Sharing Archaeology

Academe, Practice and the Public

Peter Stone, Zhao Hui, Peter Stone, Zhao Hui

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317800958
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

As a discipline, Archaeology has developed rapidly over the last half-century. The increase in so-called 'public archaeology, ' with its wide range of television programming, community projects, newspaper articles, and enhanced site-based interpretation has taken archaeology from a closed academic discipline of interest to a tiny minority to a topic of increasing interest to the general public. This book explores how archaeologists share information – with specialists from other disciplines working within archaeology, other archaeologists, and a range of non-specialist groups. It emphasises that to adequately address contemporary levels of interest in their subject, archaeologists must work alongside and trust experts with an array of different skills and specializations.

Drawing on case studies from eleven countries, Sharing Archaeology explores a wide range of issues raised as the result of archaeologists' communication both within and outside the discipline. Examining best practice with wider implications and uses beyond the specified case studies, the chapters in this book raise questions as well as answers, provoking a critical evaluation of how best to interact with varied audiences and enhance sharing of archaeology.

1 Sharing Archaeology

Introduction

Peter G. Stone

I used to stay with Peter Ucko and his partner, Jane Hubert, on my frequent visits to London for work, and in the period between 2003 and 2007 we always discussed Peter’s beloved ‘China Project’. I had been Peter’s PhD student years before in Southampton and had worked closely with Peter and Jane since the mid-1980s as we built and nurtured the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) (Ucko 1987; Stone 2006). My visits were a way of keeping in touch, and I would always try to arrange meetings so that I could stay with them: we would talk of old times, and my children as they grew up; of how WAC was continuing to develop (during this time I was honorary Chief Executive Officer of WAC, while Peter and Jane had stopped having any direct role in the organisation); of how our respective universities were dealing with the rapid changes in UK Higher Education; of our current projects and of our plans for the future.

Peter had taught me to think broadly about our subject, and that inevitably meant thinking and acting internationally. He constantly wanted to see new places and meet new colleagues, not to teach those elsewhere (frequently in less economically fortunate parts of the world) about so-called ‘best-practice’, but to debate and learn from each other. Given our WAC perspectives, such colleagues were, of course, not only other archaeologists but academics from a wide range of disciplines, as well as indigenous experts and others with an interest in, and knowledge of, the past and its relevance both in the present and to the future. During this period my own work had begun to focus on the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict (Stone 2005, 2013; Stone and Farchakh Bajjaly 2008) and on the management and interpretation of World Heritage (Stone and Brough 2013). Peter’s personal focus (as opposed to his much wider vision for University College London’s Institute of Archaeology [hereafter the Institute] of which he had become Director in 1995) was increasingly on China. This interest had been kindled in 1986 when one of the earliest and largest archaeological delegations ever to leave China had attended WAC-1 in Southampton. While, for essentially pragmatic and financial reasons, his immediate focus following WAC-1 had been on developing a long-term project with the St Petersburg Institute for the History of Material Culture in the Soviet Union, Peter later used his position as Director of the Institute to search for, and find, the funding to develop a project with China and to create the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA; see Foreword), a joint association between the Institute of Archaeology at UCL and the School for Archaeology and Museology of Peking University.

The ICCHA focus was, in the first instance, to open Chinese archaeology to the scientific and fieldwork advances that had taken place in the twentieth century while China had struggled with civil war and had been isolated through the policies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. One example of this was the Institute’s conservation staff working with Chinese colleagues on the conservation of the terracotta army figures in Xi’an. This work culminated in ICCHA’s first international conference: 'From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: The teaching of archaeological field techniques ’, which was published as an edited volume by Ucko et al. in 2007. However, while being, as usual, the driving force behind this work (to the extent that Jane would sit on Peter’s hospital bed helping to edit From Concepts. . . only a few weeks before he died), his mind had turned during the early stages of the project to the conference that he insisted should be the final part of the first five-year programme. This was to have in the background the question never far from his thoughts: “Why do we study archaeology at all?” and was to focus on how we share archaeological information within the discipline, between academic disciplines, with non-academics, and with the wider general public. It was this topic that became the focus of our evening conversations in the London flat as we discussed the most interesting and innovative approaches to ‘sharing archaeology’ of which we were aware. Peter spoke also of his mad dash around China, undertaken in 2006, when he had visited, with Jane and Wang Tao (then at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London), most of the major universities that taught archaeology, trying to ascertain what they were teaching and, crucially, how and why. This initiative mirrors a pressing contemporary need for a similar review of the teaching of archaeology in South Africa (see Pikirayi, Chapter 13, this volume) and mirrored one of the first times Peter and I had worked together when, in 1982, as part of a research project on behalf of the British Universities Archaeology Committee (BUAC), he had sent me round all universities in the UK that taught archaeology. The research was undertaken in anticipation of the expected second round of financial cuts to be imposed on universities by the University Grants Commission and was intended to prepare the discipline, rather than any particular department, to defend itself from cuts as a whole (Stone 1983, Ucko 1983). I looked on these conversations as interesting and, as ever with Peter, stimulating discussions that were nevertheless mainly ‘theoretical’ as, at best, I expected to be only one of many participants invited to attend Peter’s conference. This changed when Peter told me that he planned that I should continue to organise the conference if his health failed him. Sadly, Peter died in June 2007, and I was faced with the task of organising a conference that was, certainly in Peter’s mind, the culmination of a five-year programme in which I had not taken part.

