Power To The People Desirability And Feasibility Of Community Archaeology In The Netherlands Master Thesis Heritage Studies H.G.Pape V1

POWER TO THE PEOPLE?
DESIRABILITY AND FEASIBILITY OF COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE NETHERLANDS

H.G. PAPE

MASTER THESIS
HERITAGE STUDIES

“The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a
language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human
beings can do that.”
- Richard Rorty

“The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the
sympathy of the community.”
- William James

“History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man.”
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Cover illustration: Caspar J.C. Reuvens at the excavation of Arentsburg, 1827 (commons.wikimedia.org).

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COLOPHON

Author: H.G. Pape MA
Primary advisor: prof. dr. J.C.A. Kolen
Secondary advisor: prof. dr. J.G.A. Bazelmans
Date: 13-08-2012
Version: 1.0

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GRATIAS VOBIS AGO

As is the case with every thesis or major article, I could not have written this one without the support
of others. First among them is my primary advisor and mentor, Jan Kolen, who has motivated me all
the way to the conclusion and with whom I have had several enjoyable, ‘eureka’-style conversations.

I am also grateful that Jos Bazelmans has been willing to be my secondary advisor. His views and
experience have inspired me from the first class he gave that I attended, as have his publications and
work for the State Service.

Following suit are my colleagues Arjen Bosman, Joost de Jong, Sigrid van Roode, Jolanda Bos and
Boudewijn Goudswaard. Partaking in Heritage Studies would not have been possible without their help
both at the office and outside. Arjen especially I want to thank for his willingness to be interviewed
and to share his decades of experience in academic, commercial and voluntary archaeology.

In the same vein I want to thank the other four who were kind enough to invite me in and be
interviewed at length. Marcel van den Berg, Bram den Boer, Nathalie Vossen and Jan Kleinen: thank
you! Our talks have sharpened my mind and informed many an argument in this thesis.

Martijn Duineveld and Sjoerd van der Linde deserve their place here as well, being the first to share
their experiences and visions of citizen participation in archaeology with me and starting me off on this
journey proper. Martijn’s PhD thesis was also a prime inspiration for my own research.

Many thanks as well to my college mate David Koren, who was instrumental in making Heritage Studies
both educational and fun. I am sure his thesis will acquire a higher grade than mine, as befits a man
who is often too self-modest for his own good.

Cheers to Neil Faulkner, who discussed with me our neo-liberal world and the need for democratic
archaeology. Your views have become an important part of this thesis, so thank you.

This space is reserved for all those other people, animals, plants and inanimate objects who have
helped me, knowingly or otherwise.

And, last but never least, my heart goes out to my partner and love of my life, Margriet Boonstra.
Without her unwavering support, both stern and caring, I would not be where I am today. It has been a
tough two years, my love, but as Bob Dylan already sang: “the times, they are a-changin’.”

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CONTENTS

Gratias vobis ago ...................................................................................................... 4

Contents ................................................................................................................. 5

Prologue.................................................................................................................. 7

Challenge and goal .................................................................................................... 10

Thesis structure ....................................................................................................... 12

Theoretical and philosophical framework ....................................................................... 13

1. Community archaeology: theory ............................................................................. 15
1.1. What is a community? ..................................................................................... 15
1.2. Community archaeology: motivations and origins .................................................... 18
1.3. The Australian crucible ................................................................................... 20
1.4. The premise and relevance of community archaeology ............................................. 23
1.5. Research or management? ................................................................................ 25

2. Community archaeology: practice ........................................................................... 28
2.1. Excursion to Egypt: the Community Archaeology Project in Quseir ............................... 28
2.2. The Levi Jordan Plantation Web Site Project in Brazoria, Texas (US) ............................. 34
2.3. The pitfalls of community archaeology ................................................................. 38
2.4. Community archaeology in the long run: SHARP and the Sedgeford Crisis ....................... 41
2.5. Community archaeology defined? ....................................................................... 43

3. Dutch archaeology: history ................................................................................... 44
3.1. Beginnings at Arentsburg ................................................................................. 44
3.2. Dawn of two traditions: Holwerda and Van Giffen ................................................... 47
3.3. Tolling the bell: law and policy in the 19th century .................................................. 49
3.4. The State Service: from rescue to preservation ...................................................... 52

4. Dutch archaeology: present................................................................................... 59
4.1. ‘Malta’: how everything changed........................................................................ 59
4.2. Matters of money, policy and stakeholders ............................................................ 60
4.3. Criticism, ‘quality’ and site valuation .................................................................. 62
4.4. Duality in Dutch archaeology: management versus research ....................................... 64

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4.5. Duality in Dutch archaeology: in situ versus ex situ preservation ................................. 68

5. Community archaeology in The Netherlands .............................................................. 72
5.1. To dig or not to dig: outreach and historical sensation .............................................. 72
5.2. The pivotal role of excavation in community archaeology .......................................... 76
5.3. Archaeological volunteers in The Netherlands ........................................................ 79
5.4. On knowledge and power ................................................................................. 83
5.5. Change from within: ‘Reverse Archaeology’ and beyond ............................................ 87
5.6. What community? Academic colonialism and identity ............................................... 91
5.7. Sign of the times: a note on citizen participation at state level ................................... 95
5.8. Three modes of archaeology and community-based approaches: a model ....................... 97

Conclusions and roadmap ........................................................................................... 99
Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 99
Roadmap ............................................................................................................. 100

Epilogue ............................................................................................................... 101

Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 102
Books and articles .................................................................................................. 102
Websites ............................................................................................................. 104

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PROLOGUE

In the 20th century, globalization, ongoing industrialization and exponential population growth among
others forced mankind to think long and hard about the way our surroundings should be organized. In
the more densely populated regions, of which The Netherlands are a prime example, living space has
always been a scarce commodity. This inherently put pressure on the archaeological record beneath
our feet; after all, the traces of ages past share with us that same living space, even though we might
not always see them under normal circumstances.

Those ‘normal circumstances’ cease to apply once the topsoil is cracked open, and the layers beneath
are laid bare. And, in contemporary spatial development, there are quite a few reasons to do so:
building foundations, (parking) cellars, elevator shafts and water-retaining basins are just a few
examples of construction elements that need to be realized at least partly underground. In doing so,
the present comes into direct conflict with the past. Because of this, documenting archaeological
remains during spatial development has been a staple in many countries for many years: this so-called
commercial ‘contract archaeology’ has grown to a full partner of ‘independent’ academic
archaeological research.

Daily experience as a mediator between developers, government officials and archaeologists in The
Netherlands has taught me that commercial archaeology is not the sitting duck in a harsh world of
builders and developers that it is sometimes made out to be, even though it undoubtedly differs from
research archaeology on several aspects. The embedding of archaeological research in national and
European legislation goes to show how far we have come from merely salvaging the remains of our
ancestors, before they disappear forever beneath a new suburb or industrial zone. Due to that
legislative framework, emergency excavations should literally be a thing of the past, as archaeological
research is carried out well in advance of spatial (re)constructions - where possible.

This becomes all the more clear when reviewing the specific situation in The Netherlands, where the
implementation of the Valletta Treaty paved the way for an even further integration of archaeology in
spatial development. The way in which we Dutch have opted to translate the Treaty into a workable
system has led to a unique market environment, where professional quality control combines with
governmental decision-making on the municipal level, in order to try and ensure ‘proper’ conduct in
archaeological research. The resulting subjects of discussion and debate range far and wide, as this
commercial Dutch system has gradually evolved with ups and downs since 1992 (the signing of the

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Valletta Treaty) and particularly since 2007 (the coming into effect of the Archaeological Heritage
Management Act).

At present, the Dutch archaeological system revolves around professionals for its validation, planning
and execution. The general public is ever more aware of the existence of archaeological research, but
not all that often do the results of the archaeologists’ painstaking labour find their way to the average
layperson in a clear, concise and inspirational manner. This is despite article 9 of the Valletta Treaty,
which concerns promoting public awareness.1 Unfortunately, this rather essential part of the Treaty
was not incorporated in Dutch legislation.

While we as a professional group have made strides in raising awareness, about the role and value of
archaeology in the spatial development of The Netherlands in the last few years, these efforts have
mainly focused on governments and developers, as a legitimization of the legislation in effect,
combined with a commercial vantage point - we are operating in a market environment after all. In
short, we mainly raise awareness for those that demand and decide and for those that pay. This is a
natural consequence of the system.

