In an Age of Heritage Signs, Encouraging Archaeological Sites to be Cosmopolitan Canopies

Abstract

To mark history, governments authorize the erecting of markers, signs on the landscape meant to inform. While historical markers have a long tradition for identifying places with significant events and people, there has been an expansion on what and how to mark places and their heritage. Signs capture the attention and provide information for those interested in learning about where they are at the moment. They are in-situ teaching tools, open to anyone able to interpret the heritage for broad audiences, and can encourage places for cosmopolitanism, canopies for people to learn about the past and each other. What Archaeology Provides We live in a world of gross political, economic, and social inequalities. One expression of the long-standing optimism for human equity in archaeology is exemplified by a 1963 popular book by Glyn Daniel (re-issued as Daniel and Renfrew 1988: 152), when the archaeologist stated decades ago in The Idea of Prehistory: "Whether we are Americans, Russians, Indians, or Chinese we share a universal human historical heritage. I do not pretend, or imagine, that a recognition of this fact will alter present-day differences but if people really had an awareness of human history it should put present-day differences in a different perspective and one that made for tolerance." This use of the past as an argument for more egalitarian understandings of the present is increasingly significant; for instance, the Guardian article on December 21, 2016 titled "Why Archaeology Needs to Come out of the Cave and into the Digital Age" concluded with "Our deep Baram: In an Age of Heritage Signs, Encouraging Archaeological Sites to be Cosmopolitan Canopies Art.