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Reflection on “Reverse Archaeology”
Tijdschriftbijdrage - Tijdschriftartikel
Korte inhoud:REFLECTION ON 'REVERSE ARCHAEOLOGY' BY DRIES TYS
The Treaty of la Valetta on the preservation of Archaeological heritage, also known as the Malta Convention, has changed the setting of European archaeology drastically. Since it was signed, almost 20 years ago, we have seen the rise of a kind of archaeology in which the emphasis of the discipline shifted from research driven archaeology to preventive archaeology, albeit in a commercial environment or not. The preservation of archaeological sites became the main purpose of national and regional institutions and sites that were not threatened by spatial developments were to be preserved in situ. The treaty resulted in many positive aspects, notably the fact that an impressive quantity of archaeological data have been gathered and gained in what came to be known as Malta Archaeology, with its own legislative logic and institutions. This is all very well known.
There were and are however also quite a lot of problems and difficulties, being such that a new Malta-notion came into existence, namely the notion of the "boomerang of Malta". Above all the main problem is that in many Malta-legislations, the budget and time for post-excavation research remains limited or even non-existent. The new legislation in Flanders, which is presently under discussion avoids the aspect of post-excavation treatment of finds and results completely. In the Flemish Heritage Institute (formerly known as VIOE), comparable to English Heritage, the 25 heritage researchers such as the well-known faunal archaeologist Anton Ervynck are compelled to quit research and from now on work as heritage curators.
In the almost 20 years that we have seen the rise and implementation of Malta-Archaeology, it seems that the notion of scientific, research-driven archaeology has become alienated from the preventive archaeology. Research-driven archaeology is the terrain of universities and academies and is to be seen as different from the archaeology involved in the spatial planning process. Research-driven excavations on non-threatened sites have become a rarity and as said, the data generated in the Malta-process are seldom transferred to studies other than a basic descriptive report. As a result, artifacts are more often not been processed into information and knowledge. This undermines the production of information, information we need to assess meaning, meaning which is what we need to derive in order to understand 'heritage'.
This kind of 'archeography' will undoubtedly undermine the position of archaeology, since people and institutions will eventually ask what all these investments in the retrieval of "old junk" have brought us and no one will be able to answer this question. It also implies that archaeology will return to a kind of empirical stage, where knowledge is solely based on single field experience and not on research questions. The harvest of collected artifacts will overflow storehouses and we will have no criteria to make decisions or choices, because of the fact that research is alienated from the process of preventive archaeology in the context of spatial development.
These developments are indeed explicitly the result of how the Malta Treaty is translated in most European countries and regions, namely that archaeology has to be taken into account in the trajectory and process of spatial planning and development. So, whenever a large building project, urban whether rural comes up, new agents are involved in the archaeological practice, such as the already mentioned curators, local municipalities, the actual developers and the audience. The new development in both The Netherlands and Flanders is that the responsibility for the actual curatorship and management of the archaeological heritage, including the decisions on choices of priorities, methods and techniques, is left to the administrations of the municipalities. This is problematic for three main reasons. First of all: the expertise on heritage curatorship in municipal administration will be often of a significantly lower level compared to the expertise of central regional or national institutions. Secondly, there is a much shorter distance between the parties and agents involved, which might lead in some cases to the danger of corruption. When for instance a party wants to develop a meadow with a medieval drainage system into building allotments and is on friendly terms with the local decision makers, it just might be possible that the heritage reflex of the municipal administration might be somewhat less stringent as can be expected. Thirdly, the financial resources of local municipalities are much weaker than those of more central authorities, which might cause problems in times of economic crisis as today. When a municipality has to make financial choices because of a restricted budget, heritage will be one of the more vulnerable aspects of local policy. In short, the maneuvering space for municipalities is basically restricted.
It would seem to me that the development of the concept of 'Reverse Archaeology' would fit in this context, where the framework for local heritage policy is rather narrow and full of restrictions. Of course the idea of democratization of the archaeology process seems attractive. In practice however, this voluntaristic concept only seems a pragmatic way of cutting costs and preparing the field for compromises between the parties involved, namely the poorly budgeted municipalities, the spatial developers who are hampered by the loss of time that excavations imply and the heritage professionals that no longer have an interest in scientificly driven archaeological research because it is simply no longer expected.
