Early Civilizations

Dr. Kathryn Denning

Anth 2150, Sept 2007 - Apr 2008

18 March 2008... Welcome Back!

Plan for the day

1   Announcements.

Readings Schedule is online

Quiz #6 tomorrow, March 19, in tutorial.  Review guidelines are posted here

ALSO tomorrow in tutorial, you'll be discussing The End! So to warm up for that....  Think about the future. Humanity has been on a long journey -- where are we headed next? What are some possible, probable, and preferred futures?  (Mull this over by thinking about your favourite dystopia or apocalypse story or film ... e.g. Brave New World, Gattaca, Godzilla, Blade Runner, 1984, Total Recall, War of the Worlds, Terminator, the Matrix, the Time Machine, Demolition Man, Mad Max... I am Legend ... etc... has anyone seen Doomsday yet?) 

We'll return to this tutorial discussion next week in lecture.  

Last tutorial:  March 26 is your last tutorial. Here is a homework assignment for that day: 

WITHOUT LOOKING AT YOUR ASSIGNMENT FROM THE START OF THE YEAR: Go back and think about this again:

Go out in front of Vari Hall and have a good look around. Look back at Vari Hall, and at the fountain, York Lanes and the other buildings, the Common, the bus stops, the trees... and imagine what would remain in 1000 years if everyone left York today and it remained uninhabited. Write about what you think would still be visible above the ground in the year 3006. What would still be there? What would disappear? Would you be able to understand what this place was used for? Why or why not? Pay attention to details in what you see, and be specific in what you say! (If you want to keep going, think about what would be left in 2000 or even 5000 or 10 000 years.)

Sketches are welcome but not essential.

Length: 300-400 words.

To be handed in during tutorial on March 26. Worth 1% towards your participation mark.

2  Lecture

This week:

- Brief recap about contact, and ethical challenges for archaeology today

- Collapse and Renewal: how civilizations end.

Next week: Collapse and Renewal cont'd

Last class, April 1: Final remarks, student evaluations, and handing out the final exam

So.... where are we?

We've covered:

humanity's biological journey from our hominid ancestors to the present day

archaeological methods: how we know what we know about the past

humanity's cultural journey from a time when we all lived more or less the same way, to the emergence of civilizations, to our tremendously variable worlds today

the colossal historical events of Contact between the Old and New Worlds

What we're doing now is bringing all this up to the present day:

- looking at how the practice of archaeology today is in some ways a legacy of contact between civilizations, and thus has many ethical challenges as well as enduring interest

- looking at one of archaeology's great practical uses: it is unveiling information about the ends of previous civilizations... which just might be useful for us to know ...

So, briefly returning to Contact

Two weeks ago in lecture...  recapped the Aztec/Spanish collision

Two weeks ago in tutorial you talked about the Inka (but there was a lot of snow that day...)

Key point to take away from those discussion... that the popular stories of conquest -- e.g. 400 Spaniards easily conquered the Aztec, or 200 Spaniards easily conquered the Inca -- leave out a lot:

    - particularly local politics (civil war among the Inca, Aztec enemies)

    - germs (the plethora of Old World epidemic diseases being a result of their greater number of domesticated animals, which was simply a result of the number of domesticable animals... horses were also an advantage)

    - the lack of inevitability to it (there are many points at which the history could have gone very differently)

    - the Inca and Aztec empires were incredibly powerful, elaborate and successful, but it was precisely these traits that made them vulnerable to people playing by different rules

    - the difficulty of the battles

    - the fact that in the long view, the conquest was far from complete (e.g. war in Peru in late 1700s cost 200 000 lives, ongoing multiple waves of rebellion),  and the war isn't really over... 

Two weeks ago in lecture, we also talked about contact in general, including more recent historical contacts, e.g. interior of Papua New Guinea

Key points:

- everyone has expectations of the unmet Other  (analogy: you had all kinds of ideas about space aliens even though we've never met any) ... i.e. to a certain extent they've written the characters even before the story begins

- there are only two stories... someone goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town....  so in a way, there is only one story, with two sides... and all of us have ancestors from both. (Being indigenous is a political condition.)

These points are important when it comes to thinking about archaeology today, for several reasons:

1) the practice of archaeology, as a way of knowing the Other, is still playing through the story that was written even before contact started!

2) whether you're the archaeologist or the archaeologized is merely a matter of historical contingency .... or luck

3) narratives are incredibly powerful in shaping historical events. The stories we believe today can change the future.

Archaeology and the Contemporary World: history, ethics, politics.

The subjects of conquest and present-day issues in archaeology / politics / ethics are related.

Recall:

    - that the destruction of history (whether written or material) has often been used by rulers to attempt to instigate a new order:  e.g. destruction of records in China, Mexico (by the Aztec and later by the Spanish); renaming of places (e.g. place names in Ontario); destruction of monuments, sacred places, towns, cities

    - that retelling history to one's own advantage is a powerful way to claim rightful ownership of land (e.g.s Moundbuilder Myths, Nazi archaeology)

    - that archaeology began in Egypt as part of the colonization attempts of France and Britain

    - that anthropology and archaeology began in North America during the process of colonization...  partly to document the 'exotic', partly because it was believed that Native people would soon be completely extinct... which, of course, they are not. (Myth of the "Vanishing Indian")

    - SO....  archaeology is deeply political.... because it reconstructs histories in a certain way and dismissed other histories, because it objectifies people, because it has had a certain way of treating material objects (which tends to get translated into 'treasure', which gives them a monetary value), and because it has a certain way of treating human remains... i.e. people as specimens. This has led to problems.

    - it continues to be related to colonization because of 'who archaeologizes whom'.