Those underlying motives obviously apply differently or not at all where the public is concerned. But is
this even seen or felt as a shortcoming, especially where the archaeologists themselves are concerned?
When prompting this issue on any congregation of archaeologists, some will deflect inquiry by saying
something along the lines of “But we already do enough for the public. Look at the books and folders
that we make, or the public excavation days that we host.” Apparently, increasing public awareness is
a station already passed. Or is it? Could it be that such responses flow more from the scientific mindset
that every archaeologist is brought up with in college, which then conflicts with the reality of a not-so-
academic heritage management system and an academic world on the sidelines? However, the recent
discussions and symposium hosted by the Foundation for Archaeology and Public (SAP, Stichting
Archeologie en Publiek) on the relevance of archaeology in Dutch society show that change is on the
horizon.

1
Article 9 (European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage (Revised), 1992) reads thus:

Promotion of public awareness

Each Party undertakes:
1. To conduct educational actions with a view to rousing and developing an awareness in public opinion of the value of
the archaeological heritage for understanding the past and of the threats to this heritage;
2. To promote public access to important elements of its archaeological heritage, especially sites, and encourage the
display to the public of suitable selections of archaeological objects.

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All of this should encourage us, in my opinion, from keeping a lookout for new paradigms that ensure
archaeology in The Netherlands remains innovative and fresh. Inspired by literature and my own
experiences, I thus set out with the idea of researching what could be a new chapter in Dutch heritage
management and research: community archaeology. It was not before long that I discovered a whole
new world of archaeological theory and practice. Community archaeology might come across as saying
the same thing twice: after all, is archaeology not implicitly a field of study meant to increase public
awareness of our past and drawing lessons out of it for our own present and future? Perhaps, yes, but it
is something else entirely when the public becomes an active participant in the archaeological process.
For that is what community archaeology is all about.

The transition of a centrally regulated archaeological system into a decentralized successor with far-
reaching implications for spatial planning (and vice versa) did not happen overnight.2 Truer still, the
transition has not reached a culmination and indeed might never do so. After all, any system – whether
man-made or natural - is inherently unstable, as it moves from one temporary equilibrium to another in
response to the shifting needs of day and age. The recent evaluation of our archaeological legislation is
proof of that.3 In light of this I feel that the needs of The Netherlands in this second decade of the 21st
century are shifting towards a new level of integration of archaeology in society. In this thesis I have
aimed to find out if community archaeology has the potential to answer those needs.

2
Goudswaard 2006, 30
3
Zijlstra 2012; Keers/Van der Reijden/Van Rossum 2011

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CHALLENGE AND GOAL

I dare state that archaeology in The Netherlands remains largely the domain of an intellectual elite,
even though ‘Malta’ might have had different aspirations for contract archaeology and the (r)evolution
of our heritage management system, which has brought several more stakeholders into the process: the
local authorities that are required to set research demands and make decisions, the spatial developers
(both private and governmental) that are legally bound to fulfil an archaeological duty and pay for any
necessary research, and the community that is supposed to be informed about the richness of the soil
archive for the sake of public education and building towards our collective memory.

At this point I want to stress the fact that I do not consider the professional archaeologists in The
Netherlands as the (sole) culprits of the system’s current form and function: later on in this thesis it
will become clear that one is dealing with all shades of grey here, in a historically dynamic setting with
multiple parties and interests. While I do maintain a critical posture towards archaeologists as a group
and stakeholder in archaeology – of which I as an archaeologist myself am part of - this is not some
polemic against the status quo. Rather, I want to evaluate our role especially in the Dutch heritage
management system, to bring us to equal footing in the discussion. For this, self-reflection is required,
as is a disposition of vulnerability.

In recent debates about the Dutch situation, community archaeology is being drawn into the discussion
with more regularity, for instance when talking about sustainability in archaeological
4
entrepreneurship. But what is community archaeology exactly, and should we even want to implement
it in The Netherlands? Is it just some fancy term, to be used by shrewd consultants and marketers to
sell more archaeological services and products, or can it be a new paradigm for conserving,
interpreting and using our shared heritage? Only after answering those questions can I continue to the
core challenge and goal of this thesis: is community archaeology both desirable and feasible in The
Netherlands, especially as an evolution of the heritage management system we have now, or would it
cause such friction with established traditions and the integration of archaeology in spatial
development that those seeds will fall into barren soil?

Community archaeology is all about participation of the community in every step of the spatial-
archaeological process. This is something beyond the public or outreach archaeology we conduct with
easy-to-read books, exhibitions and the like. It is even beyond current undertakings in The Netherlands
to further ‘commodify’ or ‘communify’ heritage management, which have already sparked

4
Ref: prof. dr. J.C.A. Kolen during the ADC symposium on cultural entrepreneurs in the heritage sector, d.d. 25-08-2011, Leiden.

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considerable debate in the Dutch archaeological sector.5 Do we even dare to take on the next level,
should we wish to do so? Can we see the benefits or do we fear losing voice in the halls of power as
experts? This mix of eagerness and apprehension informs the title of my thesis: ‘Power to the people?’
The question mark already indicates that community archaeology is not a clear-cut term with clear-cut
implications; it instead begs for further analysis. I do not claim to have presented the reader with all
the answers when done reading this thesis, but I do hope to have contributed to inspiring your thinking
about archaeology in today’s society.

5
‘Reverse Archaeology’ is a prime example, see paragraph 5.5.

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THESIS STRUCTURE

All research is informed by its underlying methodology and the disposition of the scholar(s) carrying it
out. Every artefact, institution or concept can be viewed from multiple angles and levels, thus reaching
different conclusions and recommendations depending on the scholar and his/her outlook, as well as
the era in which he/she lived. The theoretical-philosophical framework and personal background for
this thesis is described in the next pages. In it I will shed some light on my personal view of
archaeology and the paths of theory I have found myself travelling upon.

In the first and second chapter, I will endeavour to understand for myself and explain to the reader the
core of this thesis: what is community archaeology? This entails analyzing several disparate views and
opinions on the subject, along with giving a score of examples from different countries around the
world. While some may not be suited for analogy with the Dutch situation, they will all definitely
illuminate the requisite mindset towards (archaeological) heritage and associated policy needed to
make community archaeology feasible.

To come to meaningful statements on the feasibility and desirability of community archaeology in The
Netherlands, I will then review the Dutch archaeological practice and the associated heritage
management system. In the third chapter I therefore aim to give an overview of the history of
archaeological research and management in The Netherlands, and use the fourth chapter to explain
more thoroughly how the current system came to be and how it functions. In both chapters I will
reflect on this history and that practice to pinpoint if, and, if so, where community archaeology would
fit into the Dutch situation.

The fifth and final chapter will be the synthesis and transcendence of the previous chapters, in which I
combine the results of my analyses with other thoughts and insights I gained during my research. How
and where could community-based approaches be implemented in Dutch archaeology? What do we have
to gain from it and who can be seen as its beneficiaries? I will also try to grasp the undercurrents of
knowledge and power to put archaeology in The Netherlands in context, as well as make an outing into
the concept of ‘historical sensation’ and different engagement levels people can have with
archaeology.

The thesis will then conclude with the answers to the main questions: is community archaeology in
The Netherlands feasible and desirable? Some ruminations on intended follow-up research will
constitute my closing remarks.

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THEORETICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK

Archaeology has many faces. For most people, it can be adequately summarized as “the scientific study
of material remains (as fossil relics, artefacts, and monuments) of past human life and activities.”6 And
in essence that is indeed what archaeology, or perhaps more specific, archaeological research, has
entailed since the first systematic and documented excavations. After all, the Greek term ἀρχαιολογία
(archaiologia) roughly translates to ‘ancient study’, thus being a scientific endeavour. This does not
mean however that archaeology is solely a (natural) science, as its various approaches also bear the
hallmark of a humanity: methods in archaeology are not only empirical in nature, but also analytical,
critical and speculative. In the United States it is considered intimately tied to or even a branch of
anthropology, other than the separate discipline that it often constitutes in the European halls of
learning. It is therefore not so strange that, as an academic field of study, archaeology can be found in
different faculties varying from university to university.

