Since the emergence of archaeology as a science, and even before, in the antiquarian times, archaeology had always been a tool for politics. It was such an abundant source for proving the legitimacy of these ideas that, we see archaeology as widely exploited in several ideologies, like imperialism, racism, nationalism and even regionalism. In order to understand this phenomenon completely, one should look at the reasons of the use of archaeology and at the availability of the archaeology, as a scientific discipline for the duty of backing certain ideologies.
The raisons for the use of archaeology by the states and ideologies stands obvious; it is, for example, for legitimizing the System, convincing the masses that what the governing body does is right, lawful and natural. It could be used, on the other hand, for boasting a nation’s self-esteem and pride, generally by linking the intellectual and physical superiority of one nation (race) to the Past. This notion of historical racism has also been used for justifying the expansionary policies of the superior race’s state. It has also been consulted in territorial claims, for showing that a claiming ethnic group or nation has been “there” before the current occupant. Besides the states, regional groups also use archaeological information in order to show that they are different ethnic/cultural entities within a state, since very old times.
A second question comes about the nature of archaeology. Why archaeology is so suitable and was so much used for political purposes? The answer lies on the adaptability of the archaeological data into different ways of interpretation, which risk being quite subjective, if the interpreter is predisposed to a certain political thought or manipulated by a certain ideological system. On the other hand, archaeology is also a discipline that offers perfect material to be employed in vindicating an ideology, and in re-creating the history: artifacts, treasures, cities, civilizations, even physical remains of past people like bones and skulls. I will try to present the influence of politic tendencies I had cited above into archaeology with examples from past into our days.
The first important example of this influence comes in the 19th century, with the rise of imperialism. The researchers of this period sought to explain the differences between the “civilized” Europe and the others. This purpose is apparent in Lubbock’s work, which widely used the notion of Social Darwinism and found out that the native “savages” were biologically inferior and hence were bound to disappear by natural selection. One should not isolate the ideas of Lubbock from the political context of the period: it was that of the regency of the British Empire, and the evolutionary views only served to explain the European expansion and dominance into other parts of the world (Trigger 1989: 118). If one manipulates the famous expression of the natural selection theory “survival of the fittest” into “survival of the strongest”, it becomes a justification for class stratification and rule of the aristocracy too. The “subject” or “colonial” races were labeled as inferior, hence they were fit to be subjugated by the Imperialists (Delanty 1995: 95-97). The ruins of the Great Zimbabwe and the romantic speculations about it were another evidence of archaeology conducted for proving the legitimacy of Imperial expansion. According to the imperial view, these cities were obviously not an achievement of the Black people, and white people, coming from the Near East could only build them. Thus, the white man was coming back to the territories that he used to rule in the past (Trigger 1989: 131). The imperialist view also ruled in American archaeology, which called the American Indians as inherently unprogressive, and unable to progress. A similar suggestion with that of Zimbabwe was made about the Moundbuilders, that they were not Indians, but a lost race, which came from somewhere else (Trigger 1989: 119-128). According to Trigger, the Indians were purposefully presented as brutal, savage and incapable to progress. It was a suitable reason for occupying their lands and violating the treaties signed. This idea had considerable influence on retarding the professional development of American archaeology with respect to the European archaeology (Trigger 1980: 663).
With the rise of Nation-States, nationalism became the dominant political power throughout Europe. The emergence of nationalism required for a national and patriotic past, to be learned and to be proud of (Trigger 1989:149). Archaeology was necessary in order to link back current people and culture to the past ones, and prove the existence of a nation. If the influence of nationalism was first observed in archaeology in Scandinavian countries, it appears most obviously, even chauvinistically in Germany. There was a strong enthusiasm towards the pagan past and Nordic people. From very early times, this interest was focused on ethnic concepts of the Nordic race, which was described as tall, blue eyed, blonde and having a long skull. Amateur archaeologists, like the physician Wilser or linguist Kossinna, admired the German people as a superior race that remained pure and unmixed until then (Wiwjorra 1996: 172, Trigger 1989: 163-167). Kossinna and Wilser were not singular phenomena in racist studies, as Eugenics was already spread throughout Scandinavia and Germany by that time (Field 1977: 523-529). This study counts the racist studies and practices of “Racial Hygiene” prior to the Nazi regime in Germany.
