Archaeology, the Public and the Recent Past 9781843838517, 1843838516

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
List of Contributors
Archaeologists, Power and the Recent Past
Part One - Constructing Memories, Constructing Communities
Open-Air Museums, Authenticity and the shaping of Cultural Identity: An Example from the Isle of Man
Loyal yet Independent: Archaeological Perspectives on Remembering and Forgetting World War I on the Isle of Man
Public Engagement at Prestongrange: Reflections on a Community Project
Archaeology for All: Managing Expectations and Learning from the Past for the Future – the Dig Manchester Community Archaeology Experience
Rediscovering, Preserving and Making Memories at Community Archaeology
Part Two - Engaging the Past, Engaging the Present
Politics, Publics and Professional Pragmatics: Re-Envisioning Archaeological Practice in Northern Ireland
Archaeology, Politics and Politicians, or: Small p in a Big P World
‘No Certain Roof but the Coffin Lid’: Exploring the Commercial and Academic Need for a High Level Research Framework to Safeguard the Future of the Post-Medieval Burial Resource
‘Men That Are Gone … Come Like Shadows, So Depart’: Research Practice and Sampling Strategies for Enhancing Our Understanding of Post-Medieval Human Remains
Dialogues Between Past, Present and Future: Reflections on Engaging the Recent Past
Index

Citation preview

THE SOCIETY FOR POST-MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY MONOGRAPH 7

Archaeology, the Public and the Recent Past

Archaeology, the Public and the Recent Past Edited by CHRIS DALGLISH

THE BOYDELL PRESS

©  Contributors and The Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology 2013 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner Details of previously published titles are available from the Society First published 2013 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN  978 1 84383 851 7 The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Papers used by Boydell & Brewer Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents List of Figures and Tables

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List of Contributors

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Archaeologists, Power and the Recent Past Chris Dalglish PART ONE – Constructing Memories, Constructing Communities Open-Air Museums, Authenticity and the shaping of Cultural Identity: An Example from the Isle of Man Catriona Mackie

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Loyal yet Independent: Archaeological Perspectives on Remembering and Forgetting World War I on the Isle of Man Harold Mytum

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Public Engagement at Prestongrange: Reflections on a Community Project Melanie Johnson & Biddy Simpson

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Archaeology for All: Managing Expectations and Learning from the Past for the Future – the Dig Manchester Community Archaeology Experience Michael Nevell

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Rediscovering, Preserving and Making Memories at Community Archaeology Projects Robert Isherwood

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PART TWO– Engaging the Past, Engaging the Present Politics, Publics and Professional Pragmatics: Re-Envisioning Archaeological Practice in Northern Ireland Audrey Horning Archaeology, Politics and Politicians, or: Small p in a Big P World James Dixon

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‘No Certain Roof but the Coffin Lid’: Exploring the Commercial and Academic 125 Need for a High Level Research Framework to Safeguard the Future of the Post-Medieval Burial Resource Natasha Powers, Andrew Wilson, Janet Montgomery, David Bowsher, Terry Brown, Julia Beaumont and Robert C. Janaway

‘Men That Are Gone … Come Like Shadows, So Depart’: Research Practice and 145 Sampling Strategies for Enhancing Our Understanding of Post-Medieval Human Remains Andrew S Wilson, Natasha Powers, Janet Montgomery, Jo Buckberry, Julia Beaumont, David Bowsher, Matt Town, Robert C. Janaway Dialogues Between Past, Present and Future: Reflections on Engaging the Recent Past Siân Jones