In my experience as an archaeologist and consultant, the approaches of the humanity part are oft
overlooked by us archaeologists, as we tend to forget that reconstructing the lives and world of the
past inherently means combining facts (i.e. derived from empirical study) with interpretations (i.e.
derived from critical analysis and conjectured speculation). In other words: archaeology is part
‘educated guess’, based on the talents, knowledge, experience and personal disposition of individual
people practicing it. I personally do not think that facts tell a tale of their own (truth-as-discovered),
nor do artefacts: meaning is attributed to them by us humans. In other words, I believe we construct
our own realities and truths (truth-as-created), which can shift in time and content between people or
communities. It also means that those different perspectives can clash or combine, but that none of
them may be called false: there are no wrong opinions. This is basically what in philosophy is known as
constructivism, or, to be more exact, pragmatism. This constructivist/pragmatist outlook of mine can
be seen in practitioners of community archaeology as well, of which Neil Faulkner and Carol McDavid
are prime examples.7 Martijn Duineveld, while not an archaeologist himself, has shared his perspective
on archaeology in a decidedly constructivist fashion as well. His dissertation has inspired me from the
beginning.8

This is also precisely why I value the role of the archaeologist as storyteller so much: we are trained to
give meaning to traces from the past in a certain way, so as to evoke that past from tangible remains

6
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, definition of archaeology.
7
McDavid 2002; Faulkner 2000; 2009
8
Duineveld 2006

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for those that can not do so or not as well. In a sense, that is a gift, which we should use to the fullest.
I will not state that every archaeologist should go out into the mall and tell tall tales from yore, as
some archaeologists are obviously much more suited to enthuse other people or relate to a certain
target audience than others, but I do strongly advocate much more openness and outreach. I believe it
is this disposition that made me wonder about community archaeology in the first place: a drive to
keep archaeology in The Netherlands from distancing itself from modern society.

I believe that archaeology has social relevance by default, and I dislike the social validation we as
contract archaeologists seem to practice ever more often with all the new stakeholders in ‘our’
process: trying to convince those that pay for and decide about commercial archaeological research of
archaeology’s relevance in general, in my opinion, is a step back.9 While even research archaeology at
universities has not escaped the change to the archaeological process – the legislation and quality
control that govern contract archaeology apply to non-commercial work done on Dutch soil as well -
the amount of social validation seems to be lower there, perhaps because universities seem to have
distanced themselves from commercial archaeology. I feel this to be a balance shift to the other end,
which I do not find desirable either. In the four years of experience as a consultant in commercial
archaeology, I have witnessed and participated in a lot of different projects all across The Netherlands
and thus claim some authority in that field. However, I honestly have little recent experience with
archaeology departments of universities, and my opinions on research archaeology are for the better
part informed by literature and experiences from people in my network.

Beside my experience in the field of Dutch archaeological heritage management, I feel that my
education grants me a different outlook on the situation in The Netherlands: I have been primarily
trained as a classical-Mediterranean archaeologist at Groningen University, with a specialization in
Roman Italy - a nation where archaeology is practiced quite differently. At Groningen University I
developed an outlook on archaeology that can be called cognitive-processual in general, and which
sometimes dips into Critical Theory (corresponding with the way I adhere to the concept of truth-as-
created).10 It might have something to do with the way my class looked at things: more critical of our
own beliefs, methods and practices and with a generally open mind – with a touch of idealism. During
the research for this thesis, I have been able to (re)develop my theoretical-philosophical thoughts on
archaeology and have come to the conclusion that community archaeology fully matches with my own
ideas. So, while I will be critical towards the concept as any scholar worth his salt should, the reader
would be right in concluding that I have written this thesis from a positive view of community
archaeology and a drive to bring at least some of its underlying ideas to Dutch archaeology.

9
Social validation is a form of compliance, in which somebody implicitly or explicitly tries to prove his/her worth, or that of
his/her undertakings, to others (as discussed by R. Cialdini, Arizona State University).
10
Renfrew/Bahn 2000, 486-493

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1. COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY: THEORY

In the abstract of her introductory article in World Archaeology 34 (2), Yvonne Marshall, senior lecturer
and head of education for archaeology at the University of Southampton, provides a solid general
characterization of community archaeology: it is understood as a distinctive set of practices within the
wider discipline, with its most distinguishing characteristic being “[…] the relinquishing of at least
partial control of a project to the local community.”11 One could characterize it as a new paradigm in
archaeology. In a journal edition entirely devoted to community archaeology, Marshall’s opening words
might provide the best point for newcomers to start exploring what I have come to experience – and
value – as a bedazzling multifaceted subfield of research and management within archaeology. World
Archaeology 34 (2), that particular compilation of articles with examples and methods from around the
world, has been a major inspiration for my research and, despite its publication date almost ten years
ago, remains an invaluable treatise on the subject matter for many scholars that deal with community
archaeology.

It is therefore that I have chosen to start my research with combining insights from all relevant articles
in World Archaeology 34 (2) – which turned out to be nearly every one, saying a lot about the quality of
this journal edition – to analyze the concept of community archaeology. I will also include insights from
later years, as World Archaeology 34 (2) is of course not the only repository of discussions on
community archaeology. Some articles have followed up on the case studies in said journal, while
others show the maturation of the community-based approaches: while World Archaeology 34 (2) is in
general quite positive about community archaeology, given its year of publishing and it being a
compilation of choice case studies by staunch proponents of community-based approaches, there are
also downsides and pitfalls to it that did not really lead to discussion until in later years. In this chapter
I will refrain from making too detailed a link with the Dutch situation, as that will be done in Chapter
5. However, I will make some remarks during the analysis, in order to pinpoint lines of argument that
can be unravelled and applied at the conclusion of this thesis.

1.1. WHAT IS A COMMUNITY?

Before we start off with the analysis of community archaeology proper, I need to address that first
word: community. It is essential to have some insight in what a community can be, for there is no
single inclusive definition for it (this also applies to community archaeology itself). “Communities are

11
Marshall 2002, 211

15

seldom, if ever, monocultural and are never of one mind. They are aggregations of people who have
come together for all kinds of planned and contingent reasons. There are therefore many ways in which
the community relevant to a particular archaeological project may emerge. None is unproblematic and
in many cases the interest community changes over the course of a project.”12 As African scholars
Shadreck Chirikure and Gilbert Pwiti put it so eloquently: “Layers of complexity are entangled in the
definition of ‘community’.”13

Marshall notes that two general types of community tend to emerge when archaeologists start with
identifying the site(s) they want to study. The first type consists of “[…] people who live locally, either
on or close to a site. Such communities are defined in the present and are largely about people’s
relationships to their place of residence.”14 This is perhaps the most ‘natural’ form of community, as it
conforms to most peoples’ notion of the concept: it is geographically-bound on the contemporary
spatial level, concerning people living in or near a locality in the here and now. This conformity is
sometimes referred to as the ‘residential bias’15. The Community Archaeology Project Quseir, which
will feature prominently in both my theoretical and practical analysis of community, is a prime
example of a study concerning such a residential community. The second type of community then “[…]
consists of descendants and includes those who can or choose to trace descent from the people who
once lived at or near the site. These communities are defined by their relationships to the past and to
other people.”16 Descendant communities are thus not exclusively geographically-bound (they can be,
but it is not a defining trait) and exist on a more higher spatial level: they can consist of people that
live around the world, but still retain a connection to the site under research. The Levi Jordan
Plantation Web Site Project in Brazoria, Texas (US) is a good example of a descendant community, and
will be discussed in more detail later on.

Marshall rightly observes that resident and descendant communities are not mutually exclusive. Often,
as with some of the case studies mentioned by Greer, Harrison and McIntyre-Tamway in World
Archaeology 34 (2), there is a combination of residents on/near-site and descendants that trace back
their roots to it.17 Even on this simplified level of two practical community definitions, it is clear that
there are no clearly delineated borders separating them. In archaeological theory, which has brought
forth a distinct and still influential paradigm of modelling the ancient world in systems and the

12
Ibid., 215
13
Chirikure/Pwiti 2008, 468
14
Marshall 2002, 216
15
16
Marshall 2002, 216
17
Greer/Harrison/McIntyre-Tamway 2002

16

relations between them (New Archaeology/processual archaeology18), this can hamper thorough
understanding. Still, I believe that acknowledging such complexity is half the battle already.

