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Abstract
Public participation in archaeological research is interpreted in various ways in different European states. Even though public participation is promoted by international organizations (e.g. UNESCO and Council of Europe) and the academic community, the extent to which the practitioners can implement these ideas is a matter of what is allowed (or encouraged) by cultural heritage legislation in every country, and of archaeologists’ attitudes towards public engagement. This paper considers the English and Italian systems, and in particular the consequences that legislation has on fostering or forbidding public participation, especially in relation to archaeological field research. It will start with a brief comparison of the relationship between the state, archaeological management, and public participation in both countries, then it will examine the legislation regulating archaeological research in England and Italy, to compare the strengths and weaknesses of both systems.
Acknowledgements
This research was developed in the framework of the projects PRIN 2015 (financed by MIUR, n. 2015ZKTLH5) and Visiting Programme 2018 (funded by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo). The authors thank G. Moshenska for preliminary comments on the paper and M. Nebbia and an anonymous reviewer for language revision. However, all mistakes and misunderstandings are our own. In accordance to the criteria of the Italian agency for the evaluation of the academic research, the authors state that: introduction is written by both; sections about England and conclusion are written by F. Benetti; sections about Italy are written by G.P. Brogiolo.
Note on contributors
Francesca Benetti is a PhD candidate at the University of Padua, Italy. Her main research interest is in public participation in the identification, research, protection, and management of cultural heritage. She focuses on the study of legislation and cultural heritage policies in the national and international context. She previously worked as a publisher and museums consultant.
Gian Pietro Brogiolo was Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Padua. During his career he worked in private companies and as a civil servant (Soprintendenza della Lombardia). He directed several exhibitions and research projects on the early Middle Ages, as well as several excavations, especially in north Italy. He has been president of the Italian Society of Medieval Archaeologists from 2004 to 2012.
Notes
1 See, for example, the Bruntland report (Bruntland Commission, Citation1987) and the birth of the category of cultural landscapes in the implementation of World Heritage Convention in 1992, whose management requires an active involvement of local communities (Rössler, Citation2012). In Europe, see the European Landscape Convention (Jones, Citation2007; Citation2011; Jones & Stenseke, Citation2011).
2 See the documents produced by UNESCO since the late 1980s, culminating in 2003 with the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Aikawa, Citation2004; Ruggles & Silverman, Citation2009).
3 The concept of community has been a subject of a wide scholarly debate, with a shift of the meaning from a mere geographical understanding to a more nuanced one, which takes into account multiple identities (Crooke, Citation2010; Smith & Waterton, Citation2009; Waterton & Smith, Citation2010). In this paper, we will use community in a fluid sense, as understood by the Faro Convention, art. 2.b (Council of Europe, Citation2005): ‘a heritage community consists of people who value specific aspects of cultural heritage which they wish, within the framework of public action, to sustain and transmit to future generations’.
4 Few studies have investigated archaeologists’ attitudes towards public participation. For recent examples, see Richardson, et al. (Citation2018). A cross-country study, still unpublished, was carried out in 2018 by Francesca Benetti, Katharina Möller, and Francesco Ripanti in Italy, the UK, and Germany. Preliminary results were presented at the European Association of Archaeologists meeting 2019 in Bern (Switzerland) in the paper ‘Working with Communities: Public Participation from the Archaeologists’ Perspective’”.
5 An in-depth analysis of the opportunities for public participation in archaeology (i.e. in identifying, researching, protecting, and managing archaeological heritage) would exceed the length of this paper, so the authors chose to focus on a specific topic. A more comprehensive study is the subject of the doctoral thesis of one of the authors (F. Benetti).
6 Most rules valid in England also apply to Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland produced their own legislations, which are beyond the scope of this paper.
7 For example, the National Trust Act 1907 specified that some properties held by the National Trust are inalienable, as they serve ‘for the benefit of the nation’.
8 Emblematic is the case of the obelisk of Axum, brought to Rome during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and displayed in front of the so-called Ministry for Italian Africa (later abolished). The looted obelisk was repatriated in 2005 (Santi, Citation2014).
9 This is now the case of English Heritage, after its splitting in 2015 from Historic England (for a critical review of the feasibility of the operation, see Larkin, Citation2014).
