A theoretical and political critique of Cornelius Holtorf ’s vision of archaeology and the reply of Cornelius

Should archaeology be in the service of 'popular culture'?

by Kristian Kristiansen∗

In two recent books, From Stonehenge to Las Vegas – Archaeology as popular culture (AltaMira 2005) and Archaeology is a brand! The meaning of archaeology in popular culture (Archaeopress 2007), Cornelius Holtorf wants us to readdress the focus of archaeology from being predominantly a study of the past to becoming a study of its use in popular culture in the present. While I am in general sympathy with the attempt to analyse the role of archaeology in modern popular culture – and his 2007 book especially provides some good examples of that – I am deeply sceptical of Holtorf ’s theoretical and political programme for archaeology. It represents a dangerous attempt to deconstruct archaeology as a historical discipline in order to allow modern market forces to take over the archaeological heritage and the consumption of the past as popular culture. Cornelius Holtorf presents his destructive ultra-liberal, and deeply conservative ideology quite openly: in one of the first paragraphs in his 2005, he declares (p. 6): ‘As far as I am concerned the practices of archaeology in the present are far more important and also more interesting than what currently accepted scientific methods can teach us about a time long past. Much of what actually happened hundreds or thousands of years ago is either scientifically inaccessible in its most significant dimensions, inconclusive in its relevance, or simply irrelevant to the world in which we are living now . . . . Importantly, I am not denying the relevance of the past to the present categorically; I merely question the significance of accurately knowing the past in the present’ (see also chapter 8). And on p. 12 he adds: ‘A second aim of this book is to suggest a new understanding of professional archaeology itself, shifting the emphasis from archaeology as a way of learning about the past to archaeology as a set of relations in the present.’ Consequently there is no need of academic archaeologists, as we do not need to know about the past as past, only as popular culture in the present. Holtorf goes on (p. 14): ‘I wish to challenge the dominant view by undermining its very foundation . . . I suggest an alternative categorization of archaeology: from archaeology as science and scholarship to archaeology as popular culture.’ According to Holtorf this is because the ultimate reason and justification for archaeology, and why it exists, is as popular culture. Not the democratic-political framework of legislation and academia, which has no place in Holtorf ’s world of free market consumption of the past, but as popular demand. 