In this respect, several statements of the authors seem to me rather dangerous, in a contrast to what the idea of democratization reminds one of. The authors claim in a variation of arguments that "Evaluating the remains by all shareholders involved is necessary to enable the heritage professional to make well-founded choices". If that is the case, what to do when a municipal council of the Dutch 'Bible belt' opposes to research of the late Paleolithic camp, because in the biblical chronology there is no space for prehistory? They are after all 'shareholders' and have their respectable values, which have to be brought into account in 'Reversed Archaeology'! Hodder would be confronted with interesting situations when he would want to apply his reflexive archaeology in such a context. The authors claim that 'Reverse Archaeology' stands for "value-based heritage management", but the key question is which values and on the basis of which frame of reference the values are considered when it can't be based on values of seeking knowledge and information? When the authors claim that "Assigning the values of the archaeological heritage is an interdisciplinary matter in which different shareholders play an equal part", the same logic is used as the one we hear today when local heritage servants in some municipalities try to argue to let go certain supposedly disturbed areas as zones with no archaeological values, in order to enhance the basis for shared heritage values by the different parties involved, read, the spatial developers.
For the developers not only inspiring quality of the developed space is of importance, as the authors state, but also and foremost the cost efficiency of the project. More than the concern whether to be interested in archaeology as a product they can or cannot use, they are interested in a positive balance of profit at the end of the project, which is perfectly logical. If this implies less archaeology, then they will try to cut archaeological costs whenever is possible. You can then state that archaeological value might add value to the spatial project, the practice in reality shows that this value is only superficial and entirely subjugated to commercial values. For example, in Antwerp, an important preventive archaeological project in the center of town was carried out by the town service in close collaboration with the spatial developer. He claimed to be interested in the results and wanted not only to add value to the project, relating it directly with the history of the site as recorded by the archaeologists, but also to integrate the medieval town wall present on the site in the new development. Only, when the medieval wall was hindering the power shovel in its attempt to smooth the terrain, the wall disappeared largely without any concern from the developers' side. The way in which the few remaining features of the side were incorporated in the project did not have a single effect on the project's spatial quality and the way the story of the site influenced the perception of the project was merely a commercial attempt to raise the price.
When research, quality and budget are brought in balance, the latter will prevail when "shareholding parties are mobilized and brought together at the discussion-making table where they are involved into a dialogue with the objective of achieving a consensus on heritage management". One can indeed ask oneself the question what archaeology has to gain from this kind of 'Reverse Archaeology'. Imagine that when someone wants to build a factory in an area with high natural values, the developers, the municipality, the public and the scientists are brought together at the discussion table, in order to compromise in a dialogue, which part of the ecological system can be destroyed and which not and which species are considered to be of value to grant them an attempt to survive and which not. It would be an impossible discussion, since ecosystems are holistic and integrated systems, but moreover no one would challenge the assessment of the area by biologists as a democratic process in which every shareholder has an equal opinion.
Then why would this be possible for questions on "what costs should be used for archaeological research and what should be invested in preserving remains in situ"?
The whole concept of 'Reverse Archaeology' seems therefor largely compromised and seems to me inherently in contradiction with the scientific approach of archaeology, already largely threatened in the actual state of preventive archaeology. This is symptomatic for the archaeological resource management of today in which scientific questions and approaches are becoming marginalized in the general process. The consequence of this is that the whole process of knowledge formation, in order to get some meaning out of the remains, is reversed with the consequence that there will be no longer any new information to tell, because all that will come from this is a mindless set of dumb artifacts.
As Matthew Johnson states, "What makes us archaeologists as opposed to mindless collectors of old junk Is the set of rules we use to translate those facts into meaningful accounts of the past, accounts that make SENSE, to us and the general audience" (1999). Archaeology is still a behavioural science of great complexity, which needs time and resources to do the translation. This is not a democratic but a scientific process, in which data and results need to be evaluated constantly. In this way we can attempt how to see more and share this widely. Only then we can offer something to our most important shareholder, the public.
