ANTH 235,
ARCHAEOLOGY & THE PUBLIC: WHO OWNS THE PAST?
 Why, beyond perfectly valid and sufficient reasons of
scientific curiosity, do we want to know about the past?
 What does the past mean to us?
(or, stated another way, Why is the past salient?)
 What does the past mean to others with different
viewpoints?
 Who does the past “belong” to, anyway?
Charles McGimsey, Public Archaeology (Seminar Press,
1972):
“The next 50 years – some would say the next 25 –
are going to be the most critical in the history of
American archaeology. What is recovered, what is
preserved, and the goals which are accomplished
during this period will largely determine for all time
the knowledge available to subsequent generations of
Americans concerning their heritage from the past.
The next generation cannot study or preserve what
already has been destroyed.”
It’s ironic, but the very interest that archaeology has
generated in our past has created new destructive forces:
 looters and illicit excavators whose plunder finds its
way into private collections and public museums to
satisfy an antiquarian lust
 tourists who by their numbers threaten the sites they
seek to enjoy (Lascaux, France; Stonehenge, England;
Luxor, Egypt: sites that have been “loved to death”)
Celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge, 1905
Two of the large standing stones (called trilithons) fell in 1900 due
to the enormous number of visitors to the site. Such destruction
was finally halted only in the 1980s by strictly limiting visitors’
access to the stone circle.
The past is big business – in tourism and in the auction
rooms. The past is politically highly charged,
ideologically powerful, and salient.
THE MEANING OF THE PAST: THE ARCHAEOLOGY
OF IDENTITY
The past means different things to different people.
How we interpret the past, how we present it (in museum
displays, for instance), and what lessons we choose to draw
from it, are to a considerable extent subjective decisions,
often involving ideological and political issues.
NOTE: Advocates of Critical Theory have been at the
forefront in pointing this out to archaeologists.
WHO OWNS THE PAST?
Difficult questions have arisen:
 Should antiquities acquired for Western museums
during the colonial era be returned to their lands of
origin?
 Should archaeologists be free to excavate the burials
of groups whose modern descendants may object on
religious or other grounds?
 Or, should human patrimony outweigh that of any
particular group to ensure the preservation of the past
for future generations?
“Repatriation” refers to the return of cultural properties
and human remains to the lands and peoples from which
they were originally taken.
Repatriation involves a complex web of legal, ethical and
moral issues:
 Are treaties signed in the 19th century giving Western
nations exclusive access to archaeological remains in
some former colonial nation still valid?
(The British Museum says “Yes!” at least where the
“Elgin Marbles,” below, taken from the Parthenon
in 1806, are concerned…)
 Since interest in the past is a human universal – not
restricted to one or just a few cultures – don’t those
interests transcend the geographical boundaries of
modern nation states?
 Is it not a profound and important experience to be able,
in the course of one day in one of the world’s great
museums, to walk from room to room, from civilization
to civilization, and see unfold a sample of the whole
variety of human experience?
 Would it not be a greater service, in response to requests
to repatriate one nation’s antiquities, to offer instead
great works belonging to different cultural traditions?
The Herakleion Archaeological Museum (Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο
Ηρακλείου) on Crete (Κρήτη) houses the vast majority of the surviving
remains of the ancient Minoan Civilization (Μινωικός πολιτισμός), ca.
2700-1650 BCE. The museum is located in an active earthquake zone
and was already seriously damaged during World War II.
In North America, the on-going solution to this problem
seems to lie in acquiescence, compromise, and collaboration:
 archaeologists acquiesce in the return of very recent
remains of identifiable ancestors of living peoples.
 Native Americans have compromised by formally
recognizing the scientific value of the study of human
remains and, in many cases, allow such study before
repatriation occurs.
 now there is more collaboration between archaeologists
and Native Americans: local museums to help celebrate
Native American culture rather than strict reburial of
remains, collaborative archaeology projects
1990 – Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Federal legislation
requiring some 5000 federally-funded institutions and
government agencies (including the University of Arizona
and the Arizona State Museum) to return Native American
skeletons, funerary and sacred objects, and items of
profound cultural importance to American Indian tribes,
Native Alaskans, and Native Hawai’ians.
See: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/
WHO INTERPRETS & PRESENTS THE PAST?
There are other legitimate issues here beside nationalistic
or religious sentiments. For example:
 Concerns of feminist archaeologists. The past has
tended to be interpreted from a largely male point of
view, yielding a distinct androcentric bias.
 19th century views still persist in many areas
(e.g., most archaeological displays in Chinese museums
today are still based directly on the century-old writings
of Morgan, Marx and Engels).
 Some colonialist and racist preconceptions still persist
(e.g., Minoan Crete still is often presented as it appeared
to its Victorian discoverer, Sir Arthur Evans, nearly a
century ago).
Reconstruction of Minoan bull-vaulting loosely based on a mosaic in the
Palace of King Minos (Μίνως) at Knossos (Κνωσός) on Crete, ca. 1650 BCE
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN TO YOU?
The past does have a value; in fact it is valuable for many
reasons.
It’s up to you (and me…) as we play out our diverse roles
in modern human society to participate in figuring out the
answers to some of the questions posed today, of which the
most important may well be “Who owns the past?”
Suggested reading – food for thought regarding the
preservation of our cultural heritage:
Castañeda, Q. E. and C. N. Matthews, editors. (2008).
Ethnographic Archaeologies: Reflections on Stakeholders
and Archaeological Practices. Lanham, MD: AltaMira
Press.
Habu, J., C. Fawcett, and J. M. Matsunaga, editors. (2008).
Evaluating Multiple Narratives: Beyond Nationalist,
Colonialist, Imperialist Archaeologies. New York:
Springer.