Christopher Prescott

Identities and Heritage: Contemporary Challenges in a Globalized World

The great acceleration of globalizing forces presents those in the heritage field with a series of urgent challenges. Chief among them is the weakness of contemporary mechanisms for addressing collective global issues. With the appearance of a distinctive form of “global politics” marked by intense interconnectivity within transnational frameworks, global problems cannot be resolved by any one nation-state or people. Collective and collaborative action is required, yet problem-solving capacities at the local, regional, and global levels are partial and incomplete.

Is there an alternative to the nation state

Academic developments, migration and other forces of globalization have ruptured the validity of traditional national and ethnic archaeology in the Scandinavian states. However, this does not mean that the relationship between nation states and archaeology has come to an end. In reference to Norway, this article contends that on a practical level there is no viable alternative to replace the nation state. In terms of archaeological narratives, it is more relevant to adapt archaeological narratives to the evolving state than to advocate abandoning the nation state altogether.

Economic and social zones during the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age in Jæren, Southwest Norway. Reconstructing large-scale land-use patterns

Zusammenfassung Basierend auf einer Untersuchung der ökologischen und archäologischen Hinterlassenschaften für Jæren, Südwest-Norwegen, wird vorgeschlagen, dass der Übergang zu einer agrar-pastoralen Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft am Übergang vom mittleren zum späten Neolithikum (2400–2350 v. Chr.) erfolgte und es in Folge zu einer raschen Strukturierung der besiedelten Kulturlandschaften kam. In den folgenden Jahrzehnten und Jahrhunderten entwickelte sich die Gesellschaft auf dieser Basis fort. >Eines der charakteristischen Merkmale der damaligen Landschaften ist, dass diese umfassend in das soziale und rituelle Leben integriert wurden, was auf lokaler Ebene zu einer Zonierung der Landschaft mit jeweils deutlichen Unterschieden in den wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und kulturellen Ausdrucksformen führte. In den offenen, gras- und heidedominierten Küstenzonen manifestiert sich der Befund auf monumentaler und ritueller Ebene, während geeignete quartäre Lagerstätten als Zonen unterschiedlich intensiven Getreideanbaus genutzt wurden. Die beschriebenen Landschaften entwickelten sich als Reaktion auf eine nachhaltige Wirtschaftspraxis, die eine kontinuierliche Ausweitung der Beweidung, eine Intensivierung der Getreideproduktion und den Zugang zu Kommunikationswegen umfasste. Unterschiede im Nutzungsdruck, in der Produktion und in der Wirtschaftsstrategie spiegeln eine Reihe von Umweltparametern wider. Somit korrelieren die Aktivitätszonen weitgehend mit physikalischen Eigenschaften der Landschaft, was offensichtlich sowohl einen adaptiven Aspekt in der Wirtschaft als auch Muster einer umfassenden Ressourcenausnutzung der Zonen widerspiegelt, etwa in der Kombination von Getreideproduktion, Wanderweidewirtschaft, Jagd und Zugang zu maritimen Engstellen. Zur Interpretation schlagen die Autoren ein Modell sozialer und wirtschaftlicher Organisationen und Interaktionen in der Region Jæren vor, basierend auf den Verteilungen mehrerer Kategorien archäologischer Funde. Das Modell präsentiert eine Reihe voneinander abhängiger Zonen innerhalb einer einheitlichen, aber diversifizierten Wirtschaft mit Querschnittsaktivitäten und Mobilitätsmustern. Der präsentierte Ansatz stellt eine Alternative zu bestehenden Hierarchiemodellen innerhalb begrenzter Gebiete dar. Die Landschaftszonierung in Jæren ähnelt jener in Westskandinavien, einschließlich Jütlands, Dänemark. Aus diesem Grund war die Einführung einer subsistenzorientierten, Feldbau und Weidewirtschaft kombinierenden Landwirtschaft in Jæren von externen Impulsen abhängig.