After the First World War, the archaeologists started argue about the German-Polish border, and sought to find prehistoric evidence of German presence. As the Slavs were considered as racially inferior, attractive findings were attributed to Germans and dull, ugly ones to the Slavic populations. These became convincing arguments in Germany’s regaining of its territories, which were once inhabited by Germanic tribes. It seems that the dispute over the German-Polish border did not end even after the Second World War and land claims are still backed by prehistoric evidences of either German or Slavic presence (Wiwjorra 1996: 164-177).
Russia is also a good example of changing archaeological interpretation with changing political environment. The archaeology in Imperial Russia has strong links with nationalism rather than imperialism. The trend was to emphasize the Eastern Slavic arguments against the Viking theory, which claimed that it was the Vikings who founded the Kievan Rus. Other cultures remaining in Russian territories were simply ignored (Shnirelman 1996:223).
The Soviet archaeology was born as a response to the nationalist and racist ideas. Soviet archaeologists strictly refused diffusionist and migrationist ideas. They insisted that internal forces play a major rule in the change of social and economic changes. The theory that would characterize this period was the autocthonism, developed by Marr. These developments were in accordance with the Marxist historical materialism. Especially the autocthonic theory was implying that the society could change and improve by its internal force. (Trigger 1989: 221-223). Although the Soviet view rejected nationalism, the studies turned back to ethnogeneticism, and anti-vikingism was adopted again. This was a Soviet nationalism, emerging as a reaction against German claim on the supremacy of German tribes. It was essential for the new, Post-War view to prove that Slavic peoples could found their civilizations independently of all external influences in the prehistoric times (Shnirelman 1996: 235).
The misuse of archaeology will remain together with the search of identity. The Aryan myth and the superiority of Indo-European people issue still linger in our days though concentrated in rather racist environments. The popular story is that of the nomadic, Indo-European speaking people who invades the Indus Valley, and settles its own culture around 1700BC. They are said to be the writers of the Vedic inscriptions. This theory was abundantly used by racist archaeologists like Kossinna, and later by Hitler. I was shocked in my recent discussion with my Lithuanian friend who claimed that Ancient Egyptians were Aryans but the Arabs destroyed their culture. Myths bear other myths. And do all civilizations and cultures have to be attributed to a language group? This seems rather an isolated case (obviously racist), but I think there is no other language family that has been used so much to imply a cultural unity among people who speak it. And it shows us that the old Racist demon is still among us.
The use of the Past, and hence archaeology still play a major role in political problems, from disputes about the use of the name “Macedonian” between Greece and Macedonia, which is basically the debate about whether the ancient Macedonians were Greeks or not, to the Pan-European claim about the Graeco-Roman culture being the base of the European civilization, although in most of the European cities the Greek-style buildings are only two centuries old. The new concept of cultural identity, especially that created in today’s Europe, is also problematic in my opinion: a strive for cultural unity, which could only be created at the expense of ignoring cultures and identities of many small groups, thus at the expense of ruling out multiculturalism.
Bibliography:
Trigger, B.G. 1989 A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Delanty, G. 1995 Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality. London: McMillan Press.
Wiwjorra, I. 1996 “German Archaeology and Its Relation to Nationalism and Racism” Pp. 164-188 in Nationalism an And Archaeology in Europe. Eds. M. Diaz-Andreu &T. Champion. London: UCL Press.
Shnirelman, V. A. 1996 “The Faces of Nationalist Archaeology in Russia” in Nationalism an And Archaeology in Europe. Eds. M. Diaz-Andreu &T. Champion. London: UCL Press.
Trigger, B.G. 1980 “Archaeology and the Image of the American Indian”. American Antiquity 45: 662-676.
Field, G.G. 1977 “Nordic Racism” Journal of the History of the Ideas 38: 523-540.
No comments:
Post a Comment