I had not even visited China and knew nothing of the approaches to archaeological interpretation in that vast country. I was enormously grateful when Stephen Shennan, Peter’s successor as Director of the Institute, made ICCHA funds available for me to visit China in 2008 to attend the Fourth Worldwide Conference of the Society for East Asian Archaeology, meet colleagues, and visit sites. As most first-time visitors to China, I was astonished by the sheer scale of the country, the depth of its past, the quality of its archaeology, and the scale and speed of its development.

On returning to the UK I sat down to plan the conference as discussed with Peter and to identify those who I wanted to participate. The conference was structured around four major themes that had been agreed by the ICCHA Executive at its meeting in London in May 2007:

1. Sharing information between archaeologists
2. Sharing information between various associated subjects, distinguishing
   • 2a. other “scientific” specialists
   • 2b. heritage-related specialists (tourism, etc.)
     Taking into account what other specialists want from archaeologists
3. Sharing information with the general public, distinguishing
   • 3a. those who visit archaeological sites and monuments open to the public
   • 3b. the majority of the general public who do not visit sites and monuments
     Taking into account what the public and the media want from archaeologists
4. The relationship between sharing archaeology and the protection of cultural heritage

It was to be held in China as part of the ICCHA project, but I was adamant that it was not to be seen as a meeting where international experts came into China to tell Chinese archaeologists how to work and how ‘to do’ interpretation. We had to learn from each other—to share our approaches to managing and interpreting the archaeological record. My first concern for the conference was to ensure that there were enough managers present to drive home the point that good management and good interpretation are two parts of an integrated and indivisible whole. Good interpretation has to be facilitated by good management, and there is no such thing as good heritage management that does not have as a central focus the provision of good interpretation.

The actual conference had roughly equal numbers of Chinese and international speakers; for a variety of reasons, most purely practical, this book has more contributions from the international contributors than our Chinese colleagues. There are, nevertheless, enough Chinese contributions to provide a flavour of the interpretation initiatives going on within China and to provide an understanding of the management regime and local circumstances under which colleagues work. I do not think any Chinese contributors would argue that they have explored all, or even many, of the ideas for management and interpretation described by others in these pages: the opportunity for doing so has simply not yet arisen. However, the debate and discussion that took place during the conference leaves me with little doubt that these ideas will be taken, modified, and tested over the next few years. Some may be rejected outright, others accepted in modified forms. Some will take longer to explore than others, but I have no doubt that all will be considered and debated further.

My intention for the conference was not to invite people because they were currently doing interesting or ‘good’ projects. While in almost all cases this would be true, my primary criterion was that their work reflected an approach to sharing archaeology that could be seen, understood, modified and adapted by others in different situations, with different experiences, in different countries, facing different, yet inherently similar challenges. In the film Dead Poets Society, the main character, a somewhat eccentric teacher, gets his class to stand on their desks in order to make them look at the world from a new perspective, in a different way, and, hopefully therefore, to think and to learn with a more open mind. I wanted all participants, and not just our Chinese colleagues, to be challenged, excited and stimulated by the different approaches on display rather than by any particular specific projects. It would be nonsense to think that, for example, Indian, Australian or Chinese participants (to pick three nationalities of those present at random) could or would want to attempt to replicate precisely Mike Pearson’s project at Esgair Fraith ( Chapter 20, this volume ) or to engage with communities in exactly the way suggested by Innocent Pikirayi ( Chapter 13, this volume ) when they returned home. However, I hoped that the underlying approaches might stimulate participants to think of interpretation in a new or innovative way. Given this, the book is certainly not a practical handbook of how to carry out good archaeological interpretation. Rather it reflects a conversation between a number of those, with very different backgrounds and experiences, involved in interpreting archaeology—as to the underlying importance and nature of interpretation.