Christopher Prescott: Ancient Scandinavia. An Archaeological History from the First Humans to the Vikings

The backbone of undergraduate courses in Scandinavian archaeology was until recently a set of national volumes about Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland’s prehistory. These volumes also target the interested layman and are chronologically organized, usually starting with a quaternary background and the oldest potential finds (often dubious, like Blomvåg outside Bergen). Following the sub-division of the three-period system, these volumes present the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and usually end in the Viking Age. The chronological narrative within periods is more or less systematically and empirically organized around individual or groups of finds, sites or find categories. These are described and lead to an interpretative narrative of life at a given time and place, changes, migrations and enigmas. Lacking in explicit theoretical discourse, weak on methodology (but frequently with a dose of Scandinavian source critique) and usually avoiding contentious positions, these books were authoritative exponents of (and building blocks for reproducing) national and institutional schools of archaeological research. They were also written by leading authorities in the national archaeological organizations – organizations that integrated research, training, excavation, museums, management and heritage politics. At their best these books are also excellent literature (e.g. Johannes Brøndsted’s Danmarks Oldtid [Brøndsted 1957, 1958, 1960], Mårten Stenberger’s Den forntida Sverige [Stenberger 1964], Ella Kivikoski’s Suomen Esihistoria [Kivikoski 1961] and Anders Hagen’s Norges Oldtid [Hagen 1967]), and sometimes captivatingly illustrated. Later generations of national prehistory volumes of the 1980s and 1990s were perhaps of a more mixed literary standard, but the level of artwork, illustration and pedagogical quality grew with time. These volumes were meant to be monuments to the nations and their past, but they (or the abbreviated student volumes that were spun off) were actually highly useful for students of archaeology – you had a place to go for an answer or a comprehensive story. They served to create a common archaeological platform across the national borders – either as a canon or as a referential point of departure for critique. They provided Scandinavian archaeology with a sense of certainty, in a way substituting the archaeology itself with textual renditions. There were and are, however, inherent problems with these volumes. The traditional national and ethnic projects are ostensibly abandoned, or are at least in the throes of transformation. There have been theoretical and epistemological developments that rendered these ‘objective’ authoritative narratives, if not obsolete, difficult to produce in a single volume. There is no longer a single authoritative narrative. On a practical level the production of archaeological knowledge through field research, laboratory analyses, ecological research and theoretically driven interpretation continues at an accelerating rate, and is increasingly fragmented. Monumental books are rapidly outdated and challenged by instantly updated and multivocal digital media. An analogy is found in the national encyclopaedia projects, multi-volume collections of expert knowledge produced by prestigious national publishers. The rate of knowledge turnover and digital technology pretty much put an end to them. Perhaps most importantly, archaeology and prehistory as interpretation about what went on in the past does not really fit national or contemporary ethnic boundaries very well – even though prehistory continues and will continue to play a role in the constitution

