SouthArc wrote:
>
> Is it just me or has a list supposedly focused on historical archaeology
> gotten awfully political lately? (Panama, Hawai'i, now Cyprus).  Personally
> I subscribe to this list for help and information on archaeology, not politics.
>
>                         Lucy Wayne

While I would agree that the Panama and Hawaii threads wandered miles
off topic (and I accept responsibility for rather cheekily stoking the
flames of that thread), I believe the Cyprus one was somewhat less so.

Any archaeology of the modern world, especially one that transcends
national and cultural boundaries, whether old, new or artificial, is
surely going to be innately political.  A short, and woefully
incomplete, list of examples might include plantation archaeology,
famine-era sites in Ireland, South African colonialism, and
nationalist/ideological imagery on material culture.

People of good academic faith are inevitably going to disagree on the
implications and relative importance of different aspects of those
issues.  But that doesn't mean that those issues lack importance to both
historical archaeology and wider archaeological practice relevant to our
sub-discipline.  For example, even though Cypriot politics might lack
direct daily relevance to the majority of HISTARCH members, the
interaction (or, more usually, lack thereof) of the governments of the
two parts of the island inevitably impacts the multi-period archaeology
of Cyprus.  As such, the wider implications are surely relevant to wider
discussions of archaeological practice, including historical
archaeology.  Aspects of Cypriot disagreements over intellectual and
cultural ownership of the past would undoubtedly seem highly familiar to
anyone who has worked on African-American or Native American sites; the
analogy is imperfect, but still relevant.

In sum, I would argue that political issues that impact archaeological
practice are directly relevant to this list.  Unfortunately, since many
of us have strong  - and frequently incompatible - views over those
political issues, discussion can become heated.  Personally, that's a
price I'm willing to pay as long as Anita occasionally hovers around the
edges to make sure things don't get too nasty.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alasdair Brooks
Department of Archaeology
University of York
King's Manor
York
YO1 7EP
England, UK
phone: 01904 433931
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"The Buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border"
Sitting Bull