Editorial

In this year’s edition of the journal we have given over significant space (three issues) to a special volume on the relationship between archaeology and economic development. Consequently we have had little opportunity to take note of many of the important developments that have affected the archaeological and heritage world in 2014. Therefore, we would like to say a few words here about some of the most noteworthy events that have taken place in the sphere of public archaeology in the past twelve months.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the year was bound up in the date itself — the centenary of the beginning of World War I — prompting what will undoubtedly be a number of commemorative events between now and 2019. Despite the global epithet given to this conflict, its memory is mainly borne by those in the principal theatres of war in Western Europe, where it is often painted with a romanticized pathos (see Moshenska’s review, this issue). In the UK, for example, the war is usually remembered as one entailing a senseless loss of life caused by bureaucrats stumbling blindly to war;¹ of brave troops led by incompetent generals (‘Lions led by Donkeys’); and seen through the voices of the soldier-poets Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. Poppies, trenches, and the ‘lost generation’ is the canonical memory of the nation.

As the war is on the cusp of passing from living memory — the last veteran died in 2012 — new opportunities are afforded to society to commemorate but also reflect on the conflict. A welcome characteristic of the centenary commemorations has been its inclusive nature. A number of documentaries have examined the war from perspectives previously little touched on, including gender, ethnicity, and disability (e.g. Channel 4, 2014). One of the most striking facts to emerge from such programming is that over one million soldiers from the Indian sub-continent fought in the war, making up over a fifth of the entire British fighting force. Participating under loyalty to Empire or through coercion, their sacrifice deserves to be better known, particularly within the current re-emergence of nationalistic, right-wing politics in the UK, and across Europe more generally. Archaeology has proved crucial in expanding subjugated narratives of the conflict, such as the ‘Home Front Legacy Project’ (CBA, 2014) which is supporting community groups to explore the impact of the war in their local area, or investigations such as the ‘Great Arab Revolt Project’ (GARP, n.d.) in Jordan, which has the aim of challenging romanticized notions of desert warfare and connecting the conflict to the wider political development of the Middle East.

Probably the most high profile of the commemorative events in the UK this year — outside of the official remembrance parade — was Paul Cummins and Tom Piper’s monumental installation ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’ at the Tower of London (see Figure 1). This work saw 888,246 ceramic poppies — each representing a British military fatality during the war — pouring down from a window in the Tower walls and filling its moat. The power of the installation was in the way it unsettled the visitor — the uncertainty of the glorious sacrifice; of what citizens are asked to do on behalf of the state.

Figure 1. ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’ installation at the Tower of London.

Photo credit: Kimerly Miller

Yet for the moments of contemplation that such memorial events provide, there were also reminders of the limits of memory, and some responses to the centenary of the conflict have been accused of exploiting it for economic gain. Specifically, Sainsbury’s — a nationwide grocery chain in the UK — has been criticized for airing a television advert dramatizing the fabled ‘Christmas truce’ between English and German troops. This follows an English soldier who receives a bar of chocolate in a package from home, only to secretly smuggle it into his German counterpart’s uniform after a game of football during a ceasefire. The tagline ‘Christmas is for Sharing’ is followed by the supermarket’s brand appearing on the screen (Critchlow, 2014). More broadly, the ethics of battlefield tourism of the theatres of conflict in Northern Europe has recently been questioned, particularly as certain resorts have developed well-developed tourist infrastructure of hotels, cafes, and gift shops, profiting from such sites (Haslem, 2014). As the war gradually slips into history, it appears that there is a certain inevitability to its ultimate ‘heritagization’.

That archaeology and heritage continue to be economically exploited should be no surprise in a year that has seen the UK government approve plans to split apart its heritage protection services. To summarize, in April 2015, English Heritage will be divided into two bodies: a charitable company that will operate the organization’s 400+ historic properties on a purely commercial basis, while its statutory functions will remain funded by government and rebranded Historic England. The transition to charitable status will be aided by a one-off £85m grant and helped by significant annual subsidies each year until 2023. The feasibility of these new arrangements has been analysed in this journal and in detail elsewhere (Larkin, 2014; see also the public response to the consultation: Gov.uk, 2014), but now that the plans have been formally approved it remains to scrutinize their impact. We will be particularly focused on how the new division affects the provision of archaeological and heritage protection, and also on the realization of the annual settlement that government has allocated to English Heritage to assist with its transition into a completely self-funded charitable body. This scrutiny is especially needed given that commentary on Chancellor George Osborne’s recent Autumn budget statement suggested that, in order to achieve the Government’s stated objective of a surplus in 2019–20, cuts of around £60bn may be needed which would result in public spending falling to its lowest levels since the 1930s (Guardian, 2014).