Bronze casting and cultural connections: Bronze Age workshops at Hunn, Norway

Zusammenfassung Die Autoren präsentieren zwei separierte Metallwerkplätze auf dem Gräberfeldareal von Hunn in Østfold, südöstliches Norwegen. Diskutiert werden Produktionsumfang, -charakter und kultureller Kontext der Funde. Eine dieser Örtlichkeiten, der Fundplatz von Midtfeltet, repräsentiert den für Skandinavien umfangreichsten bronzezeitlichen Metallwerkplatz. Die Fundstellen befinden sich in einer Region, aus der kaum vergleichbare Bronzeartefakte vorliegen, was aber auf die paradoxe Situation innerhalb der norwegischen Bronzezeit hinweist, dass Örtlichkeiten der Herstellung und Verarbeitung von Bronze nicht mit jenen Regionen zusammenfallen, in denen die Mehrzahl bronzener Artefakte ihren Hauptniederschlag fanden. Die bronzezeitlichen Werkstätten und Monumente in Hunn liegt in einer vom späten Neolithikum geprägten Region, in der auch nach der Bronzezeit noch weitere Bestattungen erfolgten und Rituale durchgeführt wurden. Vorkommen unverhütteten Kupfers in bronzezeitlichen Kontexten können als Indikator für den Handel mit Rohstoffen gewertet werden, was ebenso seinen Nachweis findet durch Spuren in Schmelztiegeln anderer zentraler Werkplätze Skandinaviens. Hunn war mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit mit seinen zwei Werkstattbereichen und Anzeichen einer spezialisierten Metallverarbeitung – etwa durch Vorprodukte – ein regionales Zentrum für die handwerkliche Produktion und den Austausch unterschiedlicher Güter. Zu anderen nordischen Fundplätzen mit Metallverarbeitung lässt sich hohes Maß an Übereinstimmung erkennen hinsichtlich des metallurgischen Know-hows, der Schmelztechnologien, der Typologie vorgefundener Artefakte, aber auch bezüglich symbolischer Dekorationen. Alle diese Merkmale deuten auf spezialisierte Handwerker, die vor Ort ihre Tätigkeit ausübten. In diesem Kontext zu erwähnen ist neben einer lokalen Keramikproduktion mit Parallelen in den Ostseeraum sowie einer Lausitz-inspirierten Keramik noch eine frühe Brandbestattung bei Midtfeltet. Der Artikel konzentriert sich auf die Ergebnisse mehrerer Grabungskampagnen in den Jahren 1996–2006 bei Midtfeltet auf einer Fläche von insgesamt etwa 400 m2. Geborgen wurden erhebliche Mengen an hitzebeständiger und sonstiger Keramik, Abfällen der Metallverarbeitung sowie Flint und Tierknochen. Mittels Radiokarbonanalysen kann der Fundplatz in einen Zeitraum von 1300–700 v. Chr. datiert werden.

The Future Challenges of Heritage and Identity in a Globalized World

Heritage and identity studies provide a voice for archaeology and anthropology in ongoing conversations among academic disciplines that have, in recent decades, significantly influenced policy and decision making at national and global levels. Contributors to this book have written about how the past is introduced into the present. Implicit in each chapter is the position that the past is indeed prologue if it is not cast as unrelated events, and that heritage knits together past events in a pattern that is inevitably used to imagine and therefore set a course for the future. Heritage can do this for individual communities that are united by local concerns in ways designed to privilege those communities, but it can also be informed by archaeology and anthropology, becoming a means by which to generate the global public good of knowledge. Many realms of scholarship concerned with the ways that humans are organized into societies, including economics, political science, and legal studies, have borrowed heavily from anthropology in developing arguments and positions that are now elemental in public discourse. A review of how this was done suggests the challenges that must be met in order to reinvigorate the use of archaeological materials in an anthropological approach to heritage and identity for the intellectual and practical benefit of academe and the public at large.

Miriam T. Stark, Brenda J. Bowser and Lee Horne: Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking down Boundaries