Another beginning point to keep in mind:

- the inherent appeal of 'authentic' stuff  (goes back to childhood, apparently!)

- the value of the dead, in every culture (e.g. WTC)

Challenges for Archaeological Heritage in the Present Day:

Consumption - from "mummy" to the manufacture of fakes, to looting (e.g. Slack Farm), to the antiquities market (Red List)... eBay.... n.b. looting isn't just a small-scale problem.... involves major museums too. Looting is worsened in wartime, e.g. Iraq.

Examples:

http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/iarc/illicit-antiquities/whyloot.htm,  http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/iarc/illicit-antiquities/casesudies.htm

Ebay: www.ebay.com   (see here for a good discussion: http://www.saa.org/Publications/saabulletin/18-2/saa11.html)

A one-way trade: http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/iarc/illicit-antiquities/tradepic.htm

Destruction - sometimes religiously or politically motivated. Sometimes in war, sometimes not. e.g.s Bamiyan Buddhas, Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Bosnia, ... Iraq too

Eradication - economically motivated, e.g. megadam projects like Three Gorges (China), or Ilisu (Turkey)

Protection - e.g. efforts via World Heritage and other international legal instruments... idea that heritage belongs to us all (we all have the responsibility to care for it, and all have the right to enjoy it)

Commercialisation - e.g. tourism, e.g. native burial grounds [cemeteries! graveyards!], Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu

Celebration - the bright side! e.g. equinox or solstice ceremonies at Stonehenge and also at Teotihuacan ... but these can also take their toll on sites.

Key questions about who should control the past:

- is the past a resource? if so, who should get to use it? who should have the responsibility of guarding it? who should get to profit from it?

- to what extent should we try to make amends for wrongs in the past?

- rights -- e.g. weighing individual vs. collective rights, rights of interested individuals (interested for whatever reason) vs. rights of descendant communities, vs. rights of science, rights of the public

- does it make sense to speak of 'the heritage of all humanity'?

Recapping:

Repatriation

The Vermillion Accord, 1989, World Archaeological Congress http://www.wac.uct.ac.za/archive/content/vermillion.accord.html

1.Respect for the mortal remains of the dead shall be accorded to all, irrespective of origin, race, religion, nationality, custom and tradition.

2.Respect for the wishes of the dead concerning disposition shall be accorded whenever possible, reasonable and lawful, when they are known or can be reasonably inferred.

3.Respect for the wishes of the local community and of relatives or guardians of the dead shall be accorded whenever possible, reasonable and lawful.
 
4.Respect for the scientific research value of skeletal, mummified and other human remains (including fossil hominids) shall be accorded when such value is demonstrated to exist.

5.Agreement on the disposition of fossil, skeletal, mummified and other remains shall be reached by negotiation on the basis of mutual respect for the legitimate concerns of communities for the proper disposition of their ancestors, as well as the
legitimate concerns of science and education.

6.The express recognition that the concerns of various ethnic groups, as well as those of science are legitimate and to be respected, will permit acceptable agreements to be reached and honoured.

From this document came others like NAGPRA.

Enduring issues in studying human remains

Consider: different religions and cultures have different ideas about the relationship of the soul(s) to the body (flesh or bones).  How could this affect post-mortem treatment of human remains?  How might this affect archaeology?

- we must always realize that there is a divide between subject and object -- what does it do to make people into objects?   (think: BodyWorlds, mummies in the museum)
 

- we must always consider what knowledge is worth in terms of human suffering (Just how much can you learn from one set of ancient human remains? Sex, age, etc…. injuries, diet, lifeway…. biological population affiliation  -  WHAT IS THAT KNOWLEDGE WORTH?)

So... bottom lines... Archaeology, ethics, politics

Through cases like 'Kennewick Man', and films like 'Who Owns the Past?', and books like "Skull Wars'' -- which I highly recommend --  we see that although archaeology has taught us a great deal about human history, this knowledge has come at a great cost. The study of human remains has caused much pain.

Problems include:

- some people's assumptions that they are entitled to study others, without consent

- the assumption that because someone is biologically dead, they are also socially dead / unimportant

- a lack of questioning about exactly how important it is to study some scientific problems

We cannot simply put historical wrongs right by 'undigging' a grave... but we can try to make amends.

And there is at least some good news -- repatriation is taking place, and partnerships are being forged between Indigenous peoples and archaeologists.

And it's good news that archaeology is being used for socially constructive purposes now too... e.g. some people want archaeological studies of their own past, as a way of restoring/recovering their community's past (indigenous groups, descendants of the enslaved or silenced)

And it's good news that new ethical standards are emerging in archaeology.

It would be even better news, however, if we really take all that we've learned from archaeology and do something truly positive with it.

Which brings us to...

Collapse  (or, Archaeology and the Future)

Left: Argh! A meteor hits Giza! (not really)                     Right: A volcano erupts over El Ceren (really)   www.archaeology.org/online/features/godzilla/

A few beginning points

1) Big picture: Recall that life on Earth has been nearly obliterated on multiple occasions. All things come to an end.

From last term...

2)  (and, from an article called Legacies of Human Evolutionary History):

- we are biocultural creatures

- despite our success (over 6 billion of us, all over the globe), we are much less successful than, for example, bacteria or insects, and  mammals are on the decline, and we have not actually survived very long yet (200-400 000 years, compared to, for example, Homo erectus, which lasted about 1.5 million years... or other species which have lasted 400 million years)... and most species eventually become extinct

- we have a serious overpopulation problem

- we have, historically, had major environmental impacts (e.g. hunting fauna to extinction, environmental degradation), and continue to do so today  (e.g. see  http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/footprint/