 To achieve this agenda Holtorf sets out to deconstruct some of the foundations of archaeological heritage: the notions of authenticity (chapter 7) and of preservation (chapter 8). While I welcome a theoretical discussion of the various approaches to authenticity in modern society, Holtorf ’s goal becomes obvious when you read the next chapter. By declaring that perceived ‘pastness’ is more important than real past it becomes easier to defend his attack on archaeological preservation in chapter 8. This chapter is full of misunderstandings and Holtorf is ignorant of the most basic information about archaeological preservation, some of which I have pointed out earlier in print and verbally to Cornelius Holtorf, but apparently to no effect (Holtorf 1999; Kristiansen 1999). This may come as no surprise as academic expertise is superfluous in his brave new archaeological world. Consequently there is no need to preserve archaeological sites, there are already too many, and Holtorf believes (wrongly) that sites under protection gradually decay and disappear in the end. He rather prefers what he calls ‘constructive destruction’ where every community and society is allowed to treat archaeological sites as they see fit. Since history and the past is rewritten or renegotiated in every generation, there are no universal values, everything is in flux, and protective legislation is consequently unwarranted. Holtorf concludes about the role of the heritage sector: ‘Instead of preserving too much in situ and endlessly accumulating finds and data for an unspecified future, it is more than appropriate to take seriously the challenge of providing experiences of the past that are actually best for our own society now.’ (2005: 148). What is considered ‘best’ is determined by popular demand. So here we are at the ultimate goal for Holtorf: a deconstructed archaeology in the service of popular culture stripped of its academic and political-democratic foundations, at the mercy of the free market and its forces. It is of course blatantly obvious thatHoltorf ’s perception of archaeological practice reflects his own intellectual and professional interests and constraints, which he wishes to transfer to all of archaeology. It is only human, if not terribly scientific, to mistake one’s own academic limitations for the limitations of the discipline. However, I believe it is necessary to take a critical analytical grip on the methodological and theoretical shortcomings of his two books. Holtorf has been ideologically consumed by the popular culture he set out to analyse, perhaps because he is an amateur in the field, and therefore lacks the critical and methodological distance that another sociologist would have possessed. Without critical distance, and without any sense of social and academic responsibility, he acts as a spokesman for his subject, which is ultimately an ultra-liberal market ideology freed from political regulation and academic critique (as there is no need for academic expertise, according to Holtorf ). In this archaeological ‘neverland’ of ‘archaeo-appeal’, as is the title of chapter 9 (in his 2005), archaeology is taken over by event-makers, who respond to the popular demand ofmass-consumption as part of popular culture. This consumption is never critically analysed, and there is no mentioning of the political abuse of the popular past by political extremists, nor is their any reference to competing claims and uses of the past. Politics are absent from Holtorf ’s version of popular culture. But since everyone is free to desire and create his or her vision of the past, there are no ethical limits in Holtorf ’s world of ‘archeo-appeal’. The whole framework for archaeology’s position as a ‘brand’, and the high popular regard of archaeologists, which Holtorf stresses over and again, is based upon the maintenance Academic critique and the need for an open mind of certain core values (as every brand analyser knows). But Holtorf makes no attempt to identify these core values, except in popular culture, where they have become mythical or stereotypical. Several chapters in both books deal with the adventurous and mythical properties of discovery and fieldwork, with no reference to the real world of professional experience and hardship. It seems as if Holtorf believes these popular myths can be maintained by an ever increasing group of archaeological entertainers.However, it seems that these entertainers need make no reference to the academic discourse of scientific authenticity and knowledge about a real past from which they originate, even though they are rooted in a century-old tradition of museum presentations and popular books, television programmes. Most of this is ignored in Holtorf ’s analysis, including the whole discourse of museums and heritage, which must have done a good job in the past to account for archaeology’s popularity (as is evident from his 2007a). BecauseHoltorf perceives the connection between academia and popular culture from only one side – that of popular culture – he comes to the conclusion that academia is redundant. Paradoxically, therefore, he wants to undermine the very foundation of archaeology’s popularity in popular culture – archaeology itself. I can see many interesting results evolving from a proper and critical analysis of archaeology’s role in popular culture in modern society. Such analyses represent a welcome expansion of the theoretical and analytical repertoire of modern archaeology that balances the study of the past with its use in the present. It is this very dialectic that makes archaeology more fascinating than most other disciplines, and which ultimately demands a critical understanding of archaeology’s ideological and political role as well. It raises some fundamental questions as to the political responsibility of archaeological practice and presentations, a perspective strangely absent from Holtorf ’s books. While he is inspired by especially Michael Shanks’ work (Shanks 1992), he lacks Shanks’ understanding of the politics of the past, and the notion of archaeology as a specialised craft (Shanks 1992: 162ff; 2004). Therefore Holtorf ’s two books become uninterestingly one-dimensional and fail in
what they want to achieve, except possibly in raising debate. I doubt if Cornelius Holtorf will create a following among archaeologists, when they read his conclusion as to their future on the last page of his 2005: ‘If archaeology is popular culture, then we are all archaeologists.
That does not allow us to claim extra wages’ (2005: 160). Holtorf then invites all of us to jointly enjoy the magic of archaeology. I am not tempted, and I wonder whether Holtorf still considers himself an archaeologist – or something else? 

∗ Department of Archaeology, University of Gothenburg, Box 200, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden (Email: k.kristiansen@archaeology.gu.se) 

Academic critique and the need for an open mind (a response to Kristiansen) 