A basic tenet that lay behind my planning was that, following Freeman Tilden (1977), sharing archaeology should provoke an audience to enjoy the experience but leave it thinking and discussing (Chapter 2, this volume). I tell my students that we study the past, in order to understand the present, in order to create the future. This is, or at least should be, relatively easy within academia but can, in extremis, open archaeological evidence to manipulation and distortion. However, even what appears in theory to be easy may not always be so in practice. Thilo Rehren (Chapter 3, this volume) explains how, as a geologist and material scientist working in the UK being asked to contribute specialist reports to archaeological projects, the positive and open sharing of ideas and questions regarding the archaeological record was not always common practice. It was only after a number of years of his reports being gratefully received as being important for a given project’s publication, but not for the project’s fundamental archaeological questions, that Rehren began to question this unequal relationship and that he began to understand (and be able to convince others) how, by sharing knowledge and understanding of specialist areas, and specialist questions, better archaeological questions could be formulated and addressed.

Li Ling (Chapter 4, this volume) identifies three important questions that need addressing with respect to sharing in contemporary Chinese archaeology: how are excavation reports related to further research? How is archaeology related to other academic disciplines? How do archaeologists present their work to ordinary readers? He makes the analogy that archaeologists inhabit a “fortress” and are reluctant to allow others to have access—be they other discipline specialists such as Rehren, or the general public: “people inside the ‘fortress’ have no wish to go out, and there is no reason why the people outside the ‘fortress’ should come in” (page 51) . (Some readers may remember the time when archaeology in England was indeed managed from a large building in London that was actually called Fortress House. It was not until 1992 when Sir Jocelyn Stevens, on his appointment as Chairman of English Heritage, insisted the very mentality described by Ling must be addressed, that the headquarters of archaeology in England became known by its street number, 23 Savile Row, rather than its somewhat unfortunate building name.)

Ling argues that while archaeology is an academic discipline, it “is not the exclusive property of archaeological experts, but is an integral part of the study of human culture” (page 51). As it is paid for (in China) predominantly by the State (i.e., the people), “It involves everyone”. Sharing in a meaningful way with other specialists therefore becomes an obvious and axiomatic step, as does disseminating archaeological information and interpretation to the general public. The problem, according to Ling, is that archaeological writing leaves much to be desired. He suggests that “specialists, let alone the non-professional reader, find [excavation reports] difficult to handle and digest” (page 50), and he goes on to counter criticism of interpreting archaeology for the general public by stating that “popularisation is not dumbing down, or simplification” (page 55); it is simply a different—essential—skill.

Of course, different audiences will need and want their information and interpretation provided in different ways. Cao Bingwu (Chapter 5, this volume ) characterises five different writing styles through which to share archaeology—all perfectly valid as long as the author identifies the different audiences for whom they are writing and writes in a suitable style. This is a fundamental point, and Bingwu echoes Ling (Chapter 4, this volume) by noting that writing for the general public is no less important than writing a detailed technical specialist report, but it is a very different skill. Bingwu’s message is clear: archaeologists in China put their discipline at risk if they fail to acknowledge the variety of equally important audiences and if they fail to master the range of writing styles. Bingwu concludes by seeing a direct relationship between the acknowledgement of the different audiences (and thus the need for these different writing styles), the growth of the discipline of public archaeology, and the development of more socially aware cultural heritage management—the “manifestation of public awareness of sustainable choices” (page 64).

The public awareness of archaeology, and the need to ensure that archaeology benefits the public, is a theme continued by Shan Jixiang, the Government Minister responsible for the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (Chapter 6, this volume). Jixiang cannot be accused of not making his wishes clear:

Cultural heritage belongs to people and was created by people, so it should be something that they understand. In order to achieve this, workers in the discipline need to get off their high horses and talk to the public on equal terms: they need to tell the public about the past, present and future of cultural heritage and explain the significance of the work in an accessible way.

