| ISSN 1357-4442 | Editor: Simon Denison |
|---|
| COMMENT |
How can archaeology build on its progress in the past 100 years? Simon Denison offers some thoughts
Everyone else may be thinking about the turn of the millennium, but I'd rather focus here on a less epochal but more comprehensible event - the simultaneous turn of the century. How has archaeology fared these past 100 years? What do we hope for in the next?
On the back page of this magazine, we have conducted a poll of a random selection of archaeologists, to record views on the `most important' event in British archaeology this century. What is remarkable is the range of answers given. Cited are advances in science, conservation, political clout, access - and a number of truly great discoveries. Some answers hint at unfinished business, but overall archaeology's vitality and progress this century could not have been made clearer.
Judged against 100 years ago, our knowledge of every phase of prehistory and pre-medieval history has been transformed - in many respects from a base-level of near zero. By comparison, advances in documentary research have been negligible. In short, this has been a golden century for archaeology, its first century of exuberant maturity.
What, then, will the 21st century bring? What do we want it to bring?
In terms of public understanding, those who wish to be reached by archaeology are now reasonably well served. Newspapers, magazines and television are full of archaeological stories. Well-written books appear now and again, and should do so more often as advances in knowledge make the subject more attractive to writers. Student and adult-education courses are plentiful and well-subscribed. Cultural tourism is buoyant.
Yet to reach the bulk of the population, there is much work to be done (see BA, September). Formal education can, of course, be improved. But I fear little significant progress without a wholesale shift in our national disposition, towards a respect for the past and its ability to enrich our lives in the present. Such a transformation may be inspired by writers and broadcasters, but requires the enthusiastic support of national government policy - now lacking - in a form that will probably be linked to conservation.
Conservation is now entrenched in planning practice. Few major developments take place without archaeological involvement. Demolitions of historic buildings are much rarer than 20 years ago. But whole swathes of the historic environment remain outside planning control. Agricultural machinery ploughs ever deeper; peat shredding continues. Outside conservation areas, the character of our rural landscape is relentlessly degraded by new building in inappropriate materials and designs.
I long for the day when all visible historic features of the environment are respected for their emotional, intellectual and landscape value. This respect would not require us to preserve everything, only to think more deeply before we alter and destroy. I look also to a time when all new buildings, however humble, acknowledge (note, I do not say `slavishly copy') a locality's vernacular traditions. Now, imagine if there were a widespread popular will behind such a policy, with offenders kicked out of town like paedophiles from a scouts' club - think what could then be achieved.
An impossible dream? A dream certainly; but other equally improbable cultural transformations have taken place over recent years. All it takes is a combination of brilliant campaigning, official support, time and luck. The goal has to be worth the effort.
Archaeology's core business is discovery-based research. The still-yawning gaps in our understanding of most periods mean there is at least another century (or two) of work to do before we can claim the subject is even roughly sewn up. Fortunately, there is no sign of any let-up in the rate of outstanding new discoveries. But does archaeology always make the best use of its discoveries? How should we move forward?
For some decades, archaeologists have generally been less interested in individuals than in the organisation of societies as a whole. Evidence is typically examined for the light it throws on power and status, gender-relations, settlement patterns, changes in technology, subsistence, trade and the like. Much of this has been admirable and necessary.
Recently archaeologists have also begun commonly to draw on post-processual theory, finding `meaning' and ritual in all manner of archaeological remains. Before long, taking this further, I hope for a far richer archaeology that happily addresses thought, morality, taste, art, music, desire, ambition, character and feeling - in short, which encompasses all aspects of life both social and personal.
Some will say that archaeological evidence isn't up to such a task. I don't believe it. We already have ground-breaking work on, for example, Boxgrove Man's personality (BA, Feb 1995), the prehistory of sex (BA, June 1996), Neolithic ritual music (BA, April 1997); and detailed experimental reconstructions of Bronze Age daily life (BA, July 1995). At present, such work sits at the margins. In the new century I would like to see it move centre stage.
Archaeology has a glorious recent past. Let's hope its future lives up to it.
Simon Denison is Editor of British Archaeology
Return to the British Archaeology homepage
© Council for British Archaeology, 1999