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Index

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FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES 1.1 The Isle of Man. 16 1.2 Cregneash Village, Isle of Man. 19 1.3 Harry Kelly’s Cottage, Cregneash, Isle of Man. 20 21 1.4 Interior of Harry Kelly’s Cottage, Cregneash, Isle of Man. 1.5 Karran farmstead, Cregneash, Isle of Man. 22 1.6 Turner’s shed, Cregneash, Isle of Man. 23 26 1.7 Smithy and joiner’s workshop, Cregneash, Isle of Man. 2.1 War memorials at Andreas, Douglas and St John’s on the Isle of Man. 37 39 2.2 Thorleif ’s Cross (from Kermode 1907) and the war memorial at Kirk Braddan, Isle of Man. 2.3 War memorials at Ballaugh, Bride, Jurby and Malew, Isle of Man. 40 42 2.4 Manx war memorials: Ramsay; German, Peel; and the location of the National Memorial between St John’s church and the Tynwald mound. 3.1 Location map showing Prestongrange, with a detailed plan of the glassworks 56 and pottery site. 3.2 Prestongrange glassworks flue under excavation by the volunteers. 57 4.1 Map showing the location of ‘Dig Manchester’ sites relative to the historic 66 township of Manchester. 4.2 Graph showing outcomes relating to ‘sense of place’, from the impact study 70 for ‘Dig Manchester’. 4.3 Graph showing perceived impact on relation to lifestyle indicators, from the 70 impact study for ‘Dig Manchester’. 4.4 Graph showing outcomes relating to legacy, from the impact study for ‘Dig 71 Manchester’. 78 5.1 Volunteers at the entrance to the Dunbar Vaults. 79 5.2 Volunteers working at the Liss Roman Villa project. 81 5.3 Communicating archaeological results in a ‘fun day’ at the local park, Kirkholt. 5.4 Community Arts at Northenden Mill. 83 5.5 Michael Meacher MP visiting the ‘Royton Lives Through the Ages’ Project. 84 89 5.6 The display board at Royton Hall. 6.1 Rathmullan Priory. 99 6.2 Dunluce Castle. 104 6.3 School group visiting the site of the O’Cahan (and Phillips) castle in 105 the Roe Valley Country Park. 8.1 Community archaeology project in progress at Altab Ali Park, 138 Whitechapel, east London.

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8.2 Screenshot from the Museum of London’s ‘Streetmuseum’ phone application. 9.1 Diagram showing the uses of dental enamel. 9.2 Diagram showing the uses of hair and nail. 9.3 Diagram showing the uses of bone and tooth dentine. 9.4 The Hardy Tree, churchyard of St Pancras Old Church.

139 149 149 150 156

All photographs are copyright of the contributors unless otherwise stated. The editor, contributors and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and persons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions. TABLES 8.1 Urban post-medieval burial assemblages reburied following study. 8.2 Sites with little or no archaeological records in London

128–9 129

CONTRIBUTORS Julia Beaumont University of Bradford David Bowsher Museum of London Archaeology Terry Brown University of Manchester Jo Buckberry University of Bradford Chris Dalglish University of Glasgow James Dixon University of the West of England Audrey Horning Queen’s University Belfast Robert Isherwood Community Archaeology North West Robert C. Janaway University of Bradford Melanie Johnson CFA Archaeology Ltd, Musselburgh Siân Jones University of Manchester Catriona Mackie, Centre for Manx Studies, University of Liverpool Janet Montgomery Durham University Harold Mytum Centre for Manx Studies, University of Liverpool Michael Nevell Centre for Applied Archaeology, University of Salford

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CONTRIBUTORS

Natasha Powers Museum of London Archaeology Biddy Simpson Archaeology Scotland/freelance consultant (formerly East Lothian Council Archaeologist) Matthew Town Northern Archaeological Associates Andrew Wilson University of Bradford

Archaeologists, Power and the Recent Past Chris Dalglish This volume publishes a selection of the papers first presented during the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology’s conference Engaging the Recent Past in 2010. This introductory paper seeks to situate the other contributions, placing them in the context of wider processes including the rise of Community Archaeology and the development of an explicit political consciousness in archaeology. Concepts of multivocality and memory are discussed, as are the practices of public participation. The paper argues that a more critical stance needs to be taken towards public engagement in archaeology, and this is discussed in relation to concepts of power and social learning. The paper advocates a move beyond limited participation (confined to particular activities, such as participatory site identification and recording, and to the context of particular projects) and it advocates a move towards participatory governance. Here, the archaeological professional is repositioned as a collaborator engaging with others, including relevant public constituencies and the relevant authorities, in the social process of creating knowledge about the past and defining how historic environments and relationships will be protected, managed or transformed in the future. Introduction