On a more positive note, the changing relationship between the state and its obligations to archaeology and heritage has created opportunities for financing projects in innovative ways. This year has seen the continued success of DigVentures (2014) — a social business founded using the energy and resources of crowd funding in order to finance sustainable archaeological projects. Over the summer, the organization returned for a second year to conduct excavations at Leiston Abbey, Suffolk, after successfully crowd funding over £18,000. The money was raised in part by offering volunteering opportunities marketed as specific experiences — an interesting way of commodifying the actual processes and experiences of an archaeological dig, versus the products of it. Funders can range from a Seed Venturer (£10), who receives ‘access to daily updates, blogs and behind-the-scenes videos from the dig’, to Day Digger Venturer (£145), who is entitled to dig with the team for a day, to Ace Venturer (£2000) — a bespoke group package tailored to the purchaser’s desire.

This year has also seen the launch of the Micropasts project — a collaborative endeavour between academics at UCL and staff at the British Museum — which acts as a direct interface between practitioners and the public. Micropasts offers a platform for smaller projects aiming to raise start-up funding directly from the public, and currently hosted projects include ‘The Archaeologists who Built London: An Oral History Project’ and ‘Living and Dying at Great Missenden Abbey’. In particular, the platform aims to ‘prioritize an under-appreciated “silent majority” of archaeological and historical research projects’ (Micropasts, 2014). Significantly, data produced by funded projects is released into the public domain, allowing the platform to circumnavigate the current thorny issues surrounding (often taxpayer-funded) academic work held behind the pay walls of commercial journals. The platform harnesses the power of volunteers as active participants by enabling them to conduct tasks online to assist with archaeological processing; it also gives the public a voice in implementing and shaping future projects in its online forum, which may then be developed into viable proposals and funded.

The direct participation and communication with their respective funders allow these two projects to engage the public with a more inclusive and collaborative model for managing archaeological projects. As more traditional sources of funding become harder to secure, it is to be hoped that such innovative methods of funding will become increasingly popular ways for the public to invest in and help to guide research.

As the year was drawing to a close, the ownership debate over the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles was reignited once again. After the British Museum had withstood repatriation calls earlier in the year from Hollywood celebrities George Clooney and Bill Murray (the stars of the film Monuments Men, portraying efforts to rescue cultural property during World War II), it caused an outcry after quietly loaning one piece — the statue of the river god Illissos — to the Hermitage in St Petersburg, Russia, as part of that museum’s 250th anniversary celebrations. While this act has been framed in some quarters as an adroit piece of cultural diplomacy, it is reported that the British Museum is currently in talks to loan more of the Marbles to other museums around the world (Parfitt, 2014). For its part, the Greek government has condemned the move, describing it as ‘an affront to the Greek people’.

The physical move of the object is significant, as the fragility of the Marbles has often been cited as a reason for them to remain in London. Indeed, with this move, the first time any part of the marbles has left the British Museum since they were installed there in 1816, it may now be more difficult for the museum to deny the return (at least as a loan) of some of the Marbles to the purpose-built Acropolis Museum in Athens. When pressed on this issue, director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor responded that the museum would consider loan requests from any fellow institution, but the problem with the Greek position was that ‘To date they have always made it clear that they would not return them […] that rather puts the conversation on pause’ (Erlanger, 2014: A1).

We will continue to follow the debate as it develops, particularly given that the Marbles’ newfound mobility opens a different dimension in the discussions as to their rightful location. It should be noted that as the controversy unfolded both the New York Times and the Times of London carried the story on their front pages, testament to the lingering fascination regarding the world’s most iconic and contested archaeological property, but that is also indicative of the continuing public interest in and engagement with the archaeological past.

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Finally, we are pleased to note the continuing development of public archaeology within academic and professional communities around the world. Significant conferences have taken place this year in Nova Scotia, Canada, and Jordan (see Gursu’s review, this issue), while important sessions were held at the European Archaeology Association (Istanbul) and the Society for American Archaeology (Austin, Texas) conferences respectively. In particular, a significant meeting was held at the British Institute in Ankara in Turkey, dealing with innovative theories and methods. The editors are pleased to note that papers from these important events will be published in these pages in 2015.

As for the current issue, we present two extended papers, spanning the practical and theoretical concerns of public archaeology. Carenza Lewis provides a detailed review of the successes of the Higher Education Field Academy in the UK (2005–13), and highlights the usefulness of archaeology as a subject to encourage a diverse range of learning skills. Colleen Morgan’s paper offers a theorization of archaeological film-making by outlining a typology of the different forms this may take, making an important contribution to the growing body of work concerning archaeology and the visual media.

Notes

1. As the anniversary year approached, a number of popular volumes have appeared examining this claim (e.g. Clark, 2013).