Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Nationalism in
Archaeology
- Scotland
- - concept of a scottish nation as
we now understand it is
meaningless
Anmerkungen:
- - National perspective is no more than contemporary evidence for the purposes of display
- some aspects of prehistoric past may have relevanace to the national identity today - myths - important in the underlying national identity
- Cannot understand other cultures purely through one cultural identity .e Romans - never really made it further than the wall
- Brooch for example - Hunterstone Brooch -
Anmerkungen:
- Celtic Goldsmiths art, filigree - anglo Saxon practices - etc Irish influences - hence use of the term scottish refers to the geographic entitiy not the early historic group
- Often objects represent an amalgamation of several traditions defying simple ethnic labelling
- terms like 'Romans, Picts and Vikings' superficial
- Nationalism
- Concept of Nationhood
- Ethnicity replacing race
- Archaeological traditions
- Case Studies
- Nazi Germany
- Nationalist Germany - extreme form of nationalism practised 1930/40s
- Gustav Kossina - 1911 - writing that the concept of archaeological culture emerged
in Germany and Russia - 19th c 20thc - Kossina - mapped the distribution of the
types of artefacts and overlapped these with early maps that showed the
distribution of tribes and nations in through linguistic construction
- Kossina concluded that North Germany was the homeland of the Indo
Europeans (Aryan) Race who were the bearers of battle axe culture, and who
conquered the primitive
- Ideas used for
nationalist/socialist case for
aggressive militaristic
foreign policy
- Hitler grasped this concept of ethnic - German volk -
he saw the core of the volk as the aryan nuclei who
were the pure breed of Germans. The Volkisch concept
separated people into races of superior and inferior
quality
- Increased the boundary of them and us i.e
blamed jews for Germany's ills and passed on
nationalist thoughts via education
- Nation became a coat hangrer for Hitler
to hang out ideological features i.e
facism, Social darwinism and
nauturism
- GOAL = PURE NATION STATE
- China
- Don Fowler - Modern China - he believed that archaeology is used as a plitical education of the people -
emphasising the 1980 history as the class struggle that develpped through stages of hman history - to
maintain communism?
- Internet web page
- nationalism - the pursuit of cultural identity and
political power by religious, ethnic or national
groups
- How can the past help nationalism?
- create a past - real or
imagined - that justifies a
national claim to territory
- create a "how great we once were" mentality that increases
social cohesion or the desire to sacrifice for the nation.
- European views of nationalism
- Concepts of nationhood - product of the modern world
- Archaeological historians imagined prehistoric
ethnicities back projecting modernist concepts of
nationhood
- Ethnicity replace race"?
- Ethnicity is culturally flexible/as a racial caetegroy it is sometimes thought to be absolute
- Romano British view of nationalism
- National boundaries no significance but have influence some research traditions
- In particular period - tend to explore own
intellectual traditions i.e Southern English -
Roman invasion of the southern lowlands -
forts,towns and homes.