While exploring that conceptual complexity, Chirikure and Pwiti at first discuss a definition of
community derived from the works of Kwame Anthony Appiah19 and Nuala Johnson20: “[…] a body of
people inhabiting the same locality.”21 That term, locality, implies a ‘residential bias’ that Chirikure
and Pwiti attribute to the common concept of community (Marshall’s residential community): in many
spatial sciences, a locality is defined as a settlement or agglomeration of buildings and other spaces.
This automatically links a community with the site as a point in contemporary space. Of course, it is
the coupling with habitation that fully realizes the residential bias in the given definition. Chirikure
and Pwiti continue their analysis by stating that a community can be insular (bound by common
ancestry, heritage and culture, as described by Etienne Wenger in his ‘communities of practice’22) or
cosmopolitan (as discussed by Appiah). They also state that communities operate on different scales
(local, regional, national, global).

All of the above relate to what Chirikure and Pwiti call ‘communities of place’. In juxtaposition with
these, the two scholars put forward the ideas of Johnson, Wenger and McGimsey (the first to coin the
phrase ‘public archaeology’, back in 1972)23 of ‘communities of interest’. According to them, these
stakeholders “[…] transcend communities of place and geographical boundaries. They are strategically-
based, very powerful, heterogeneous and ever-changing. Stakeholders such as professionals,
landowners, politicians, tourists, descendant communities, and others with an interest in the past
typically coexist with communities of place, and they are often multiple and contradictory.”24

Note that Marshall’s descendant communities are subsumed within Chrikure and Pwiti’s communities of
interest, and are thus seen as distinct from their communities of place. While I am of the opinion that
those communities of place irrefutably have interest in the given site or locality as well, I do
understand that these two scholars wish to separate the residential from the non-residential
communities. What I most appreciate is that they show the concept of community goes well beyond
those that inhabit or have inhabited a point in space and time: there are many people and institutions
with an interest in any given site or locality (including ourselves as archaeologists). Both the level of
interest, connection and power can vary enormously between (parts of) these communities, as does

18
Renfrew/Bahn 2000, 465-472
19
Appiah 2006
20
Johnson 2000
21
22
Wenger 1998
23
McGimsey 1972
24

17

their perspective. Some may have a same amount of interest, but from completely different
viewpoints. This truly shows to me that we have to be extremely careful and open-minded when
discussing the ‘community’ part of community archaeology, so we do not lock ourselves in too narrow
confines prematurely. Marshall worded it thus: “It is important that we do not foreclose on some of the
potential of community archaeology by being quick to presume who will or will not be part of the
community of interest.”25

A final notion about the concept of community I want to address stems from the work done by Neil
Faulkner in the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (more on this at the end of
this chapter). After the staged ‘coup’ in his project team, Faulkner comes to an in my opinion essential
conclusion: those working on a community-based archaeological project become a community as well.26
It reminds me of Aphorism 146 by Friedrich Nietzsche: “And when you gaze long into an abyss, the
abyss also gazes into you.”27 For indeed, when we as archaeologists (and as scientists/scholars in
general) study something, that very thing is not only changed by the observation – much like observing
an electron in the famous double-slit experiment makes it act like a particle instead of a wave – but it
also changes something in us. In the case of community archaeology, the project team itself becomes a
new hybrid community that is intertwined with all other communities tied to the site or locality. We
become actually part of our own research, as we attribute meaning to artefacts and traces of the past,
and even more so when we delve into the vagaries of contemporary human communities and their
interest in archaeology.

1.2. COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY: MOTIVATIONS AND ORIGINS

In the conclusion of her introductory article, Marshall comes to a meaningful conclusion about the
motivations for carrying out community-based approaches in archaeology: “Community archaeology
represents an opportunity. We need it, not because it is politically correct, but because it enriches our
discipline. Community archaeology encourages us to ask questions of the past we would not otherwise
consider, to see archaeological remains in new light and to think in new ways about how the past
informs the present.”28

This tells me that community archaeology is for a good part motivated by seeing and acting upon
opportunities, rather than solely by reacting to and solving problems. Seen this way, one could

25
Marshall 2002, 217
26
Faulkner 2009, 64
27
Nietzsche 1886
28
Marshall 2002, 218

18

compare the first approach to a vaccine and the second to a bandage: proactive instead of reactive,
seizing chances instead of mitigating or managing risks. While I do believe that a degree of political
correctness with regard to ethical and socio-political concerns plays a formative part in the inception
of any kind of community archaeology, I wholeheartedly agree with Marshall’s statement. Indeed,
through my analysis I have become convinced that community archaeology excels in providing multiple
and different perspectives on the past. These perspectives are in part informed by and in part
informing the present, thus creating a methodological approach that ties past and present together.
Community archaeology pretends to be grounded in society and science alike, validating the continued
existence and relevance of our discipline in a continuously changing and expanding world. While I
surmise that this felt need for validation is in part the result of a sense of false modesty or even a
minor inferiority complex on the part of archaeologists – which should not only be contributed to their
own attitude but also to the current form and direction society is taking as a whole – I feel there is
nothing wrong in underscoring the import and value of our discipline by remaining innovative and
socially relevant.

Although the prospect of transforming our discipline for the better is of course worthy of pursuit, it is
always strife that spurs on innovation best. Reactively responding to problematic issues in research and
management has been key to the development of community-based approaches to archaeology in
several countries, which share a socio-political background: they are colonial settler societies. While a
detailed analysis of the concept of colonization stretches beyond the scope of this thesis, it is an
essential part of the history of community archaeology and its origins. To put it succinct: the origins of
community archaeology as a subfield of research with its own practical set of methods can be primarily
found in present-day New World countries with a colonial past: countries with an indigenous
population, that have been settled and colonized at some point in time by European people. The
consequences of these culture clashes have left indelible marks upon the present state of those
countries in socio-political terms, but also in the way they handle and approach their heritage.

Australia and New Zealand have a prominent position in that respect, as Marshall remarks upon the
surprisingly high amount of abstracts and proposals from that part of the world following on the call for
papers for Volume 34 (2) of World Archaeology. Marshall states that in these countries “[…] people
more readily identify themselves as practitioners of community archaeology and there is considerable
agreement as to what community archaeology consists of.”29 But, as becomes clear further down the
issue, this proliferation is not all that surprising when one takes into account the colonial past of both
countries: the Aboriginals of Australia and Maori of New Zealand have both endured decennia of study
by what could be called the settler population, and their changing attitude towards archaeological

29
Ibid., 212

19

research about themselves has certainly caused a very practical and actual motivation for the
development of community-based approaches.30

From reading Clayton Fredericksen’s contribution to World Archaeology 34 (2), this changing attitude
of indigenous inhabitants can be understood as the “[…] decolonization of archaeology and
empowerment of indigenous peoples over their cultural heritage.”31 An essential notion herein is that
the way archaeological research is carried out can have profound implications for society as a whole,
especially when there are multiple perspectives on the past by multiple communities between which
exists an imbalance in power. A case in point is the way archaeology has become ‘contested ground’ in
Australia, where the deep past of Aboriginality remains the prime focus and the recent historical
Aboriginal past is obscured to a large extent: it is either marginalized or serves as backdrop to the
stories of European colonization. This not only results in veiling the adjustments that Aboriginal society
have been forced to undertake during that settler period and its aftermath, but is also severs in some
way the cultural continuity between pre- and post-colonial Aboriginality.

The way their past is constructed for them by others obviously has ramifications for the position and
treatment of contemporary Aboriginals in wider Australian society. As Fredericksen states: “[…] the
conduct of research in the Australian past has a political currency that belies any claims to impartiality
or objectivity.”32 This statement not only clearly shows the socio-political dimension of archaeological
research in particular, but also tells us something deeper about the nature of science: it is not with
detachment that a scholar or scientist observes the machinations within society, but research is
subject to and affects that society in ways that can be difficult to foresee and deal with from a purely
scientific stand-off point of view. In other words, science – and by extension archaeology – does not
merely have a social component: it is a social component.

