Cornelius Holtorf

Notes on the Life History of a Pot Sherd

This article discusses various life history approaches in archaeology: short life histories study the lives of things in the past (until they end up in the ground), long life histories study these lives going on until the present. Both approaches share the assumption that although people are free to give to a thing any meaning they want, their material essence necessarily remains unchanged. As an alternative, I present an ethnographic approach, studying the ‘life’ of a pot sherd on an excavation project. All the thing’s properties and characteristics, including its material identity and age, are taken to be the outcome of processes taking place in the present. The data presented shows in some detail how ‘momentary, fluid and flexible’ archaeological classifications and interpretations of material culture are. It emerges that the material identities ascribed to things are not their essential properties but the result of specific relationships of people and things: their very materiality is potentially multiple and has a history.

Beyond crusades: how (not) to engage with alternative archaeologies

Abstract Archaeologists have often felt uneasy when encountering alternative (fringe, cult, fantastic, pseudo-) archaeologies. Some have suggested that alternative approaches and their results must be disproved, while others have been calling for better public understanding of science. My contribution takes a different point of view. I emphasize the social and cultural needs that both scientific and alternative archaeologies address and suggest that the main significance of archaeology does not lie in the specific insights gained about the past but in the very process of engaging with the material remains of the past in the present. Critical understanding and dialogue, not dismissive polemics, is the appropriate way to engage with the multiple pasts and alternative archaeologies in contemporary society.

Can less be more? Heritage in the age of terrorism.

Abstract Western civilization does not have a particularly good track record of saving cultural heritage from destruction, but in recent centuries it has surrounded itself with a rather firm ideology of conservation and preservation. This paper is meant as a caution against a fundamentalist ideology of heritage-preservationism. It discusses some inherent contradictions in how heritage is treated in the modern world, some mutually exclusive ways of consuming heritage involving both destruction and preservation, and some double standards regarding the appreciation of drastic destruction in the past and the condemnation of vandalism and iconoclasm in the present. It is argued that the current appeal of preservation is more a product of history than the appeal of history could be said to be a product of preservation. Destruction and loss are not the opposite of heritage but part of its very substance. It is not the acts of vandals and iconoclasts that are challenging sustainable notions of heritage, but the inability of both academic and political observers to understand and theorize what heritage does, and what is done to it, within the different realities that together make up our one world.

On Pastness: A Reconsideration of Materiality in Archaeological Object Authenticity

This article argues for a modified constructivist approach to archaeological object authenticity which takes the objects materiality seriously. This is accomplished by defining authenticity not in relation to the age of an object but to its age-value, i.e., the quality or condition of being (of the) past-its pastness. Pastness is the result of a particular perception or experience. It derives from, among others, material clues indicating wear and tear, decay, and disintegration. These material clues, and thus the presence of pastness, can be created entirely in the present.

Landscapes and memories.

All landscapes are ‘historical’, provided that they are now – or were once – altered, inhabited, visited, or interpreted by people. Indeed, the problematic and theoretically flawed use of the terms ‘historical landscapes’ and ‘historical archaeology’ presume that only societies with written sources have ‘history’ embedded in, and mediated through, their landscapes. In fact, it can be argued that very few parts of the world do not fulfil the criterion of being ‘historical landscapes’; landscapes in which the past accumulates or is created through human action. Since landscapes can embody memories, and therefore be ‘historical’ in many different ways, this historical dimension of practically all landscapes can be actualised through material remains or knowledgeable understanding, evoking the past in the mind of the beholder (Schama 1995) and through social practice and inhabitation (Ingold 2000a). Moreover, we cannot even restrict historical landscapes to the study of human action and transformation since the ‘natural’ landscape is often itself ‘read’ by people as the result of the actions of past generations, ancestors, ancient peoples or supernatural forces (Bradley 2000). In as much as they can thus evoke, or indeed hide, the past, landscapes are linked to socially or culturally mediated remembrance and memory. By memory, we refer to the increasingly common conceptualisation of ‘social memory’ as collective representations of the past and associated social practices rather than personal recollection (see Connerton 1989; Samuel 1994). By landscape we refer to the inhabited or perceived environments of human communities in the past and present incorporating both natural and artificial elements (see Ingold 2000a; Lynch 1972).

