Nationalism in Archaeology

Annotations:

• - 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 

1. Brooch for example - Hunterstone Brooch -

   Annotations:

   • 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 

1. Nazi Germany
   1. Nationalist Germany - extreme form of nationalism practised 1930/40s
      1. 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
         1. 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
         2. Ideas used for nationalist/socialist case for aggressive militaristic foreign policy
      2. 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
         1. Increased the boundary of them and us i.e blamed jews for Germany's ills and passed on nationalist thoughts via education
            1. Nation became a coat hangrer for Hitler to hang out ideological features i.e facism, Social darwinism and nauturism
         2. GOAL = PURE NATION STATE
2. China
   1. 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?

1. nationalism - the pursuit of cultural identity and political power by religious, ethnic or national groups
   1. How can the past help nationalism?
      1. create a past - real or imagined - that justifies a national claim to territory
      2. create a "how great we once were" mentality that increases social cohesion or the desire to sacrifice for the nation.

1. Ethnicity is culturally flexible/as a racial caetegroy it is sometimes thought to be absolute

1. National boundaries no significance but have influence some research traditions
2. In particular period - tend to explore own intellectual traditions i.e Southern English - Roman invasion of the southern lowlands - forts,towns and homes.

1. More interested in the resistance to Rome and the assimilation of the Roman culture by indigenous people
   1. Emphasis temples and rural settlements

1. Arose in the collapse of the Ottoman Emipre

1. Hellenism - idealised ancinet Greece as a birthplace of teh European spirit nd Western civilisation
   1. Knowledge of the classical world received through classical education
   2. Cultural imperialism - imposed on the past and present their own account of what consituted Greek Culture
   3. New state society reinforced by the constant building of its complete national identity and tradition
   4. In America Many displaysstress the purely commerical value of Greek archaelogy presenting the artefacts as valuabhle trade commodoties
   5. '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
      1. Adressed questions of ethnic identity within the general spectrum of the totality of Greek national identity - in relation to Macedonian debate

1. Much Greek culture and politics occured within notion of ethnos

1. Travelling exhibitions often funcition as as authentic illustrated textbooks and as mirrors of Greece

1. To promote nationl unity

1. Study of the past was seen as reactionary, leading to the disruption of archaeological excavations and publications and some sites
2. Today extensively used to cultivate national dignity and confidence adding to socialist ideology
   1. Interpreting the past in terms of a Marxist perspectives and lauding cultural achievments
   2. Archaeologists want to say that northern CHINA was not the only centre of cultural development
      1. Vietnamese archoaeologists

1. They located and mapped the remains of Roman Imperial infrstructure in ancient lands
   1. Archaeologists focussed on Roman towns, forts, frontier structures roads and irrigation
2. Laid claim to former control of territories by an earlier group of colonisers. Hence the Italians could justify land grabs
3. Explored the way that Roman dominated the lands and found that the contemporary imperial efforts worked with more effect
4. In the countries that made up northern Africa North East, Roman empire Britain and Italy were all conflated
5. 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
6. Colonial myths did not die entirely with the ending of former colonial rule from 1960-1990

1. Claims that Megaliths, stone carvings and hillforts demonstrated celtic presence on land prior to the settlement of contemporary indigenous community