10 Since 2015 (Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 2014) in this latter case the request has to arrive either to one body or to the other and not to both.
11 An exception is the discovery of ‘recent’ human remains (i.e. dated to the twentieth century), for which authorization from the Prefecture — peripheral and territorial office of the Home Office — is required before proceeding with the excavation.
12 Some ten years ago some researchers even considered archaeological excavations as a fundamental element of community archaeology and its community engagement (Simpson & Williams, Citation2008). Today, the experiences in community archaeology vary considerably (see, for example, Thomas, Citation2017).
13 The academic community was seriously concerned about this, even though the public was invited to ask for expert advice (Current Archaeology, Citation2003; Kennedy, Citation2003). The project was also criticized on ethical as well as scientific grounds (Current Archaeology, Citation2003). On the other hand, the TV show stimulated a non-elitist vision of archaeology in the UK (Bonacchi, Citation2013; Holtorf, Citation2007: 119).
14 ‘In contrast to the continent, where state control is crippling, field archaeology in Britain has flourished in freedom. […] We could soon be like Italy, where […] you cannot dig the smallest test-pit anywhere without a permit. […] We could end up with all sites under state control and all digs done by government-approved “experts”. […] You cannot claim to back the amateur and at the same time call for bans on “unauthorized” work. You have to choose one or the other: freedom or control’ (Current Archaeology, Citation2001: 241–42).
15 It was due to the fact that, as already said, the Royal Decree of 1913 was never abrogated. This sometimes led to unusual episodes. For example, in 1986 one of the then archaeologist officers of the Soprintendenza removed the Renaissance ceramics from the bags of one of Gian Pietro Brogiolo’s excavations, to deliver them to the Soprintendenza for Historical and Artistic Heritage. Still in 2002 the Archaeological Soprintendenza of Lombardy declared that the excavation of the paper mills of Toscolano (Bs) dating from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries was not under their responsibility, and the same was declared by the Soprintendenza for the Monuments, so from 2002 to 2006 Gian Pietro Brogiolo dug them without any authorization (and only with the authorization of the landowner).
16 Even though legal commentators noted before that this system did not guarantee freedom of research and participation stated by the Constitution (Marzuoli, Citation2000).
17 See in this regard the scholarly debate in the ‘dossier’ section of the European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies, 3 (2013).
18 Also, in commercial archaeology the Ministry has in fact a central role: the scientific directors of the excavations in commercial archaeology are civil servants of the Soprintendenza, since ‘archaeological research’ is reserved to the Ministry. For a discussion on commercial archaeology in Italy, see Guermandi, Citation2016; Guermandi & Rossenbach, Citation2013; Knobloch, Citation2019.
19 Circular no. 3 issued on 9 February 2015 and no. 6 issued on 15 February 2015.
20 Circular no. 4 issued on 18 January 2019 and no. 7 issued on 21 February 2019.
21 The circulars split non-invasive research in two strands: remote sensing and geophysics require a ‘concession’ by the General Directorate, whilst field surveys require an ‘authorization’ from Soprintendenze (two different administrative procedures). A later circular, no. 30 issued in 7 November 2019, delegated the Soprintendenze to issue the authorizations for non-invasive research.
22 It is also illogical from the point of view of the optimization of administrative activity in a period of contraction of funds, given that bureaucracy will increase. However, this measure could be explained by the attempt to reduce the chances for citizens to discover archaeological heritage, since the Ministry would be forced to pay a reward for the finds.
23 The implementation of the Convention is quite different across Europe (see, for example, Guermandi & Rossenbach, Citation2013; Kristiansen, Citation2009; van den Dries, Citation2011).
24 This is not always achieved, since the civil servants have different backgrounds and training. Recently, the Ministry has founded a ‘School of Cultural Heritage’ to provide highly qualified training, even though in the website of the school it is clearly stated that this qualification will not grant the candidates the automatic ability to work in the Ministry (http://scuolapatrimonio.beniculturali.it).
25 However, issue no. 9 of European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies deals also with the legal framework of community archaeology in several European States. See also Carman, Citation2015.