This volume arises from the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology conference Engaging the Recent Past: Public, Political Post-Medieval Archaeology (Glasgow, September 2010). The focus of the conference was the contemporary context of post-medieval archaeology: the values, politics and ethics associated with the recent past, and the practices through which we engage with and construct that past. Contributors to the conference considered these issues in relation to the post-medieval and contemporary archaeologies of the U.K., Ireland and a number of other countries, and they promoted positions founded in a variety of philosophical, political and practice traditions. The conference sought to recognise two parallel processes which have come to influence work in post-medieval archaeology. The first is the rise of Community Archaeology as a paradigm and a practice. Generally speaking, the recent past has been accorded particular prominence in Community Archaeology initiatives. The second process is the emergence of a will, amongst archaeologists, to understand the situated and political nature of the past – not least the recent past – and to intervene, as archaeologists, in contemporary society. If Community Archaeology is defined simply as public involvement in archaeological work, then the phenomenon is not new, given that most archaeology was undertaken

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on a voluntary basis prior to the 1970s.1 What is new is the emergence of Community Archaeology as a distinct area of research and practice.2 Community Archaeology has become a significant area of employment: the work of the archaeological professional is no longer confined to the archaeological process itself; now, it includes fostering and supporting public engagement with that process. Community Archaeology’s emergence as a defined field is evident in the many projects which have community participation as a primary aim and in the new funding streams which support such projects. With the professionalisation of archaeology, public involvement lost its universality and it has become possible to see such involvement as a particular way – not the only way – of doing archaeology. Public participation has become a distinct problem to be addressed, with its own body of discourse and practice. In parallel, there has been a growing understanding that archaeology and the past are inextricably bound up with the politics of the present. This issue was pushed onto the agenda in the 1980s when, for instance, Shanks and Tilley argued that ‘the past is political and belongs to the present’ and Bruce Trigger contended that ‘the nature of archaeological research is shaped, to a significant degree, by the roles that particular nation-states play, economically, politically, and culturally’.3 Since that time, while the political nature of archaeology has not been universally recognised, it has become widely acknowledged in a now large and diverse body of literature dealing with archaeological politics, public archaeology and the ethics of archaeology.4 The idea that archaeology is a situated, and thus political and ethical matter is part of a wider shift. Challenges to the notion that the past is capable of separation from the present and thus amenable to objective investigation form part of a wider questioning of modern modes of thought in the later 20th century.5 This critical stance towards historical and other meta-narratives has been coupled with a desire to facilitate the participation of many groups and individuals in the investigation and interpretation of the past. The concept of multivocality – the process of allowing multiple interpretations of the archaeological past – has been widely adopted as an expression of this desire.6 And, just as the growing support for conceptual multivocality is part of a wider trend, so too is the trend towards participatory practice with which it is associated. Community and public participation initiatives in archaeology can be seen in light of a wider ‘participatory turn’ in public discourse and public life, evidenced, for example, by recent international heritage and environmental conventions and by domestic planning policy, all of which include provisions of one kind or another for participatory governance.7 As Community Archaeology has emerged, it has developed a strong, though not exclusive, association with the investigation of the recent past. There are many examples of community projects which focus on other periods, of course, but Community Archaeology does seem to have emphasised the recent past more than perhaps any other. There are various reasons for this, many of which are associated with the perceived accessibility, legibility and valency of the recent past in the present. In practical terms, although many archaeological methods are employed on community projects, there is a particular interest in non-intrusive survey and observation work.8 The use of methods which focus on the surface naturally focuses attention on the more recent elements and features which dominate the upper strata of the site or landscape. Added to this, there is a perception that recent-period archaeological remains are easier



ARCHAEOLOGISTS, POWER AND THE RECENT PAST 3

to interpret, and an associated argument that they are thus particularly suitable for public engagement activities.9 Whilst the assumption that the recent past is easily knowable might be questioned,10 it remains the case that this past is widely perceived to be more accessible. The recent past also often holds a more immediate and powerful meaning for people. People can feel more connected to places which feature prominently in the memory of those still alive or in oral histories which connect the present generation to past generations with whom they feel a direct connection.11 And, more generally, the recent past arguably has greater remanence than the more ancient past, which is to say that the actions and processes of the recent past have a stronger valency or continuing influence on life in the present.12 The issue of valency brings us back to matters of politics and ethics – if the recent past has a particular potency in present-day society then, in dealing with that past, we must be particularly conscious of its contemporary meanings, uses and effects. There is a clear need for ongoing reflection and debate concerning the archaeology of the recent past as a means of intervening in the present and shaping the future. This volume makes a contribution to that process. Memories and relationships: a new purpose for archaeology?