The Treaty of la Valetta on the preservation of Archaeological heritage, also known as the Malta Convention, has changed the setting of European archaeology drastically. Since it was signed, almost 20 years ago, we have seen the rise of a kind of archaeology in which the emphasis of the discipline shifted from research driven archaeology to preventive archaeology, albeit in a commercial environment or not. The preservation of archaeological sites became the main purpose of national and regional institutions and sites that were not threatened by spatial developments were to be preserved in situ. The treaty resulted in many positive aspects, notably the fact that an impressive quantity of archaeological data have been gathered and gained in what came to be known as Malta Archaeology, with its own legislative logic and institutions. This is all very well known.
There were and are however also quite a lot of problems and difficulties, being such that a new Malta-notion came into existence, namely the notion of the "boomerang of Malta". Above all the main problem is that in many Malta-legislations, the budget and time for post-excavation research remains limited or even non-existent. The new legislation in Flanders, which is presently under discussion avoids the aspect of post-excavation treatment of finds and results completely. In the Flemish Heritage Institute (formerly known as VIOE), comparable to English Heritage, the 25 heritage researchers such as the well-known faunal archaeologist Anton Ervynck are compelled to quit research and from now on work as heritage curators.
In the almost 20 years that we have seen the rise and implementation of Malta-Archaeology, it seems that the notion of scientific, research-driven archaeology has become alienated from the preventive archaeology. Research-driven archaeology is the terrain of universities and academies and is to be seen as different from the archaeology involved in the spatial planning process. Research-driven excavations on non-threatened sites have become a rarity and as said, the data generated in the Malta-process are seldom transferred to studies other than a basic descriptive report. As a result, artifacts are more often not been processed into information and knowledge. This undermines the production of information, information we need to assess meaning, meaning which is what we need to derive in order to understand 'heritage'.
This kind of 'archeography' will undoubtedly undermine the position of archaeology, since people and institutions will eventually ask what all these investments in the retrieval of "old junk" have brought us and no one will be able to answer this question. It also implies that archaeology will return to a kind of empirical stage, where knowledge is solely based on single field experience and not on research questions. The harvest of collected artifacts will overflow storehouses and we will have no criteria to make decisions or choices, because of the fact that research is alienated from the process of preventive archaeology in the context of spatial development.
These developments are indeed explicitly the result of how the Malta Treaty is translated in most European countries and regions, namely that archaeology has to be taken into account in the trajectory and process of spatial planning and development. So, whenever a large building project, urban whether rural comes up, new agents are involved in the archaeological practice, such as the already mentioned curators, local municipalities, the actual developers and the audience. The new development in both The Netherlands and Flanders is that the responsibility for the actual curatorship and management of the archaeological heritage, including the decisions on choices of priorities, methods and techniques, is left to the administrations of the municipalities. This is problematic for three main reasons. First of all: the expertise on heritage curatorship in municipal administration will be often of a significantly lower level compared to the expertise of central regional or national institutions. Secondly, there is a much shorter distance between the parties and agents involved, which might lead in some cases to the danger of corruption. When for instance a party wants to develop a meadow with a medieval drainage system into building allotments and is on friendly terms with the local decision makers, it just might be possible that the heritage reflex of the municipal administration might be somewhat less stringent as can be expected. Thirdly, the financial resources of local municipalities are much weaker than those of more central authorities, which might cause problems in times of economic crisis as today. When a municipality has to make financial choices because of a restricted budget, heritage will be one of the more vulnerable aspects of local policy. In short, the maneuvering space for municipalities is basically restricted.
It would seem to me that the development of the concept of 'Reverse Archaeology' would fit in this context, where the framework for local heritage policy is rather narrow and full of restrictions. Of course the idea of democratization of the archaeology process seems attractive. In practice however, this voluntaristic concept only seems a pragmatic way of cutting costs and preparing the field for compromises between the parties involved, namely the poorly budgeted municipalities, the spatial developers who are hampered by the loss of time that excavations imply and the heritage professionals that no longer have an interest in scientificly driven archaeological research because it is simply no longer expected.
