 1934 to 1937 we compare Wheeler's stated philosophy of public archaeology with his practice in the field. At Maiden Castle the theatre of excavation was the centrepiece of a carefully marketed archaeological experience including tours, souvenirs, and a well-developed media strategy. By applying the commodity model of public archaeology as an analytical framework we highlight the sophistication and success of Wheeler's 'theatre of the past'. This analysis lays a foundation for further critical historical studies of both the public understanding of the past, and of Wheeler's life and works.     

The Public Communication of Science and Non-Formal Education Within the Framework of Public Argentine Archaeology: The Case of Archaeology Workshops

Abstract

This article presents and analyses a method of public communication in archaeology carried out by a group of researchers within a non-formal educational framework, as a contribution to public archaeology in Argentina. This project included diverse activities, such as archaeology workshops for children and teenagers, which took place in museums in four cities located in three regions: Paraná (North-east), Tres Arroyos and Lobería (Pampas), and Lamarque (Patagonia). A conceptual evaluation is presented based on the application of a non-participational observation methodology, that includes the analysis of posters made by those attending the workshop and surveys conducted by the archaeologists at the culmination of the activity. This study suggests that workshops can be one of the most effective strategies employed by researchers to publicly communicate archaeology, and therefore can be of use to other research teams that have as their objective the democratization of knowledge generated in scienti?c-academic spheres.     

Places of Power: Control,Public Access and Authenticity at Rock Carvings in Tanum,Sweden and Val Camonica,Italy

Abstract

This article presents a critical and ethnographically directed discussion and comparison of how the World Heritage listed rock carvings at Tanum, Sweden and Val Camonica, Italy are managed and made accessible to the public. The article focuses on how the Swedish and Italian heritage management cultures view the rock carvings as an authentic (i.e. genuine) phenomenon firmly, and solely, belonging to the past and how this contemporary embedded and constructed narrative leads to specific ways of managing, constructing, organizing, presenting, and staging these places for the public. The article stresses that even if the rock carvings were produced in the past, their authenticity is also a product of their role in contemporary negotiations of interpretive supremacy, control, and power between the culture of heritage management and the public. An ethnographical approach, and ethnographical methods, are used. This approach has implications for archaeology and its public relations; in the light of it, activities and phenomena that seem to be completely normal are revealed as examples of the specific culture of contemporary archaeology and heritage management. It is stressed that this culture and its rituals need to be further examined from an ethnographic point of departure.