tion of the term ‘materiality’, which is elsewhere often left as self-explanatory or hovers conveniently in the abstract. As Lucas argues, materiality is rarely defined explicitly, and, while he engages in an extensive discussion of the terms, it is not entirely clear how he sees the relationship between ‘material culture’, ‘materiality’ and ‘materialization’ that are central to his discussion. He refers to the current mainstream understanding of materiality as the social aspects of things, but how exactly is this different from ‘material culture’? At any rate, it is curious to note that Lucas argues that ‘the very concept of materiality perhaps becomes more of a burden than a benefit’ (p. 167). While providing a very thorough and useful introduction to historical understandings of the archaeological record, some readers may feel that chapters 2–4 turn too much into a retrospective account, containing a large amount of reviewing in which the author’s voice falls into the background. The book works best in the parts where the author is situated more clearly and is less ‘polite’, and this is due to Lucas’s ability to be nuanced in his critique and in respectful disagreement with the works and scholars under criticism. Thus, there seems to be a shift in writing style midway through the book (in the course of chapter 4), where it changes from being rather descriptive tomore debating and deconstructing, subsequently offering the outline of a new archaeological theory. When the writing style changes, the book becomes more engaging and maybe more motivated, at least in my experience of the text as a piece of literature. Lucas always does justice to the works he is discussing without rejecting ideas in any simplistic manner, despite the very wide horizon in the historical landscape he embraces in Understanding the Archaeological Record. The question is of course, at the end of the day, whether Lucas’s proposition for a rethinking of the archaeological record works. A major asset in the volume is his call to take archaeology more seriously as a discipline. This is not an argument against fertile cross-disciplinary dialogues or imports, but instead an insistence that archaeology has something to offer in its own right if we make the empirical roots and the archaeological practice count. Lucas makes a strong case for vitalizing and forging the otherwise fragmented elements of archaeological data, processes, materiality and intervention into the notion of one imbricated archaeological record. One of the strongest aspects of this suggestion is that it allows for a better understanding not only of how the record is formed in the past and in archaeology, but also how it dissolves and disappears. The processes of materialization and dematerialization, assembling and disassembling are crucial as integrated events, and might open up new attitudes to archaeological absences. The book is, mainly, clearly written and easily read without being simplifying or banal. It should be of relevance for advanced students reading for the history of archaeological ideas, concepts and theory, and to all archaeologists interested in the conceptual and practical formation of the archaeological object of study, or the ‘record’. Not least,Understanding the Archaeological Record encourages us all to think critically about what we do as archaeologists.

Introduction: Issues Concerning Heritage in the Context of Globalization

Our contemporary world is in the throes of accelerating transformation usually subsumed under the title of “globalization.” This process has numerous interconnected driving forces and fields of impact—fields and forces that structure and are structured by each other: instant global information flows, globalized economies, economic competition and labor markets, political structures, and ideological streams. Sociopolitical forces impact globally, creating global migration and global interaction. For heritage management, as well as for heritage studies, policy-making, and public outreach, this situation increasingly challenges us to meet common problems and possibilities—to understand potentials and limitations of developing information technologies, the politics and sociology of various management structures, the politics of heritage impact on various public stakeholders and identities, and the impact and limitations of the managerial tool of jurisprudence.

Heritage and the New Immigrant Minorities: A Catalyst of Relevance for Contemporary Archaeology?

In Europe, the development of archaeology and cultural heritage is often bound up with projects associated with the consolidation of nation states, and national and regional identities. This symbiotic relationship has a 150-year-long success rate. From the 1960s to 1970s the use of this recipe has been expanded to political projects related to indigenous groups. The concept of identity is still used to ground legislation and award financial support. Ironically, simplistic ascription of contemporary ethnic or national identities to the prehistoric record is widely regarded as theoretically dubious within the professional archaeological community. Furthermore, the identity narrative is conceivably rendered increasingly irrelevant in western and northern Europe due to the large immigrant groups from outside the continent—immigration that is also changing perceptions of relevance among younger members of the European population. Questions concerning archaeology and identity, and the narratives we tell the public, are thus becoming more acute. Based on the case study of contemporary Norway, the article sketches the conceptual basis for heritage work and the resulting archaeological narratives in a dramatically changed, globalized Europe and discusses implications for academic, public outreach, political and ethical practices.

The Future of Heritage in a Globalized World

Heritage is a wide array of concepts and symbols. In our contemporary world materialized heritage is becoming increasingly important—perhaps a response to a world of unprecedented transformation, where the material and immaterial is conceived as a balance to the transience of nonmaterial institutions. Archaeological monuments, objects, and interpretations are among the most important categories used in this ongoing regeneration, amendment, and creation of historical narratives. As heritage enters a more explicit place in the contemporary social, cultural, and political dialogue, and what is subsumed under the heading “heritage” is expanded to encompass just about everything, what is subsumed under the concept and how it is generated become hazy, and the connotations in its use become slippery.