Unless there is a secret government team searching for the Ark of the
Covenant (don't look in Ethiopia!), the only large-scale archaeological
contribution to public perception and ideology is Indiana Jones and Laura
Croft. Think about all of the crime investigation shows on TV; public
perception has been altered to the point where the findings of juries are
now negatively influenced. If the presentation of the defense or prosecution
doesn't match what jurors saw on CSI:Miami, somebody's in trouble. 
As part of a larger public consciousness, archaeology as myth is much more
appealing than archaeology as truth. We don't control our image; it is
filtered, refined, highlighted, and packaged in personas that reek of
adventure and sexuality. How can lithic analysis to assess patterns of
mobility compete with that?

-----Original Message-----
From: geoff carver [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 8:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: da vinci code & archaeology


I heard a paper on "The Da Vinci Code" at a session on iconoclasm at the EAA
in Cork a couple of weeks ago. Basically, the gist was that it wasn't even a
good thriller, but that, since the villain was an archaeologist trying to
reveal the "truth," while the heroes were a few folk trying to repress it,
this had implications for archaeology, our dealings with the public and how
we perceive ourselves.
Ignoring the philosophical dimensions (what is "truth"?), are we at the
point where it is "better" to repress unpleasant "facts" for the "fair &
balanced" infotainment that seems to pass for news (and, some critics would
have it, the formulation of public policy)? There was an interesting (though
possibly inadvertent) juxtaposition of the DVC paper and another one which
used photos from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to make its points about the
powers of imagery, and I can recognize how some people might prefer to think
that they were part of some divine plan, rather than the accidental result
of random evolutionary forces, etc., but…
The question is: how did we get here? Inverting the old reverence for
truth-sayers and the wise, in favor of whatever the market imagines we would
rather hear (or is willing to pay for us to hear)…?
Is archaeology contributing or resisting this trend?