1.3. THE AUSTRALIAN CRUCIBLE

I want to further highlight the Australian situation, both because it is exemplary for why a community-
based archaeological approach emerges in a colonial setting, but also because it has some interesting
implications for such an approach in The Netherlands. In their article within the pages of World
Archaeology 34 (2), Australian archaeologist Shelly Greer and her compatriots describe the reasons
behind the rise of community archaeology in their country.

30
Greer/Harrison/McIntyre-Tamway 2002; Fredericksen 2002
31
Fredericksen 2002, 289
32
Ibid.

20

The authors start with explaining that there are two divisions in Australian archaeological research, one
based on motivation and one on chronology. The motivational division concerns the fact that research
is carried out either on universities by students and researchers, or in the context of Cultural Heritage
Management (CHM) by agencies with a strategic approach to heritage. Where the first is a matter of
fundamental research, the second revolves around assessing the environmental impact of development
proposals and meeting legislative responsibilities with regards to heritage management.33 The
chronological division then distinguishes between a ‘prehistorical archaeology’ studying the Aboriginal
past and a ‘historical archaeology’ concerning itself with the time of colonization onwards. This
apparent dichotomy is characteristic for many colonial settler societies. As corroborated by the quote I
gave from Fredericksen, the uneasiness between the indigenous population and the Euro-Australian
archaeologists who study them has haunted Australian archaeology since the 1970’s. With changing
rights in the following decades, indigenous communities also clamoured for more control and ownership
of their cultural heritage. The above led to a consultative approach in Australian archaeology –
particularly where focusing on the deep Aboriginal past – which is characterized by seeking consent
from the community in question to actually be studied. Most government administrations in Australia
require documentation of actual consultation and either written or verbal consent from the indigenous
community before an excavation permit is given to researchers.34

Not considering the peculiarities of pre- and post-contact archaeology in Australia just yet, the
consultative approach has alleviated many issues and has brought researchers and indigenous
communities closer together. However, it is not a ‘true’ community archaeology, even though many
projects in this vein claim to be so, as “[...] it has not motivated archaeologists to undertake
collaborative community projects that engage or interest a wider segment of the community.”35 The
apparent ease with which scholars use the term community archaeology – in The Netherlands as well –
while they actually refer to public or ‘outreach’ archaeology with a consultative nature, indicates to
me that we have to prevent community archaeology from becoming a hollow catchphrase. As Greer,
Harrison and McIntyre-Tamway state, the consultative approach has its obvious merits but “[...] it
differs from the community-based approach, with the central and dominating principle that
community-based research is interactive rather than reactive. A prerequisite of the interactive
approach is the definition of elements of contemporary community identity that underpin the
development of research interests and which inform issues of methodology and practice.”36

33
Greer/Harrison/McIntyre-Tamway 2002, 265-266
34
Ibid., 266
35
Ibid., 266-267
36
Ibid., 268

21

The consultative approach seems to work well, but mainly for the ‘prehistorical archaeology’.
Interestingly enough, also with regards to the Dutch situation, Greer and her co-authors state that in
Australian ‘historical archaeology’ the community has been far more inclined to accept the role of
experts (professional archaeologists) in making meaningful statements about the recent past. The role
of the public is then limited to working as volunteers and (limited) commenting on research
proposals.37 This strikes me as somewhat odd, as that would imply less incentive to provide views of
the past by non-archaeologists in a timeframe that surely has more living stories that can be found in
‘prehistorical archaeology’. After all, in the few instances where the community at large did get deeply
involved with the archaeological research, there was “[…] a tendency to focus on recent, remembered
history. Rather than the archaeology of the deep Palaeolithic past, the significance of the intimate,
shared colonial history of Australia and its late Holocene antecedents has been the focus of these case
studies.”38

At first one would think this might have something to do with the weight that is attributed to
Aboriginal prehistory as an almost ‘exotic’ timeframe (with remarkable aspects like the Dreamtime),
but upon further reading in a discussion paper on social significance of Australian heritage, published
by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), this turns out to be a matter of conjoining
circumstances in time: the under-recording of Aboriginal post-contact heritage is mainly to be
attributed to the employment of prehistorians (i.e. archaeologists researching prehistory) in the
dominating form of heritage management from the 1970’s onwards (Environmental Impact Assessment),
which also ‘rubbed off’ during their consultation with Aboriginals and Euro-Australian people. That
way, both the experts and the community at large remained unwittingly focused on the deep past of
Australia. Also, the NPWS was at the time so locked in providing services to developers and consultants,
as well as inventorying sites recorded by other consultants, that their employees did not have room for
occupying themselves with ‘historical archaeology’ as well, even though historians, cultural
commentators and the Aboriginals themselves had turned their attention to post-contact heritage.39

With that background in mind, aforementioned course of actions and events led to a perhaps
foreseeable situation where the significance of studying older periods in Australia took prevalence
above that of younger periods, and as much in academic circles as amongst the public. While further
analysis of this falls outside the scope of this thesis, this unintentional bias also exists in The
Netherlands.

37
Ibid., 282
38
Ibid.
39
Byrne/Brayshaw/Ireland 2001, 17-18

22

Greer, Harrison and McIntyre-Tamway also claim that archaeologists who study the historical periods in
Australia have also generally been less concerned to take on the classic role of expert, “[...] as the
ethical concerns associated with studying ‘someone else’s history’ are generally thought to be
absent.”40 In other words, as they conclude at the end, those ethical concerns are “[…] perhaps
discounted because most archaeologists are themselves from the culture that is being investigated.”41

While the implicit notion that Australians see themselves as forming a single society is in a sense
commendable, it obscures – at least in archaeological research – the fact that there are still different
communities involved here, with different backgrounds and a sometimes painful past together: they
have just become so intertwined with each other that it is hard to tell them apart, for themselves as
well as for others. One could perhaps state that compartmentalizing contemporary Australian society
into Aboriginal and Euro-Australian sections is a step back, in that it denounces in some way the idea of
Australia being a single nation with a unified identity, but I am of the opinion that this is necessary to
prevent the unintentional veiling of post-contact Aboriginal interests and values.

Seeing as how The Netherlands are no post-colonial society in the sense of having indigenous
communities like Aboriginals or Maori within its national borders (the position of former Dutch colonies
like Suriname and Indonesia is of course intriguing in this light, something I will touch upon later), one
would perhaps say that those ethical concerns voiced in Australia are certainly absent here. Again, in
Chapter 5 I will argue that this is not true, and that there are actually metaphorical colonial
connotations within not only the borders of The Netherlands proper, but within the borders of every
country where archaeological research is carried out.

1.4. THE PREMISE AND RELEVANCE OF COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY

Professor Stephanie Moser, colleague of Marshall at the University of Southampton, heads the major
opening article of World Archaeology 34 (2). She and her co-authors state, like Greer and her co-
authors do, that community archaeology goes far beyond simple consultation with local communities,
“[…] incorporating a range of strategies designed to facilitate the involvement of local people in the
investigation and interpretation of the past.”42

Moser et al.’s article focuses on the Community Archaeology Project at Quesir, Egypt (CAPQ,
henceforth). Without delving into the particulars just yet, the premise of the CAPQ is both intriguing on

40
Greer/Harrison/McIntyre-Tamway 2002, 267
41
Ibid., 282
42
Moser et al. 2002, 220

23

the project level and telling for discussing community archaeology in general, as the authors state that
“[…] it is no longer acceptable for archaeologists to reap the benefits of another society’s heritage
without that society being involved and able to benefit equally from the endeavour.”43 Moser et al.’s
article is titled ‘Transforming archaeology through practice’, and that hits the proverbial nail right on
the head: community archaeology is, as Yvonne Marshall puts it at the end of her introductory article,
“[…] a specific approach to all aspects of archaeological practice and, as such, looks to transform the
nature of our discipline in fundamental ways.”44

While community-based approaches have been mainly developed for pragmatic reasons, its embedding
in the fundamental aspects of research are made apparent in the article by Anne Clark, who tells a
personal tale of the approach she used in her solo study on Groote Eylandt (Australia). She shows that
“[…] consultation and the negotiation of research access are only the first stages. The premise behind a
community approach is that research is a negotiated process and that the boundaries and components
of a project are open to reassessment and re-negotiation by any of the parties involved.”45