by Cornelius Holtorf∗

Given that my explicit position is the precise opposite, Kristian Kristiansen’s claim that I was lacking ‘any sense of social and academic responsibility’, that ‘politics are absent’ from my work, and that I was proposing a vision in which ‘there are no ethical limits’ verges on the defamatory. Should I have written that there is a political dimension to everything discussed in my books? That nothing I said should hold professional archaeologists and others back from problematising and critiquing the stories and themes that are associated with the subject of archaeology in popular culture? That a critical assessment of the audiences’ interpretations and possible implications and consequences of particular meanings of archaeology are a social duty of archaeologists and that this is the one reservation without which archaeological stories, however popular, should never be told? All these statements are from one of the books Kristiansen disagrees with so strongly (Holtorf 2007a: 145-6). I very much agree about the need for academic critique regarding all instances in which archaeology or the past occur in the present – which is why I have referred more than once to Kristiansen’s brilliant, classic article about the past and its great might (Kristiansen 1993). Contrary to what he claims, my books do not only contain critical discussions of the popular consumption of archaeology and the past but also unambiguous acknowledgments of their problematic political and ideological applications (e.g. Holtorf 2005: 50-3, 139-40; 2007a: 65-6, 83-4, 124-6, 146-7). Competing meanings, claims and uses of archaeological monuments are the subject of two full chapters (Holtorf 2005: chapters 5 and 6). Kristiansen appears to confuse the necessary critical distance in any study of popular culture with the expectation of a negative judgment about it. It is very worrying if studies that do not condemn popular culture and their commercial applications are by default described as ‘deeply conservative’ and accused of advocating ‘an ultra-liberal market ideology freed from political regulation and academic critique’ leaving people ‘at the mercy of the free market and its forces’. In fact, although the term occurs in some quotations and there is talk of fleamarkets, Viking markets, market shares concerning TV audiences and segmented markets in relation to theme parks, I neither explicitly discussed economic ‘markets’ in my books nor is there a single reference to the question of whether any market should be ‘free’ or not (but see Holtorf 2006a: 25). It is not my position that archaeology should depend entirely on an unregulated commercial market. Kristiansen’s kneejerk reaction, which rests on simplistic dichotomies (as discussed in Holtorf 2007a: 113), reflects largely his own preconceived judgments.
Given my own occupation as an academic archaeologist, it would be bizarre if I did not consider myself as an archaeologist, if I argued that ‘there is no need of academic archaeologists’, or if I denied the significance of academic expertise in general. All this, too, is Kristiansen’s own fiction. As an academic researcher I adopted an anthropological approach and an ethnographical methodology in the research underlying my books (Holtorf 2005: 9; 2007a: 13). I was well qualified for such an analysis given that Ethnologie (the German equivalent to social anthropology) was one of two subsidiary subjects in my initial Magister exam based on five years of study. Parts of historic preservation and heritage management depend on theoretical foundations that need rethinking, and the problem will not go away by attempting to undermine the expertise of those trying to discuss – and unravel – some of the emerging knots (see also Holtorf 2006b; 2007b; Holtorf & Ortman 2008; Lowenthal 2005). Kristiansen does not say what I have been misunderstanding and in what way I have been ‘ignorant about archaeological preservation’. Certainly the points he raised nearly a decade ago I answered then (Holtorf 1999). Instead of introducing new arguments he attacks positions I do not hold. What has gone wrong? I cannot account for Kristiansen’s behaviour, but I suspect that some academics, as they get older, find it frustrating to see familiar positions being challenged and discourses changing in unforeseen ways. Does Kristiansen’s comment thus reflect his own academic limitations? But all is not lost. Kristiansen argues that archaeology’s popularity originated in knowledge of the ‘real’ past supplied by scientific archaeology. According to an alternative view, however, it was rather the other way around, with the growth and establishment of academic archaeology owing much to a long-standing popular fascination with archaeological themes (Holtorf 2005: 12). Rather than indulging in academic pie-throwing, we should be studying such important issues together and with entirely open minds.

* School of Human Sciences, University of Kalmar, 391 82 Kalmar, Sweden (Email: cornelius.holtorf@hik.se)

References

Holtorf, C. 1999. Defining the real issues – a short response to Kristian Kristiansen. Arkeologen 5(1): 9-12. 

–2005. From Stonehenge to Las Vegas – Archaeology as popular culture. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira.
–2006a. Getting to the bottom of things: a reply to Mads Dengsø Jessen. Arkæologisk Forum 15: 24-6.
–2006b. Can less be more? Heritage in the age of terrorism. Public Archaeology 5: 101-9.
–2007a. Archaeology is a brand! The meaning of archaeology in popular culture. Oxford:
Archaeopress.
–2007b. What does not move any hearts – why should it be saved? The Denkmalpflegediskussion in Germany. International Journal of Cultural Property 14(1): 33-55.
Holtorf, C. & O. Ortman. 2008. Endangerment and conservation ethos in natural and cultural heritage: the case of zoos and archaeological sites. International Journal of Heritage Studies 14(1): 74-90.
Kristiansen, K. 1993. The past and its great might: an essay on the use of the past. Journal of European Archaeology 1: 3-32.
–1999. The consumer’s past? – A critique of ‘The past as a renewable resource.’ Arkeologen 5(1): 4-8.
Lowenthal, D. 2005. Why sanctions seldom work: reflections on cultural property internationalism. International Journal of Cultural Property 12:393-423.
Shanks, M. 1992. Experiencing the past: on the character of archaeology. London: Routledge.
–2004. Archaeology and politics, in J. Bintliff (ed.) A Companion to archaeology. Oxford: Blackwell.