Emerging from the developments described above has been the idea that archaeology has a new purpose: no longer simply a matter of the abstract investigation of the past, but the situated creation of memory in the present and an important part of the process of community relationship-building. Many of the papers in the volume tackle these themes of community and memory, not least those in the first section: Constructing memories, constructing communities. In the concluding paper to the volume, Siân Jones picks up on the theme of memory, situating many of the other papers in the volume as part of a ‘memory boom’ which has occurred across the humanities and more widely. The material remnants of past lives act here as mnemonic devices which are actively mobilised in creating particular understandings of the past. Thinking of the past as memory emphasises the active and ongoing nature of its formation – the past emerges from an active process of remembering and forgetting. For some contributors to the volume, this theoretical insight allows a critical reading of the processes whereby dominant narratives have been created. Catriona Mackie, for instance, explores the history of the open-air folk museum at Cregneash on the Isle of Man, which has played an important role in the shaping of Manx identity. Cregneash compresses a complex and dynamic past into a static vignette of traditional rural architecture, craft and custom, promoting an idealised memory of the Manx past. The selective manipulation of the Manx past which we see here serves to define a fixed and homogenous essence of Manxness, a national ideology with the potential to define the bounds of the Manx community and to paper over its fissures. In his paper, Harold Mytum considers other aspects of social memory-making on the Isle of Man, particularly as associated with Manx involvement in World War I. Through his analysis of memorials to those killed in the war, Mytum evidences the

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process whereby certain forms of identity came to be privileged. However, he also notes that this process was one infused with tension and ambivalence – the Celtic and Norse stylistic references of some monuments connect with a distinctly Manx heritage, but the texts on the monuments and the speeches delivered at their inauguration refer to wider affiliations to the United Kingdom and the British Empire. These potentially competing identity claims have not been erased by the process of public memorialisation. Rather, the memorials have served a role in their maintenance and ongoing negotiation. In a second case study – the World War I internment camps of Man – Mytum further problematises the process of post-War memory construction. The internment camps, set up to contain civilians of German origin, were quickly dismantled and transformed after the end of the war, removing much of their material presence from the landscape, and there is little by way of any active remembrance of their existence. So, while the Cregneash museum seeks to create a uniform and essentialised national identity, and the war memorials on Man seek to presence and negotiate the island’s involvement in World War I, the forgetting of the internment camps serves to bury a past which speaks of messy and conflictual human relationships. Other contributors to the volume move beyond officially-sanctioned memories, such as those of nationhood, to consider more localised processes of memory formation. Robert Isherwood, for example, highlights collective memory as a central concept for Community Archaeology, noting that a desire for the ‘rediscovery’, ‘preservation’ or ‘making’ of such memories is often an explicit motivating factor in the creation of community projects, whether driven from within the community or initiated from outside. Importantly, Isherwood discusses the fact that memory formation extends beyond the creation of particular narratives about the archaeological subject of the project to include the formation of collective memories of the project itself and the forging of connections with memories of other people and other places. This warns us against maintaining too narrow a focus on ‘local stories’ and ‘local community’ – archaeological work can be an opportunity for negotiating diverse local and non-local personal and social histories. The formation of collective memories is an important part of the creation, maintenance and transformation of social relationships, and historic artefacts, sites, buildings and landscapes appear to play a meaningful role in the social processes and interactions of the present. Archaeological work can do more than feed the creation of such memories, though. It can provide a vehicle for the construction of relationships themselves. If some communities are communities of locality and others are communities of ideology, the archaeological project can create communities of practice, formed through the act of collaborative work. As Melanie Johnson and Biddy Simpson explain in their paper, for many people, the motivation for getting involved in Community Archaeology is not so much an interest in the archaeology itself, but a desire to do something different, meet new people and make new friends. In their own work on the Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project, Johnson and Simpson sought to recognise this by changing the character of the project: in the first phase, the project was a top-down initiative primarily focused on archaeological needs and outcomes, but by the second phase the project had evolved to provide not only for archaeological needs but for the needs of its volunteer participants. The aim here was to cater for outcomes which had not been considered when the project



