From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: Archaeology as Popular Culture by Cornelius Holtorf

This is another difficult book to read. Like The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, it invites the reader to put it down and think about it. Unfortunately this reader was having his house rebuilt at the time, which meant it kept disappearing once it was put down. The book, like the title suggests, considers archaeology as a practice of popular culture and examines how our view of archaeology might change as a result.

It’s not a book that you can read quickly and review. The argument isn’t densely written, it accessible and that makes it more provocative. In addition theses are added in snazzy boxes which reduce arguments to soundbite form which can make them even more challenging. As an example is Thesis 3:

Archaeology is about searching and finding treasure underground.

This should be easy enough to demolish. Simply recycle the cliché that “Archaeology is not about finding things, it’s about finding things out”. Then point out the importance of context, the difference between modern archaeology and antiquarianism and you can dismiss the whole thing without engaging a brain cell. Which is just as well, because if you do use your brain then it becomes a lot harder to ignore.

My first reaction was that this was sophistry, simply a case of re-defining the word treasure to mean anything you want. However, looking more closely that argument falls apart. Holtorf uses a quote from Time Team as an example; “If Tutankhamun’s tomb were to be opened for the first time today, archaeologists would be as interested in the information provided by the dust on the floor as they would by the golden chariots.” Academics do treat bones with the same care as gold, and even respect intangible features of a site such as context. If Holtorf’s argument were sophistry then we’d be reaching around for a new word that meant ‘treasure that’s worth something’. Instead he is right, there is a wider set of materials which are valued.

There are chapters on the meaning of artefacts and sites in the past. For instance you can argue whether Stonehenge is a Neolithic site or whether it’s the megaliths in that are important and it’s a Bronze Age site, but as Holtorf points out – it’s both. And it’s also an Iron Age site, a Roman site, a Saxon site… This leads nicely on to authenticity.

Is the current Stonehenge, with its stones re-set in concrete and carefully tended grass ‘authentic’. If so, authentic to what? If not then can you really say that the Bronze Age rebuild of the site is authentic, given the megaliths weren’t there in the earliest phases of the site? What is it that makes re-use and rebuild in antiquity authentic and modern re-use destruction? Again this is not an issue of semantics. Is vandalism an example of re-use? There’s a Bronze Age barrow built into the henge at Arbor Low – that’s usually interpreted as re-use and appropriation of the monument. I doubt I’d be allowed to have my own barrow at the opposite side, no matter how pleasing the symmetry. So what is it that makes something archaeological?

This is an easy point to satirise – and great fun too. I have an image in my head of a manically laughing Cornelius at the controls of an earth-mover heading towards a variety of monuments. However, he isn’t arguing that vandalism is inherently good and we should passively accept it as ‘re-interpretation of a site’, or that we should not oppose it. Rather, that we should have a better reason than “It’s old” to declare something worth preserving.

Perhaps more controversially he also argues that much can be gained from more or less destroying a site. It’s orthodoxy among archaeologists that the past only exists as a theory in the present. Holtorf argues that if the past is continually recreated in the present then one of the functions of the past is to serve the present and heritage management should be suited for what is desirable now, rather than from some diachronic viewpoint that no-one ever lives in.

This section gives me more trouble. I can see how his position on heritage moves on from his position on re-use. However, I think we have a different use for the past, and a different understanding of the past than we did in the 19th Century or earlier. Immediate re-use was appropriate for the understanding at the time of re-use in the past. I think the acceptance of deep time in the human past has altered out perspectives and that we may have a different concept of future to think about. Rather than living at the end of history, we are more aware that we are within a wider panorama of time, and hopefully not at the end of it. Do we owe the future a non-invasive custodianship of the past? Or do we look at our future great-great-great-great-great grandchildren and say that the selfish little brats will have more than enough extra history to tackle, so why should they rob us of the chance to study ours?

I haven’t made my mind up on that one.

The final chapter is on Archaeo-Appeal. If you’re so inclined you could be somewhat pessimistic about archaeology after reading the previous chapters. Holtorf paints a picture of a past that is a reflection of the present rather than an precursor to the present. In some ways it seems that everything that archaeologists have sought to break from in their past, the quest for treasure or the misguided views of the past, have only camouflaged themselves and embedded themselves even more firmly in archaeology. So while the final chapter is short, it’s also necessary because it shows how his view doesn’t reduce archaeology to nonsense or a mere power-game. Instead he shows how the value of archaeology lies in the process rather than the results.

Well so do all archaeologists I suppose, though I’d argue Holtorf’s vision of archaeological method is more embedded in the real world than mine. I’ve tended to view archaeological method as a set of techniques that should be done existing in some sort of perfect form, rather like a Platonic ideal, and imperfectly applied in reality. Given all the archaeology I’ve done so far has been in the real world, I have to at least concede that Holtorf has an interesting point.

For people who have found his argument a little disorientating he sums it up in one page at the end in a text box. His closing comments in this are:

What matters most regarding archaeology’s social significance is the magic it conveys Archaeology’s very special popular appeal is based on the experiences of doing archaeology and imagining the past, both often in metaphorical terms. Such archaeo-appeal is at the heart of archaeology and its ultimate reason and justification.

This does not mean that archaeology is necessarily uncritical and without a political edge. But archaeologists should not prescribe to other people how or what to think about the past. Instead Archaeology’s critical potential lies in the capacity to open people’s eyes, both in amazement at the magic provided by archaeology and through insights into the characteristics and significant implications of that magic, such as those explored in this book.”

I think this sums up why I like the book. You can agree or disagree with that, but that’s because it’s written clearly enough to be understood. It is a challenging book, and I’ll need to re-read it, but it’s the ideas I’ll be wrestling with rather than the language. It means you can concentrate on the problems and the problems he’s thinking about are threatening to make archaeological theory interesting again. Rather than aligning with one sect or the other, the book is relevant whether you’re scientist or a hardline relativist. “What is archaeology for?” is a question archaeologists duck, but if you’re taking public funding then there should at least be some consideration of what public benefit there is.

So despite being relatively thin, it’s not a quick read. Even if I change my mind utterly and decide that Holtorf is wrong on every single issue, I’d still argue it’s a good book, because it’s well-reasoned and thought-provoking and I’d rather read something that was wrong for interesting reasons than right for dull ones. And if there’s one thing that Holtorf’s work tends to be, it’s interesting. —–