Conversely, we have to consider the role of research in society at a whole, and remember that this
integration does not diminish either. As Tully states, community archaeology is “[…] based on the
premise that better archaeology can be achieved when more diverse voices are involved in the
interpretation of the past. This does not mean compromising the scientific nature of archaeology, but
rather simply realizing how research integrates with society.”46 When viewed on this higher level,
community archaeology has a distinct goal I believe. Giving a voice to those that did not have one
previously can be seen as an objective in itself, but there is a underlying notion: that of creating
and/or (re)discovering the (past) identity of the community involved. Greer, Harrison and McIntyre-
Tamway summarize that community-based research “[...] is aimed at empowering communities by
contributing to the construction of local identity.”47 They conclude at the end of their article that “[…]
communities value archaeological resources for more than just their technical (historical,
archaeological or scientific) significance. Communities attribute a broad range of values to the
material traces of the past, these values being drawn from a range of sources. The past is political, and
traces of the past are often used as lodestones for group memory and identity.”48

43
Ibid., 221
44
Marshall 2002, 215
45
Clarke 2002, 251
46
Tully 2007, 158
47
48
Ibid., 282

24

The fact that heritage can be utilized in questions of identity is something that is very relevant in The
Netherlands as well, and I am of the strong opinion that a community-based approach in the Dutch
situation will (need to) be inextricably linked to matters of identity if it is to be successful and
relevant. Again, I champion the idea that community archaeology can be relevant for almost any
community imaginable, when realizing that archaeological discoveries undoubtedly have social and
political connotations and applications. As Tully remarks, community archaeology is “[…] also relevant
to the general process of social cohesion, for example where the inhabitants of modern towns and
villages can be brought together through a sense of ownership of their local heritage. Thus, the
realization is dawning that community archaeology is relevant not only to indigenous, postcolonial and
minority groups but to all forms of community, including those in the first world and throughout the
globe.”49

1.5. RESEARCH OR MANAGEMENT?

While Australia and to a lesser extent New Zealand yielded a score of proposals highlighting their own
tradition of community-based research, none of the articles in Volume 34 (2) of World Archaeology
were placed within a North American tradition of community archaeology. This is not to say that this
type of archaeology is not practiced there; on the contrary, the two incorporated articles from that
region concern research in Arctic Canada50 and Texas51, and Marshall points out the long history and
actual pioneering of community archaeology approaches in North America as a whole. However, she
also states that all this has not resulted in community archaeology becoming a distinct tradition in
North America.52

The above could very well be contributed to the fact that community archaeology there is often
located within Cultural Resource Management (CRM), where ‘salvage’, ‘rescue’ or ‘contract’
archaeology plays an important part in the approach to remains from the past. As is the case in
Australia, where as we have learned previously it is called Cultural Heritage Management (CHM),
community archaeology is therefore not so much a research subfield as much as it is another way to
deal with archaeological remains in a legislative framework for assessing the environmental impact of
development proposals.53 In the United States, CRM arose from environmental assessment and
mitigation requirements where it concerned federal construction projects; projects on federal land, or

49
Tully 2007, 158
50
Friesen 2002
51
McDavid 2002
52
Marshall 2002, 212
53

25

on private land but with federal funding.54 Essentially, this legislatively prescribed way of dealing with
archaeological remains in spatial planning is a direct progenitor to the current Dutch archaeological
management system.

Europe yielded not one article for inclusion in the final version of World Archaeology 34 (2). Marshall
mentions Britain, wherein “[…] like North America, community archaeology is commonly located within
heritage management and outside the remit of serious academic research.”55 In other words; it is not
that community archaeology is not practiced in North America and Europe, but rather it is mostly
subsumed within distinct heritage management systems and therefore seemingly taken out of the
realm of academic research, which leads to greatly lessened visibility of community archaeology in
peer-reviewed publications. There are exceptions however, such as Neil Faulkner’s SHARP (more on
this later).

All this is a logical consequence of the division that exists between academic archaeology (research)
and archaeological/heritage management in those countries that bolster CRM/CHM-style systems. It is
perhaps self-evident that a community-based approach in a purely academic research setting would be
quite different from such an approach in a setting of archaeological/heritage management. It became
clear from reviewing many case studies that community archaeology can be extremely time consuming,
as Marshall also pointed out. Projects like this tend to need a serious warming-up time, in which the
community becomes involved and communication lines are established. They also stretch over several
campaign seasons, in which fieldwork is carried out. In between those campaigns, aspects like
determination of finds and interpretation are worked on. All this consumes time. A lot of it. It is not a
coincidence that the CAPQ has run for more then ten years.

Every community archaeology project in World Archaeology 34 (2) is positioned in a research setting,
as is every other project I have read about so far. This cannot mean that community-based approaches
are not carried out in a management setting, but that they are probably indeed – like Marshall already
speculated in 2002 – subsumed within those systems and thus (almost) not visible in peer-reviewed
publications. I am convinced that my recent introduction to the subject is also at least partly cause for
this discrepancy. Still, even now it is obvious that there is an overrepresentation of the community-
based approach in academic publications (regardless of whether community archaeology is considered
to have real academic merit, journals like World Archaeology and Public Archaeology are peer-
reviewed collections of academic articles).

54
Renfrew/Bahn 2000, 547
55
Marshall 2002, 213-214

26

Chirikure and Pwiti however show that the vaunted research setting comes with its own problems when
community archaeology is concerned: “[…] community archaeology requires a huge investment of
resources that are not always available to researchers who are under pressure to publish and produce
academic publications rather than items for popular consumption.”56 In South Africa, they remark,
peer-reviewed publications benefit from subsidies, which obviously adds to the compulsion to publish
at regular intervals. While there is something to say for such incentives, the downside might be formed
by publications lacking quality and an established connection with society. It would thus be a fallacy to
entertain the notion that (time) pressure only concerns those in development-driven contract
archaeology and heritage management, which Chirikure and Pwiti note might actually be the only place
for community archaeology in cases such as South Africa.

Neil Faulkner, whose work will feature more prominently when discussing his own community
archaeology project in Norfolk (UK) later on, elaborates on what he sees as the key difference in a
matter of emphasis between management – or rescue, as is the better term perhaps for the practical
side of management – and research: the former is positivist-empiricist, the latter is dialectical. With
this he means that rescue archaeology “[…] accumulates vast masses of data without knowing why
(except that now is our only chance). Positivism is the theoretical, or, more correctly, ideological
justification for this: the idea that what is recovered in rescue are ‘the facts’ makes the process more
credible and endows its practitioners with a ‘professional’ status.”57 The apparent strive in the UK to
standardize research archaeology in line with rescue archaeology58, which Faulkner has fiercely
opposed for over a decade by advocating his ‘archaeology from below’, could actually indeed curtail
the freedom that is enjoyed – as Chirikure and demonstrated in the case of subsidized publications in
South Africa – in research archaeology: imposing ‘quality standards’ and the like from commercial to
research archaeology could stifle the creativity and adaptability (research) archaeology needs to
innovate and evolve, so as to keep pace with our changing world and retain its unique relevance.

As has been said and will be expanded upon later, the division between research and management is
present in The Netherlands as well. However, the line between the two here is blurred to a certain
extent by the particulars of our archaeological management system, creating a duality of sorts and
even leading to a third ‘mode’ of society-applied archaeology. This further complicates the matter, but
I also feel it presents distinct opportunities for the feasibility and desirability of community-based
approaches in Dutch heritage management and research archaeology.

56
57
Faulkner 2000, 28
58
Ibid., 24-25

27

2. COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY: PRACTICE

As has been mentioned in the previous pages, World Archaeology 34 (2) has its various authors describe
and discuss the theory behind community archaeology in different parts of the world, and tying it to
several case studies that have all been carried out by the authors themselves. I will now discuss two
case studies (in Egypt and Texas) in more detail. These two projects have added much to my
theoretical understanding of community-based approaches in archaeology, and they are specifically
geared towards developing (general) methodologies. Where relevant, I have also added insights from
other case studies and follow-up articles from recent years.