ARCHAEOLOGISTS, POWER AND THE RECENT PAST 5

was first set up, such as the generation of new social networks through team work and the development of a ‘sense of community’ and collective association with a particular heritage. Michael Nevell, in discussing the social outcomes of the I Dig Moston/Dig Manchester community initiative, makes some similar observations. This project had a particular focus on those at risk of social and economic exclusion and analysis of its social results found that, for its participants, interaction between groups and individuals was a very important aspect of the project. The relationships created through the act of digging together or engaging in other work were seen as important benefits. Robert Isherwood, also drawing on case studies in the Manchester area, extends the discussion of community-building through archaeology. For Isherwood, the event of an archaeological project provides an opportunity for the construction of community and such events can serve an important function in areas characterised by social disconnection: while they do not solve deep-rooted social and economic problems outright, they can help to build the relationships and identities which create the capacity for addressing such problems. Power and the role of the archaeologist

Archaeology can serve to create social memories and to provide a context for the formation of relationships. However, while these can be positive processes, they also have the potential for great harm, for creating or amplifying exclusion, privileging certain narratives and not others, and sustaining certain relationships and frustrating others. Given this, it is imperative that we maintain a critical stance in developing professional–public relationships. This is something which many of the contributors to this volume do. The key word here, as Siân Jones notes at the end of the volume, is ‘power’. One of the problems with multivocality discourse and with the theory and practice of Community Archaeology as they have developed to date is a general lack of acknowledgement that power matters. Power is defined here in broad terms as a person’s or group’s ability to act effectively to influence the character and conditions of their existence. If carried out without an explicit awareness of power relationships in society, archaeological interventions in the present run the risk of helping to deny social justice, not support it. This is a very real risk in current circumstances, where aspirations for greater participation have increased but the development of critical engagements with the theory and practice of participation have perhaps lagged behind.13 The concept ‘multivocality’ is often equated, rather simplistically and problematically, with the idea of giving equal weight to all interpretations of the past. This is often done with the intention of increasing inclusion, but the potential is for the opposite to happen: multivocality can constitute a denial of power for already marginalised groups, if the power relationships surrounding the past are not explicitly recognised and addressed.14 The problem is not with the idea that the past is multiple, but with the translation of this idea into forms of action which are not sufficiently critical of the voices, narratives and agendas they seek to encourage. Pernicious interpretations of the past can remain unchallenged because ‘everyone has a right to a voice’. The potential force of hitherto marginalised voices can be diminished if all interpretations are seen to be equally valid.

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Something similar might be said of ‘social capital’ – another term increasingly used in promoting the perceived benefits of Community Archaeology. Social capital refers to the outcomes which arise from the relationships and networks that people enter into.15 These outcomes can be positive, in terms of inclusion, civic engagement and individual and collective well-being. However, they can also be negative, where social capital allows certain groups and individuals to maintain or enhance their own position at the expense of others. Where archaeologists are not sufficiently critical in their efforts to foster the development of social capital, they can act to reinforce existing power relationships and to exacerbate inequality within and between communities. There is a need, then, to embed a critical perspective on multivocality and public participation in the everyday practice of archaeological work.16 For some, this is a question of a straight redistribution of power from the professional expert or technocrat to the public. In the terms of Sherry Arnstein’s influential typology of citizen participation, this involves movement away from passive, non-participatory or tokenistic forms of engagement (such as information dissemination, placation, consultation) to higher degrees of citizen power (partnership, delegated power or citizen control).17 There needs to be a shift away from the idea that the archaeologist’s role is to correct a deficit of knowledge and competency amongst the public, and paternalistically to define the nature of the problem and its proper solution.18 There needs also to be a shift away from approaches which ‘allow the have-nots to hear and to have a voice … [but which do not] insure that their views will be heeded by the powerful’.19 Arnstein’s typology, published over 40 years ago now, remains, for many, the ‘benchmark metaphor’ for assessing participation.20 But while it does feature in some archaeological discussions of this issue,21 for many archaeologists, the question of power is expressed in the simpler categorisation of community and public engagement projects as ‘top down’ or ‘bottom up’.22 Discussions of these categories of project have been valuable, raising, as they have done, the question ‘is it enough for professionals to facilitate participation in the labour of archaeological projects, while they continue to determine the nature of that labour and to control decision-making?’23 However, there has been a tendency here to see the problem in adversarial terms, as a zero-sum game where a gain for one group requires a loss for another. Oppositional approaches to participation are not necessarily the best way to achieve meaningful and positive change, especially where complex and messy problems are to be addressed and there are multiple, diverse interests to be considered. Such circumstances might be better addressed by ‘social learning’ approaches, where problems and their solutions are collaboratively defined.24 This moves us away from the idea that control must be exercised by one group or another to the idea that citizens, specialists and government have a responsibility to engage in reflective and collaborative action. There is still a need to remember the significance of power when building collaborative relationships, but the social learning perspective helps us to move this beyond a simple either/or opposition. Many of the contributors to this volume are concerned with these issues of power and collaboration. Johnson and Simpson, Isherwood and Nevell, in discussing the theory and practice of Community Archaeology, acknowledge these issues and offer their thoughts on the role of the archaeologist, building on their experiences of specific projects and circumstances. In all three cases, the authors advocate positions which



