Collaborate, Condemn, or Ignore? Responding to Non-Archaeological Approaches to Archaeological Heritage

Abstract

What do archaeologists do when approached by groups or individuals with unorthodox, or even simply inappropriate, approaches to, and ideas about the past? What should they do? While much guidance and literature points to education and engagement, in some of the more sensitive or difficult cases it is often more appealing, and simpler, to ignore the issue, in the hopes that it will simply go away. Similarly, on occasions when archaeologists step forward to criticize alternative approaches to archaeological heritage, this does not always meet with positive or desired results. In this paper, in light of recent personal experience with a controversial piece of television programming, I discuss different approaches to responding to challenges to the expertise (and authority) of archaeologists by problematic encounters with concepts of the past. I suggest that while there are arguments in support of (and against) all three of the approaches that I identify (collaboration, condemnation, or ignoring), none provide an absolute solution. In order to discuss these approaches, I draw upon key cases from the literature, as well as personal reflection.

Crowdsourcing cultural heritage: public participation and conflict legacy in Finland

“…Communicating with the public is underdeveloped in Finnish cultural heritage practice, although there are signs of improvement (Enqvist 2014). Heritage professionals have an obvious responsibility to answer the public demand for information on the past: otherwise there is room for conspiracy theories, such as the Huhtiniemi case, or generating alternative histories (see Thomas 2015;Wilson 2012). An unfortunate example of the latter is a recent popular, beautifully illustrated book 'Hushed past' ('Vaiettu muinaisuus'), described as 'a summary of our country's ancient history' (Nieminen 2015), but written by an 'alternative' history fanatic who opens his book promptly 'verifying' that the Ice Age never happened.…”

Forum: Populism, Identity Politics, and the Archaeology of Europe

“…At the opposite end of the scale is the question of what kinds of ideas or narratives we can offer our varied publics, and whether simply telling them, as opposed to involving stakeholders throughout the research process, is even enough (see debate in Thomas, 2015; and here particularly Samantha Reiter and Kostas Kotsakis). Contributors to this forum have addressed this from many angles, but there are many more to be covered; the contributions to this volume represent neither every corner of Europe, nor all experiences of European populism.…”

Negative Experiences in Television Programming: A View from the Other Side

“…I have written elsewhere about my horrified reaction to the programme when its marketing first appeared, the ethical challenges concerning my role as a pre-production consultee, and the proliferation of all kinds of 'experts' vying for the media's attention (Thomas 2015a). It is not my intention to revisit that discussion fully again here.…”