(page 62)

Jixiang argues that the successful preservation of large-scale ancient cities across China has not only “made us realise more how closely the preservation of cultural heritage is linked to the benefit of the public” (page 64) but that it is “visibly changing the living conditions of local people”. The normal process appears to be that once such an ancient site (of which frequently the majority is manifest as below-ground archaeology) is identified, anyone living on the site is relocated and the area turned into an ‘archaeological park’. Jixiang notes these parks can be “the most beautiful places in a city and most valuable in terms of enhancing the lives of local people” (page 64).

This is sharing archaeology in extremis and might better be termed ‘returning archaeology’: the aim not primarily to interpret the belowground archaeology but to improve the lives of communities by providing better housing (on relocation), beautiful surroundings that benefit and enhance the environment, and economic stimulation through the inward investment brought by visitors while at the same time preserving, and interpreting, the archaeological remains. While such aims have obvious benefits (not least the fact that the open spaces undoubtedly provide much needed ‘green lungs’ for a number of Chinese cities which are growing at an exponential rate), one cannot but spare some concern regarding the implications of the dismantling and relocation of whole communities. There appears, on the surface at least, to be a striking resemblance to the demolition of Victorian back-to-back terraced housing in many English towns, where the communities were relocated, at enormous social cost, to modern high-rise accommodation blocks. In a veiled acknowledgment that the creation of all such archaeological parks may not have been undertaken without controversy and not always with the best possible results, Jixiang notes that China needs to be “proactive in creating the right conditions and proactive in providing correct guidelines” in order to pave the way to a “glorious future” (page 71).

Jigen Tang’s description of the archaeological project at Yinxu site, in Anyang (Chapter 7, this volume) sheds a little more light on the complexity of actually delivering such a harmonious picture of heritage management, interpretation and public benefit. Tang works from the premise that authenticity and integrity are the core of site conservation and the essence of site interpretation. His contribution emphasises the difficulty of achieving either, given the changes in archaeological understanding of the site over time, as early excavation conclusions are overturned as new data become available. He also hints at the difficulties of getting different organisations both within and outside archaeology to work to a common goal. This, of course, is by no means a problem unique to China (see, for example, Stone and Brough 2013, for the complexity and frustration associated wit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Foreword
• 1 Sharing Archaeology: Introduction
• 2 Sharing Archaeology: An Obligation, Not a Choice
• 3 Crossing Boundaries
• 4 Archaeology: Sharing with Whom? A Review of 'Excavation Report of Hezhang Kele Site in 2000'
• 5 Information, Knowledge and Ideas: Archaeological Data and Related Information-Dissemination of Knowledge
• 6 Cultural Heritage Management and Public Participation: The Site Preservation of Large-Scale Ancient Cities
• 7 Conserving, Managing and Utilizing the World Heritage in China: A Case of Yinxu Site, Anyang City, Henan Province
• 8 Important to Whom? How Different Communities Can Have Different Perceptions of the Value of an Archaeological Site: A Case-Study from Xi’an, China
• 9 The Workers’ and Farmers’ Archaeology of the Cultural Revolution
• 10 From Excavation to Dissemination—Breaking Down the Barriers between Archaeology and the Public
• 11 The MATRIX Project (Making Archaeology Teaching Relevant in the XXIst Century): An Approach to the Efficient Sharing of Professional Knowledge and Skills with a Large Audience
• 12 The Construction of the Chinese Archaeology Website and Communication in Archaeology
• 13 Sharing the Past: Archaeology and Community Engagement in Southern Africa
• 14 Involving the Public in Archaeological Fieldwork: How Heritage Protection Policies Do Not Always Serve Public Interests
• 15 How to Share Archaeological Excavation in Situ with the Public: A Case Study from Nanwang Site in Shandong Province, China
• 16 Working with Communities to Share Cultural Knowledge through Tourism: Principles and Practice
• 17 Preserving the Past, Enriching the Future: The Work of Heritage Watch in Cambodia
• 18 Illicit Trafficking in Antiques and Sharing Archaeology to Combat the Trade: An Example from India
• 19 Archaeology and Newspaper Reports: A Case Study of Japan
• 20 Performing Places
• 21 Sharing Archaeology: Some Concluding Thoughts
• Contributors
• Index