Averting loss aversion in cultural heritage

According to Daniel Kahneman’s theory of loss aversion in behavioural economics and decision theory, people tend to prefer strongly avoiding losses to acquiring gains of the same value. A recently proposed alternative explanation of the same behaviour is inertia. In this paper, I am heuristically transferring these observations from the realm of economics to the realm of cultural heritage. In the cultural heritage sector of the Western world there has long been a preference for avoiding losses over acquiring gains of the same value. Maintenance of the status quo of cultural heritage is typically perceived as being superior to loss or substitution. However, social anthropologist Tim Ingold recently advocated a view that challenges this preference for loss aversion by considering both people and buildings as something persistent, continuously re-born, and constantly growing and going through a process of ever new creative transformations. By appreciating heritage objects as persistent and continuously being transformed in ongoing processes of change, growth and creation, the preference for loss aversion can be averted and a more dynamic view of cultural heritage be adopted that is better able to work through cases and examples like those presented in this paper.

Can You Hear Me At the Back? Archaeology, Communication and Society

AbstractArchaeologists often enjoy the role of giving the people what the people want, at least, so long as that is information about the past. But besides the ambition to enlighten people about the past, there are at least two alternative approaches concerning the way archaeology communicates with its publics in society. One considers archaeology a business and sees people as potential customers who need to be persuaded to buy the products of archaeology. Another approach advocates democratic participation of people in archaeology and wishes to accommodate peoples own preferences regarding archaeological studies. The point of this article is not to choose between these different models of communication but to ensure that future debates about the relations between archaeology and society will be informed by a better understanding of some fundamentally different approaches concerning the aims and character of archaeologys communication with various public audiences. Hopefully this discussion will also be...

Endangerment and Conservation Ethos in Natural and Cultural Heritage: The Case of Zoos and Archaeological Sites

In recent years, various external circumstances such as environmental pollution and urban development have been emphasised as threats to the conservation of both wild animals and ancient remains in the ground. This has been taken as an argument for the need to protect both endangered animal species and threatened archaeological sites. Nowadays, zoos often evoke the image of Noah’s Ark and describe themselves as sanctuaries for endangered species. Similarly, archaeologists are increasingly advocating ‘preservation in situ’ and tell the public about the importance of safeguarding ancient sites for the benefit of future generations. A short case study juxtaposes the conservation efforts concerning weathering rock carvings in Bohuslän in Sweden with rescue operations conducted by the zoo Nordens Ark (Nordic Ark) in the same area. We reveal the similarities in argumentation and discourse between conservation campaigns in zoos and in archaeology, and also discuss specific conservation strategies in both fields. In conclusion we question whether the rhetoric of conservation is always more than an attempt to jump on the ‘Green’ bandwagon in order to gain additional public support and legitimacy. We argue that humans today have a very real desire to help save scarce resources on our planet. Both zoos and archaeology provide opportunities for people to gain satisfaction by supporting the conservation ethos.

Meta-stories of archaeology

Abstract I argue that archaeologists contribute most to the contemporary ‘experience society’ when they tell stories. Such stories well told may be either about what happened in the past or about how archaeology proceeds. Far more significant, however, are the meta-stories of archaeology. These are defined as stories of archaeology in which contemporary audiences themselves feature as characters, engulfed in a plot about archaeology or the past that gives meaning and perspective to their present-day lives. Such meta-stories may draw on metaphorical meanings that resonate in the practices of professional archaeology. In this paper, however, the emphasis is put on another type of meta-story that explores, in relation to the past, what it means to be human, who we are as members of a particular human group and how we might be living under different circumstances. I argue that archaeologists need to get better at understanding and critically appreciating the overarching meta-stories they evoke. For archaeology matters when its meta-stories matter.

What Does Not Move Any Hearts – Why Should It Be Saved? The Denkmalpflegediskussion in Germany

What Does Not Move Any Hearts – Why Should It Be Saved? The Denkmalpflegediskussion in Germany