2.1. EXCURSION TO EGYPT: THE COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT IN QUSEIR

That colonial settler societies are not the only ones ‘demanding’ community-based approaches to
archaeology can be clearly seen in Egypt. While one could say that the land and resources of Egypt
have been used by several other cultures in its millennia-long history, it is not a colonial settler
society: the Egyptians are not and never were an indigenous minority population like the Aboriginals
and Maori, sharing a country with a dominant settler society. The country is post-colonial though: it
was ruled from overseas as a British protectorate in the early 20th century (and without official rule by
the same power in the late 19th century), lasting in that state until the declaration of independence in
1922. Full independence however did not come until the revolution of 1952. Ironically, the fact that it
has only recently become independent and only then fell outside the daily purview of Western powers
has set the country on a different trail when compared to other post-colonial societies like Australia
and New Zealand, and has caused the balance between ‘expert’ and ‘local’ knowledge to be addressed
much later on. There is also the lack of communication between Western and Egyptian archaeological
communities, which hampers mutual feedback.59

What Egypt certainly is, however, is a country with a history and archaeology that has garnered world-
wide attention from the very first moment that European collectors started to bring home its artefacts:
for more then two centuries, Egypt’s heritage has been collected and studied by people and
institutions from abroad, and both artefacts and architectural elements have found their way to all
corners of the earth. Many a museum in Europe is known for its Egyptian collection, such as the
National Museum in The Netherlands. While Egypt has used its heritage on a national level to attract
and maintain tourism, this heritage industry has mainly catered to multinationals, archaeologists and

59
Tully 2009, 69

28

tourists. Egypt’s history of appropriation has had far-reaching consequences for local communities,
which “[…] have been systematically excluded both from the process of discovering their past and in
the construction of knowledge concerning their heritage.”60 Indeed, the grand majority of
archaeological research up until now has been conducted by scholars from abroad, with local
communities mostly being used as labour.

Egypt is at the forefront of countries trying to get some of their displaced heritage repatriated, like
Greece tries to do with the infamous matter of the Elgin Marbles, which reside in the British Museum in
London. In Egypt it was the controversial Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who was for a short period the
Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs until the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, that
has spearheaded an ongoing endeavour to have some of Egypt’s most prized artefacts returned. Among
these was the Rosetta Stone, famed for its part in the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs. While the
multilayered perspectives on the Rosetta Stone issue fall outside the scope of this thesis, it is
interesting to note how Hawass has pursued his point in international media. “If the British want to be
remembered, if they want to restore their reputation, they should volunteer to return the Rosetta
Stone because it is the icon of our Egyptian identity,” Hawass stated.61 While one could put question
marks behind Hawass’ overall integrity, motivations and behaviour, the link between the Rosetta
Stone, Egyptian identity and British colonial rule is surely there.

With this background in mind, we turn back to community archaeology, specifically in Egypt. As related
earlier, Moser et al. wrote the opening article for World Archaeology 34 (2), in which the authors
describe their approach to community archaeology in the Community Archaeology Project Quseir
(CAPQ), carried out in the Egyptian city of Quseir. The ancient harbour of Quseir al-Quadim (‘Old
Quseir’) lies here, known in Roman and Ptolemaic times as Myos Hormos. This site is of national and
even international importance, given its place in the maritime trade network of the later Roman
Empire and subsequent periods.62 The aim of the CAPQ is “[…] to involve the local community in all
aspects of the archaeological enterprise, culminating in the creation of a heritage centre that presents
the findings from the excavations to the people of Quseir and tourists visiting the area.”63 Moser et al.
give two reasons why the local community of Quseir should be involved in the archaeological research
of their city, beside the general notion of finally being included in archaeological scholarship
concerning their own history: the formation of a sense of community heritage and the foreseeable
impact on the future economic status of the city. Seeking to reconstruct itself as the historical centre
of the Red Sea, Quseir has carved a niche for itself between maritime and heritage tourism. The

60
61
Edwardes/Milner 2003
62
Tully 2009, 66
63

29

excavations that started under Glazier and Peacock all those years ago, to which later on Moser et al.’s
CAPQ was added, engendered curiosity among the inhabitants of Quseir from the start; they were not
aware that such a complex history lay beneath their feet, and it changed their perception of their city
from the get-go. This has caused interest by the local community in the local heritage and support for
the CAPQ to be maintained for more then ten years.64

Through the CAPQ, Moser et al. have suggested seven components to form the basis of a methodology
for community archaeology, though they stated beforehand that they are not intended to be a ‘recipe’.
These seven components are: 1) communication and collaboration; 2) employment and training; 3)
public presentation; 4) interviews and oral history; 5) educational resources; 6) a photographic and
video archive and 7) community controlled merchandising.65 The later articles by Gemma Tully (2007,
2009) would suggest that the opinion about these steps being a recipe of some sorts has changed in the
following years, which is probably the result of the realization that they could be employed more
generally than anticipated. After all, in 2002 the CAPQ methodology was still very much ‘under
construction’, and a detailed comparison with other projects would not be made until 2007 by Tully.
Below, I will give Tully’s detailed breakdown of the seven components, to show how much thought has
gone into this particular methodology:66

1. Communication and collaboration between the archaeological team and local community representatives at all
stages of research
a. Continuous two-way flow of dialogue to facilitate full collaboration on interpretation and presentation;
b. Partnerships with local organizations (councils and heritage organizations) to integrate results into local plans
for the future management and presentation of the archaeological resource;
c. Work updates and strategy documents. Regular reports for local organizations and other community groups
informing them of developments, providing structure and an ‘official’ context for the project;
d. Openness. Keeping no secrets, making sure everyone is informed on all aspects of the project – i.e. ‘open
communication’;
e. Authority and ownership. Putting local people in the role of facilitator, allowing for an active role in terms of
presentation and display;
f. Social interaction. Developing friendships to show long-term interest as opposed to pure ‘business’;
g. Acknowledging difficulties. Realizing that problems and disputes are inevitable, making them easier to deal
with when they occur.

2. Employment and training of local people in all areas of the project
a. Helps to maintain the central role of the local community and develop their skills in the presentation of
heritage;
b. Provides a continuity of decision-making by maintaining the same team even when the project archaeologists
are absent;

64
Ibid.
65
66
Tully 2007, 162-163

30

c. Benefits employees in terms of future employment through the development of new skills;
d. Employees can pass on ideas and knowledge to others;
e. Full-time employment rather than part-time employment to maintain the momentum of the project;
f. Training to pass on formal qualifications and informal skills.

3. Public presentation, a vital element in the passing on of information to the wider community
a. Communicating the results of work undertaken to show its significance to the region;
b. Finding appropriate forms and methods of presentation;
c. Development of heritage facilities telling of the town’s recent history, not just focusing on the past;
d. Front-end evaluation involving the community in the choice of themes and formats for presentation;
e. Consideration of recent museological literature/approaches in working with different cultural groups;
f. Preparing the site for public presentation;
g. Exhibition strategies providing the community with regular reports and plans to encourage feedback and
involvement;
h. Construction of temporary exhibitions while the permanent space is being constructed to encourage feedback
and provide information for local people;
i. International connections exchanging knowledge and experience to benefit all parties.

4. Interview and oral history to see how the local people respond to the archaeology and how this links into
traditional ideas of the past
a. Providing more diverse cultural interpretations of the evidence and facilitating the construction of a total life
history of the site;
b. Discovery of the community aims for the project and the development of involvement;
c. Interview questions. Investigation of significant, appropriate themes and interview techniques beforehand;
d. Analysis to discover local thoughts on the project and their past while maintaining communication to ensure
that the information is being used in the way that the community desires.

5. Educational resources to introduce younger people to the archaeological research results
a. Organized system of site visits for school children to build upon knowledge of the local heritage;
b. Children’s books to develop pride and imagination in terms of the past;
c. Teaching materials for schools (e.g. illustrations, activities);
d. Artefact database. The creation of a digital resource to allow wider community access to the archaeological
discoveries and knowledge.

6. Photographic and video archive to create a record of the archaeological work and experiences of the project for
the exhibition centre
a. Photographic record. Documentation of collaboration with the local people to complement the scientific
archaeological photographs;
b. Video record to show the day-to-day activities of the excavation for display alongside video footage of
community interviews.

7. Community controlled merchandising considering the tourist market and offering quality alternatives to the
typical Pharaonic/other standard souvenirs on offer
a. Local decision-making in design, production and sale of souvenirs with the possibility of enhancing the local
economy and sustaining the heritage centre;

31

b. Creation of a project logo and T-shirts in a collaborative effort to promote and establish an identity for the
project.

