Margarita Díaz-Andreu

Turismo y arqueología. Una mirada histórica a una relación silenciada

The Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries saw the development of the professionalization of archaeology and also the emergence of government interest in the tourism industry. Researchers have analyzed these two phenomena as if they were separate processes; the first centered on increased knowledge of the national past and the second focused on the economic benefit brought by leisure activities. This paper analyzes whether these two developments, archaeological tourism and the professionalization of archeology, have actually evolved independently of each other. Preliminary research suggests that they have not, at least in some countries, especially in those with monumental ruins. This paper analyzes the possible relationship between these developments and the extent to which they are connected, first to nationalism and more recently to commodification.

Heritage Values and the Public

The term ‘heritage values’ refers to the meanings and values that individuals or groups of people bestow on heritage (including collections, buildings, archaeological sites, landscapes and intangib...

Introduction to the themed section ‘digital heritage and the public’

Abstract This introductory essay for the themed issue “Digital Heritage and the Public” begins by alluding to the profound effect of the digital revolution in how society manages the production, administration, publication and access to information. The effect on heritage is noticeable in all fields. The process of digitalisation, traceable from the early days in the 1960s, is increasingly impinging on the relationship between the professionals and the public. Critics have debated on the advantages and challenges of the digital revolution in the heritage field. Related to that discussion, in this themed issue the first article by Taylor and Gibson questions whether the assumption often made inextricably linking the digital media with democracy is correct. This contribution is followed by two others in focusing on case studies of use of digital media in heritage. Mazel explains about three projects in which their use has facilitated access and encouraged public participation to rock art sites in Northern England. In the last article of this issue, Purkis argues that in the ‘Local People’ exhibition she organised in Derry/Londonderry, digital media allowed the creation of heritage out of people’s ordinary lives. This way of disrupting ideas of heritage also turned the museum into a contact zone, a place for cultural and social mediation.

Heritage and Migration in Barcelona: Building Constructive Citizenship

Spain is a country in which several nationalisms are in competition. In opposition to an encompassing Spanish nationalism, others claim their national uniqueness in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia. For two centuries, the work of archaeologists has provided data for the creation of the various national discourses. Nationalisms in Spain are mainly based on language, territory, a distinct historical development, and culture. These nationalisms are not monolithic, unchanging discourse, and in each of them there are competing views. National discourse, in practice, changes continuously and needs to be constantly recreated. Recently, nationalisms in Spain have faced a new challenge: the massive arrival of immigrants. In the last two decades the composition of the population has changed dramatically in all parts of Spain. The rapid expansion of the Spanish economy from the 1980s to 2007 required new labor. In 2000 only c. 2 % of the total population in Spain was foreign; a decade later this percentage had increased to 12.2 % (2011 figure). This chapter discusses archaeologists’ reaction to immigration with its resulting transformation in the makeup of the population in Spain, using as a case-study the Barcelona area.

Hearing rock art landscapes: a survey of the acoustical perception in the Sierra de San Serván area in Extremadura (Spain)

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the augmented audibility of distant sounds that is experienced in some rock art sites. We propose a method developed in acoustical physics to measure this acoustic phenomenon, the Transmission Loss (TL) analysis. We have assessed the validity of the method in our study area, the Sierra de San Serván in the region of Extremadura (Spain), an area where from the hundreds of shelters only sixty five were decorated with Schematic art during prehistory. The analysis undertaken in it has provided unequivocal data that indicate that augmented audibility of distant sounds seemed to be a factor considered by the prehistoric artists for the selection of rock art shelters to paint in. This is especially made clear when a comparison between the results obtained in shelters with rock art and others in the same area without it is made. From all the sites one stands out, that of Las Palomas 2, with the best results. This site is also special for other features that no other site in the area has in terms of difficult access and high visibility.

Rock art and prehistoric soundscapes: Some results from Italy, France, and Spain

Under the axis of the SONART project—Sounds of Rock Art. Archaeoacoustics and post-palaeolithic Schematic art in the Western Mediterranean—a series of acoustic tests have been undertaken in seven rock art areas of Italy, France and Spain. The early chronology of this art—Neolithic and Chalcolithic—makes that no information exists about the reasons prehistoric peoples had to produce the art and the beliefs surrounding its creation. This means that in order to check whether sound is related to this cultural manifestation, formal methods need to be used. This also affects the analysis of sound for, in contrast to other areas of the world such as the circumpolar area, no legends or myths can be found to explain the link between art and special reverberation or echoes. Related to the latter, the results of our experiments to assess the direction of arrival (DOA) of echoes will be explained for the rock art landscapes of Valle d’Idivoro (Italy) and Baume Brune (France). The location of rock art in sites where t...

Interacting with Heritage: Social Inclusion and Archaeology in Barcelona

In this article we will analyse a community festival in which the Public Archaeology and Heritage Group (GAPP, Grup dArqueologia Pública i Patrimoni) participated. As GAPP members, we helped to organize a street parade for this festival (the 4th Rua Xic, in 2014) which ended at the Museu dArqueologia de Catalunya (MAC, or Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia) where a short play with an historical theme was performed. Based on this participatory experience, we aim to ponder the limits and possibilities of heritage in triggering critical thinking, even when archaeologists take a secondary role. We discovered that even when people access the past in an uninformed way, with ‘heritage’ in an ancillary role, it can help resolve social tensions and positively reinforce community identity.

Do You Hear What I See? Analyzing Visibility and Audibility in the Rock Art Landscape of the Alicante Mountains of Spain

This article examines the relationship between rock art landscapes and perception. It pays particular attention to vision and hearing, the two key senses for landscape awareness. Given the importance of scale in the study of rock art landscapes, a distinction is made between the adjacent landscape and the broader territorial scale. Several methodological improvements are suggested, including the importance of clipping viewsheds in GIS analysis and measuring directionality instead of orientation of the rock art shelters. In our case-study we explore the rock art landscape of the Alicante Mountains (northeastern Spain) during the Neolithic period (ca. 5600 to 2800 cal bc). A new interpretation of how the cognitive and symbolic behavior of communities changed over time is offered. We argue that the analysis of perception in rock art landscapes can provide novel ways of understanding communities’ distinctive appropriation of their landscapes, linking both the tangible and intangible aspects of their culture.

Ethnic Identity and Ethnicity in Archaeology

In this article, ethnicity is defined as that aspect of a persons self-conceptualization and his or her conceptualization by other individuals that results from identification with one or more broader groups, on the basis of perceived cultural differentiation and belief in a common descent. This definition understands ethnicity as multidimensional, situational, and fluid and makes its link with material culture much more complex than traditionally perceived. Within the last decade, the term ‘community’ has been introduced into archaeology to refer to a social collective that shares a geographical space and many have agreed that it is a useful concept. For archaeologists, talking about communities instead of ethnic groups circumvents the problem of assigning an ethnic identity to groups for which only material culture remains.