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require the archaeologist to be comfortable working in circumstances where they do not fully control decision-making, but they also recognise the value of expertise and the contribution to positive social development which professionals can make. The papers also indicate the potentially dynamic nature of professional–public relationships, with the balance in a collaboration shifting during the lifetime of the project. In the second main section, Engaging the past, engaging the present, Audrey Horning, James Dixon, and Natasha Powers and Andrew Wilson and their colleagues take the discussion about the role of the archaeologist beyond the confines of the single community project to the wider public domain. Each paper, in its own way, reflects on the power of the expert to intervene in society and on the interests which should be served in exercising that power. Horning and Dixon encourage archaeologists to mobilise their expertise to engage directly with particular political and social problems. Powers et al. and Wilson et al. argue that archaeological research interests should be protected for the more diffuse reason that such research generates knowledge for public benefit. In her paper, Audrey Horning draws on her experience working with Northern Ireland’s recent past. This is a case with a long history of black-and-white, oppositional and highly confrontational politics founded on alternative historical narratives. Horning points out the complexity of the situation and the difficulty of applying a model which requires the archaeologist to define one or other community as powerful or powerless. She seeks to take advantage of Northern Ireland’s convoluted history and to draw on the ambiguities of the material evidence in challenging expected histories and in creating more complicated understandings of past and present which take us beyond the simple separation and opposition of communities. In this endeavour, she argues, the authority inherent in the role of the professional expert may be of great use. James Dixon brings the perspective of the archaeologist to bear on the contemporary world. He sees archaeology not simply as an academic discipline or professional practice charged with investigating the past and recording and managing its material remains. Rather, for him, archaeology is a means of understanding the materialisation of politics in the here and now, and the archaeologist should consider it their role to engage directly with local and national politicians and with others in society, seeking to change the ways in which people view specific places and to focus attention on the material conditions of life as a political matter. In their inter-linked papers, Powers et al. and Wilson et al. advocate a particular position on the role of the archaeologist in relation to recent-period human remains. Recognising the significant rise in post-medieval burial excavations in recent years, the authors argue that a long-term research framework and particular sampling strategies are needed to allow archaeologists to maximise the research potential of the material now being exhumed, while paying due regard to the legal, ethical and practical issues surrounding any engagement with human remains. In their paper, Wilson et al. offer a line of argument which has deep roots in archaeology, namely that archaeological interventions in the world are justifiable because they produce benefits for society at large. Here the concern is less for the archaeologist’s relationship with specific groups in society and more for a generalised public benefit. Human remains research, it is argued, has value for the historical insights it provides but also for its contribution to our understanding of disease and demography and for its contribution to forensic and

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medical science. Powers et al. advocate better communication with the public to garner wider support for research, with a particular focus on the dissemination of information to a general public. The value of archaeological work is located, here, in the general knowledge and understanding it generates for society. Conclusion