In this respect, several statements of the authors seem to me rather dangerous, in a contrast to what the idea of democratization reminds one of. The authors claim in a variation of arguments that "Evaluating the remains by all shareholders involved is necessary to enable the heritage professional to make well-founded choices". If that is the case, what to do when a municipal council of the Dutch 'Bible belt' opposes to research of the late Paleolithic camp, because in the biblical chronology there is no space for prehistory? They are after all 'shareholders' and have their respectable values, which have to be brought into account in 'Reversed Archaeology'! Hodder would be confronted with interesting situations when he would want to apply his reflexive archaeology in such a context. The authors claim that 'Reverse Archaeology' stands for "value-based heritage management", but the key question is which values and on the basis of which frame of reference the values are considered when it can't be based on values of seeking knowledge and information? When the authors claim that "Assigning the values of the archaeological heritage is an interdisciplinary matter in which different shareholders play an equal part", the same logic is used as the one we hear today when local heritage servants in some municipalities try to argue to let go certain supposedly disturbed areas as zones with no archaeological values, in order to enhance the basis for shared heritage values by the different parties involved, read, the spatial developers.
For the developers not only inspiring quality of the developed space is of importance, as the authors state, but also and foremost the cost efficiency of the project. More than the concern whether to be interested in archaeology as a product they can or cannot use, they are interested in a positive balance of profit at the end of the project, which is perfectly logical. If this implies less archaeology, then they will try to cut archaeological costs whenever is possible. You can then state that archaeological value might add value to the spatial project, the practice in reality shows that this value is only superficial and entirely subjugated to commercial values. For example, in Antwerp, an important preventive archaeological project in the center of town was carried out by the town service in close collaboration with the spatial developer. He claimed to be interested in the results and wanted not only to add value to the project, relating it directly with the history of the site as recorded by the archaeologists, but also to integrate the medieval town wall present on the site in the new development. Only, when the medieval wall was hindering the power shovel in its attempt to smooth the terrain, the wall disappeared largely without any concern from the developers' side. The way in which the few remaining features of the side were incorporated in the project did not have a single effect on the project's spatial quality and the way the story of the site influenced the perception of the project was merely a commercial attempt to raise the price.
When research, quality and budget are brought in balance, the latter will prevail when "shareholding parties are mobilized and brought together at the discussion-making table where they are involved into a dialogue with the objective of achieving a consensus on heritage management". One can indeed ask oneself the question what archaeology has to gain from this kind of 'Reverse Archaeology'. Imagine that when someone wants to build a factory in an area with high natural values, the developers, the municipality, the public and the scientists are brought together at the discussion table, in order to compromise in a dialogue, which part of the ecological system can be destroyed and which not and which species are considered to be of value to grant them an attempt to survive and which not. It would be an impossible discussion, since ecosystems are holistic and integrated systems, but moreover no one would challenge the assessment of the area by biologists as a democratic process in which every shareholder has an equal opinion.
Then why would this be possible for questions on "what costs should be used for archaeological research and what should be invested in preserving remains in situ"?
The whole concept of 'Reverse Archaeology' seems therefor largely compromised and seems to me inherently in contradiction with the scientific approach of archaeology, already largely threatened in the actual state of preventive archaeology. This is symptomatic for the archaeological resource management of today in which scientific questions and approaches are becoming marginalized in the general process. The consequence of this is that the whole process of knowledge formation, in order to get some meaning out of the remains, is reversed with the consequence that there will be no longer any new information to tell, because all that will come from this is a mindless set of dumb artifacts.
As Matthew Johnson states, "What makes us archaeologists as opposed to mindless collectors of old junk Is the set of rules we use to translate those facts into meaningful accounts of the past, accounts that make SENSE, to us and the general audience" (1999). Archaeology is still a behavioural science of great complexity, which needs time and resources to do the translation. This is not a democratic but a scientific process, in which data and results need to be evaluated constantly. In this way we can attempt how to see more and share this widely. Only then we can offer something to our most important shareholder, the public.
Gepubliceerd in: Heritage & Society
ISSN: 2159-032X
Issue: 1
Volume: 5
Pagina's: 121-124
Jaar van publicatie:2012
Trefwoorden:heritage, Archaeology, Preservation, Heritage management, critical reflection, Treaty of La Valetta
Toegankelijkheid:Closed
Reviewstatus:Peerreview