As can be gleaned from the breakdown, components 2 (employment/training) and 7 (community
controlled merchandising) are aimed specifically at enhancing the local economy and promoting (local)
tourism. When first laying eyes on the methodology in Moser et al. 2002, I was specifically intrigued by
component 7. In my opinion, community controlled merchandising is something that works quite
specifically for Egypt, given the CAPQ’s aim to give local alternatives for ‘cliché’ national souvenirs like
pharaoh statuettes. However, those clichés remain an integral and extensive part of Egypt’s unique
heritage industry, and are as such somewhat difficult to analogue with other countries. However, this
type of commodification of the past is both temporally relevant and situationally applicable in other
countries as well, especially considering the ‘experience economy’ that has taken hold in the Western
world.

As for the CAPQ methodology in general, I am of the opinion that it presents a thought-out total
package. It is interesting to see in the breakdown some points which at first glance would perhaps
qualify as ‘open doors’, such as social interaction, openness and acknowledging difficulties, but which
are in reality maybe the most essential binding aspects of such a project in the long run: they create
and maintain social cohesion. At the end of this chapter I will give an example from Britain, which
makes clear how important these binding aspects actually are and how inexorably a community-based
approach can derail when they deteriorate or disappear altogether.

To wrap up my analysis of the CAPQ methodology, I present below a word cloud: a visual made by
feeding the seven-component methodology of Moser et al. into the Wordle website67. This tool looks at
the frequency of a word in the source text and translates this into font size: the more often a word
appears, the more prominent it becomes in the word cloud. Apart from being fun, a word cloud serves
as a strong visual reading of the source text, accentuating the most prevalent keywords. It is perhaps
not surprising that the words ‘community’, ‘local’, ‘archaeological’ and ‘project’ stand out as they do.
Still, the visual impact of ‘local’ is significant. It highlights the geographically-bound nature of the
community around which the CAPQ revolves: this project is not about a more widespread group of
stakeholders, but focuses specifically on the residents of the city. Do also note the size of
‘presentation’: by sharing and disclosing the results beyond the project’s limits, the CAPQ asserts its
relevance outside Quseir as well.

67
http://www.wordle.net/

32

Gemma Tully, who has worked on the CAPQ for several years, has pushed the methodology as devised
for the CAPQ further in her own follow-up research. I will paraphrase part of her publication in Public
Archaeology 6 (3), which in my opinion speaks volumes on the importance of a consistent methodology
for community-based approaches: Tully argues that many of the methodological components promoted
in the CAPQ already underlie much of the pre-existing community-based research – like that by Carol
McDavid done in Brazoria, Texas, which Tully has used along five other cases in comparison to the
CAPQ in order to make more meaningful statements about a general methodology. However, these
underlying components have not been clearly articulated in the associated publications. By
demonstrating the fact that a shared methodology exists, Tully hoped to show that community
archaeology has a sound methodological basis and should be more widely accepted as a research area
within the discipline. While it is not necessarily the case that community archaeology needs to justify
its methodology in order to gain mainstream respect, according to Tully it nevertheless must
demonstrate consistency. A community archaeology methodology is therefore necessary, as only when
community practice begins to work within the established scientific framework of archaeology and
anthropology will it become recognized as valid and will it be respected academically. Only then can
community archaeology truly begin to benefit the cultures and knowledge systems it represents.68

In other words, validation of community archaeology as a sub-discipline or paradigm of its own within
academic archaeology has been quite an issue in years past. It is telling that as short a time span as
five years ago the community-based approach in fact had to struggle to be accepted generally, even
though it was in essence recognized as a research topic in its own right when the British Academy
bestowed a grant on the CAPQ in the early days: it became the first community archaeology project to
achieve such funded status, and with the express aim to develop a methodology for a community-based

68
Tully 2007, 157

33

approach.69 What we should not overlook however, is the underlying notion Tully describes: we need a
consistent methodology for the academic validation, but we need the academic validation to ensure
that the approach itself can do what it is supposed to do. This is not a matter of community-based
approaches gaining recognition in a mere bid for acceptance in the halls of power, but to give them the
backing of academic creativity and a place in established systems to make sure community archaeology
can thrive as a subfield in the discipline in order to reach its intended goals. I could not agree more
with this observation.

2.2. THE LEVI JORDAN PLANTATION WEB SITE PROJECT IN BRAZORIA, TEXAS (US)

An altogether different and oft cited example of a community archaeology project is that carried out
by the American anthropologist Carol McDavid, on an 18th-century sugar plantation in the United States.
At the Levi Jordan plantation in the rural community of Brazoria, Texas, excavations have been carried
out since 1984 by Kenneth Brown from the university of Houston. It was not until a later stadium that
Brown asked McDavid to start a public interpretative project, which took on the form of a website
featuring both consultable data (archaeological, historical and anthropological) and online interactive
elements (discussion forum, feedback forms, questionnaire).70 Brown himself, students, plantation
community descendants (both African-American and European-American) and other communities all
contributed content to the site. This project differs from many others in that it does not concern
community collaboration in the excavation itself, but in the outreach of the results and the input for
the research. Thus it can still be called a community-based approach, as far as I am concerned.

The Levi Jordan website is primarily meant to give the various communities linked to the plantation a
way to interact openly with its sometimes uncomfortable history. For this, McDavid first researched the
feasibility of locating public interpretations of the archaeology involved, to see which interests and
conflicts had led to the socio-political landscape that is contemporary Brazoria. McDavid aimed the
website to be an ongoing conversation, instead of a presentation or educational tool. The website was
“[…] designed with the specific intent of decentring the archaeologist as the expert about the multiple
pasts of one community – archaeology was seen as one important voice, but one of many.”71

MacDavid’s work and attitude has had several direct effects on the excavations by Brown and the
Brazorian community itself. She states that her credibility in the community increased due to her
presenting herself as “[…] only one actor in a conversation which allowed place for alternative truth

69
Ibid.; Tully 2009, 69
70
Levi Jordan Project 2012; McDavid 2002, 306
71
Ibid.

34

claims, not as someone with a privileged, exclusive way of understanding the past […].” By reassuring
the community that she as an archaeologist looked upon their perspectives on the past as no less valid
then hers, people began to trust her with ever more ego-documents and other useable material. This
not only improved the content on the website, but it also led Brown to incorporate these local
understandings in his research questions, as well as his interpretations of the archaeological and
historical data.72

The most interesting part of McDavid’s article in World Archaeology 34 (2) to me, as can be deduced
from my own theoretical framework in chapter one, is her description of the philosophical approach to
her project: (American) pragmatism. Inspired by, among others, the philosopher Richard Rorty,
pragmatism proposes the idea “ […] that all human interaction can be conceived of as historically
situated, contingent, pluralistic conversation.”73 The way we deal and have dealt with each other as
human beings is therefore shaped by a variety of factors, all of which can be connected and shared in a
metaphorical conversation – such as the Levi Jordan website. Pragmatism has often be confused
(sometimes on purpose) with relativism, but this has to be nuanced. “While pragmatists do not believe
that one truth is as good as another, they do believe that humans can and will be able to discover, over
time, which truths are more meaningful and useful. […] It is a very optimistic approach, though not a
nihilistically relativistic one: pragmatists may have a profound belief in the capacities of humans to
determine their own fates - to 'figure it out' - but they also demand that each human speak up, loudly,
to express his or her own voice in social, cultural and political life.”74

As stated in the previous chapter, I can quite relate to this pragmatic mode of thought, and I think that
a lot of community archaeologists consciously or subconsciously can as well. The very aspect of
multivocality, which, as we will see, plays an integral part not only in McDavid’s methodology but in
community archaeology in general (e.g. Neil Faulkner’s thoughts on archaeology), hinges on the
concept of ‘truth-as-created’ instead of ‘truth-as-discovered’75: this is essentially constructivism (we
assign meaning to the world) versus positivism and essentialism (the world already has meaning, which
we have to discover and can verify), and pragmatism is a close ally of constructivism. I feel I have only
begun exploring the philosophical depths that can be reached when disseminating community
archaeology, and as it would be beyond the scope of this thesis to dive much further, I will leave it at
this point for now.

72
Ibid.
73
Ibid., 305
74
Ibid.
75
Ibid., 303

35

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