Books: Public Participation in Archaeology

Public Participation in Archaeology is the 15th volume of Heritage Matters, a valuable series of books on contemporary issues of concern and interest to museums, emanating from the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies at Newcastle University.

Like most publications of this kind, their source is often a conference or a thesis and they depend heavily on firm editing to give the text the readability of a book rather than a jumble of papers or a swamp of bibliographic references.

Here, the text springs from a session of the Sixth World Archaeological Congress in Dublin in 2008 and another, in 2010, at the annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in The Hague.

In his preface to the book, and with his tongue in his cheek (I think), Peter Stone claims that public archaeology dates back some 2,500 years to that first museum in Ur where Princess Ennigaldi curated the finds from her father Nabonidus’s excavations.

I need some persuasion here but what Stone does show is that opportunities for getting involved can act as valuable recruiting sergeants for archaeology and other activities.

Definitions

Most of the 22 contributors to this publication take a different view about the origins of public participation. For them this is a relatively new kid on the museum block. Indeed, it is so new that no one seems quite to agree what it’s called.

In her attempt to help shape a definition, Theano Moussouri begins her contribution with six options: communication, education, learning, outreach, participation and engagement.

Meanwhile Suzie Thomas, one of the book’s two editors, writes that “the actual definition of community archaeology has been at times problematic to capture”. Her rather weak conclusion is that “the nature of community archaeology, in Great Britain, and indeed elsewhere, is varied”.

For a moment it seemed that the search for definition was going to preoccupy editors and contributors alike.

I am not sure it really matters. While it might help to have everyone talking the same language, more important than definitions are aims and outcomes.

Sensibly, the editors nail their colours to different masts, looking at practical examples of public participation in archaeology under four categories: a sample of national models – in Great Britain, Ireland, Argentina and the Netherlands; education projects in Canada, Great Britain, the US and Jordan; and tourism in Turkmenistan, Belize and Mexico; and site management in Jordan, Turkey, Canada and Finland.

It’s a strong geographical mix although it does not offer any consideration of indigenous native peoples and their attitudes to participation in archaeology and ancestral memories.

Stronger editing could have helped to give the volume more coherence, particularly in the presentation of statistics. One contribution stands out, Politics, Archaeology and Education: Ancient Merv, Turkmenistan.

This is a model of clear writing – by Mike Corbishley and Gaigysyz Jorayev – that made me want to check the availability of flights to Merv, “one of the best preserved oasis cities along the Silk Roads in Central Asia”.

Popular enthusiasm

For a British reader, the impact and effect of Channel 4’s Time Team on popular understanding of the nature, purpose and process of archaeology weave their unspoken way into the fabric of this book even though the words Time Team appear only once. It’s a notable absentee.

As a retrospective in Current Archaeology reported, the programme was “an astonishing success, propelling modern archaeology into the public conscious as never before”. At its peak, episodes of Time Team were achieving audiences of 2.5 million.

All of which goes to prove that there is a widespread popular enthusiasm for archaeology. Join up the dots and the bigger picture begins to look full of potential.

Foolishly, I mislaid my first review copy of this book on a bus heading north to Euston. Feeling a little like JR Hartley on the trail of Fly Fishing, I engaged a number of allies in my fruitless search.

All in vain, but I like to think that the book has been found by some passenger who has been so inspired to get involved that they have headed to their local museum to sign up as a volunteer.

Timothy Mason is a museum consultant