- French view of nationalism
- More interested in the resistance to Rome and the
assimilation of the Roman culture by indigenous people
- Emphasis temples and rural settlements
- North western Iberia - focus on native sites rather than other
- Archaeology, nationalism and ethnicity
- Stewart Piggott
- Important figure in the archaeological
establishment at Edinburgh
- Excavated many sites in Scotland
- Ancient greece , classical heritage and
the modern Greeks: aspects of
nationalism in museum exhibitions
- Early association of archaeology with nationalism
in the 18th c gathered momentum in the 19th c
- Arose in the collapse of the Ottoman Emipre
- Nationalism preaches the continuity and homogenity of political units
- Greek archaeology must not be viewed as a separate/isolated phenomenon
- Hellenism - idealised ancinet Greece as a birthplace of teh European spirit nd Western civilisation
- Knowledge of the classical world received
through classical education
- Cultural imperialism - imposed on the past and present their
own account of what consituted Greek Culture
- New state society reinforced by the constant building
of its complete national identity and tradition
- In America Many displaysstress the purely commerical value
of Greek archaelogy presenting the artefacts as valuabhle
trade commodoties
- 'Search for alexander exhibition' in Washington USA 1980's caused a stir - the search
centred on the continuity of the ancient and modern Greek culture. Smoething which
Greece wanted tomaintin unquestioningly
- Adressed questions of ethnic identity within the general spectrum of the
totality of Greek national identity - in relation to Macedonian debate
- Creation of the Greek nation's sense of identity was an act of self
portraiture incorporating elements of Greek heritage , language
literature religion, folklore, Byzantine and christian traditions
- Much Greek culture and politics occured within notion of ethnos
- Wanted to create an unbroken continuity with the classical
and Byzantine past
- Greek culture still engaged constantly
in an assessment of whether the
timeless values of its ancient seld are
still intelligible
- museum exhibition embroiled in politics and poetics
- past not reconstructed but written according to interpreters - no
abslute exhibition - stage to project the self and antional identity
- Travelling exhibitions
often funcition as as
authentic illustrated
textbooks and as mirrors
of Greece
- Examination of the use of the past in a historical perspective
can help to eliucidate attitudes and facilitate the decoding of
hidden messages in current representations
- Tourism, nationalism and archaeology are
historically linked in complex ways -
archaeology used by natonalism and
popularised through tourism
- BRUCE TRIGGER
- archaeological research is shaped by
riles that particular nation states play,
economically, culturally, socially and
politically
- Europeans intiated the archaeological research - some governments conrtol the
interpretation of archaeological data
- Most archaeological tradition are nationalistic in orientation i.e Czech
turned to archaeology and historical roots, to glorify their past - and
to encourage resistance to Russian and Turkish threats
- Other emphasise their historic roots rather than any other ... i.e Iran and Egypt -
emphasise pre -slavic tribes periods when nationalistic and secular politics prevailed
- Mexico - Since revolution in 1910 - official policy to encourage archaeologists, to
increase knowledge and public awareness of pre-hispanic civilisations of the country
- To promote nationl unity
- China-
- Study of the past was seen as reactionary, leading to the disruption of
archaeological excavations and publications and some sites
- Today extensively used to cultivate
national dignity and confidence adding
to socialist ideology
- Interpreting the past in terms of a Marxist perspectives and lauding cultural achievments
- Archaeologists want to say that northern CHINA was not the only centre of
cultural development
- Vietnamese archoaeologists
- Germany Nazi - failed to attract support from archaeologists
elsewhere- particularly because of their parochial nature
- Function of nationalist
archaeology is to bolster pride etc
- MARGA DIAZ-ANDREU
- mperialist objectives can reinforce nationalism
- Examples - DAVID MATTINGLY 1996- explored the nature of archaeological work undertaken by the italians and French in North Africa c19/c20
- At the time of Mussolini - the italians aimed to draw upon examples
of classical Rome to establish a new empire in North Africa and the
French would also be involved
- French and Italians drew efforts on the idea that they were direct linear
inheritors of implerial efforts of Rome to establish a new empire in
Northern Africa
- They located and mapped the remains of Roman Imperial
infrstructure in ancient lands
- Archaeologists focussed on Roman towns, forts, frontier structures roads and irrigation
- Laid claim to former control of
territories by an earlier group of
colonisers. Hence the Italians could
justify land grabs
- Explored the way that Roman dominated the lands and found that
the contemporary imperial efforts worked with more effect
- In the countries that made up northern Africa North East,
Roman empire Britain and Italy were all conflated
- an archaeology is not in favour in all areas - for example - The popularity of classical remains to wealthy western tourists
encourage northern Africa and the Near East to maintain impressive remains and to make them accessible to visitors
- Colonial myths did not die entirely with the ending of former colonial rule from 1960-1990
- MICHEL DIETLER 2006
- Drew upon the direct use of the idea of celtic diaspora - exploited by contemporary people in New Zealand and USA
- Claims that Megaliths, stone carvings and hillforts demonstrated celtic
presence on land prior to the settlement of contemporary indigenous community
- Labelling archaeologies as nationalistic, colonial or imperial one can simplify the
specifics of the ways that archaeologists have operated