As Siân Jones highlights in her reflections which conclude the volume, there are some important differences and tensions between the positions adopted by the different authors. The differences arise from divergent views on the role of the archaeologist and of the nature of archaeology as a public domain. For some, public engagement is a matter of generating the wider support necessary to allow archaeologists to do their work and, thus, to serve the greater public good. For others, the balance of power between professionals, the public and governing authorities needs to be adjusted, although there are different ways of conceptualising this adjustment: as a straight redistribution of power to the currently disenfranchised or as a move towards more collaborative modes of governance and action. Issues of power and control are central here. Public participation in archaeological work can be, and often is, limited to a tightly defined set of activities, such as in the participatory identification and recording of archaeological sites. More often than not, participation is also confined to the limits of the single project. If this is how we conceive of public participation in archaeology, then it is never likely to be truly transformative as the effect is to replicate existing practices and power structures. For archaeology to take on a more active and transformative public role, we need to extend discussion beyond the individual project and limited technical tasks to participatory governance. This requires us to ask who is marginalised by current modes of discourse and practice and to act to ensure that engagement with the past is more just in social terms. As Arnstein puts it: citizen participation … is the redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future. It is the strategy by which the have-nots join in determining how information is shared, goals and policies are set, tax resources are allocated, programs are operated, and benefits like contracts and patronage are parcelled out. In short, it is the means by which they can induce significant social reform which enables them to share in the benefits of the affluent society … participation without redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless.25

This need not imply the gifting of all control to one particular group or another, and it need not entail a diminution in the contribution of the professional expert. Indeed, social learning models of participation re-affirm the value of that contribution, repositioning the professional as a significant collaborator with others in the social processes of creating knowledge about the past, understanding its values and meanings and defining how historic environments and the social, economic and cultural relationships associated with them will be protected, managed or transformed in the future.



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Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

Thomas 2010, 7–9. See Thomas 2010; Hale 2011. Shanks & Tilley 1987, 212; Trigger 1984, 356; see also Jones this volume. e.g. Habu, Fawcett & Matsunaga (eds) 2008; McGuire 2008; Merriman (ed.) 2004; Pluciennik (ed.) 2001; Scarre & Scarre (eds) 2006; Zimmerman, Vitelli & Hollowell-Zimmer (eds) 2003. See Jones this volume. Hodder 1999. e.g. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 1998; Council of Europe 2000; 2005; The Scottish Government 2010. Thomas 2010, 28. See Johnson & Simpson this volume. Tarlow & West (eds) 1999. Isherwood this volume; Johnson & Simpson this volume.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

I have taken the term ‘remanence’ from Dobson & Selman 2012. This point has been made in relation to participation in an environmental context (Collins & Ison 2006) and I would argue it holds true for archaeological and cultural heritage contexts as well. Atalay 2008, 36–7; McGuire 2008, 60–3. See Selman 2012, 33–5. Hodder 2008. Arnstein 1969. Selman 2012, 35. Arnstein 1969, 6. Collins & Ison 2006. e.g. Nevell this volume. Hale 2011, 5–6. To paraphrase Siân Jones, this volume. Collins & Ison 2006; Selman 2012, 35–7. Arnstein 1969, 216.

Bibliography Arnstein, S.R. 1969, ‘A ladder of citizen participation’, Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35(4), 216–24. Atalay, S. 2008, ‘Multivocality and indigenous archaeologies’, in Habu et al. (eds) 2008, 29–44. Collins, K. & Ison, R. 2006, ‘Dare we jump off Arnstein’s ladder? Social Learning as a new policy paradigm’, in Proceedings of PATH (Participatory Approaches in Science & Technology) Conference, 4–7 June 2006. Available at: [last accessed 6/11/12]. Council of Europe 2000, European Landscape Convention. Available at: [last accessed 5/2/12]. Council of Europe 2005, Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society. Available at: [last accessed 5/2/12]. Dobson, S. & Selman, P. 2012, ‘Applying Historic Landscape Characterization in spatial planning: from remnants to remanence’, Planning Practice & Research 27(4), 459–74. Habu, J., Fawcett, C. & Matsunaga, J.M. (eds) 2008, Evaluating Multiple Narratives: Beyond Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist Archaeologies, New York: Springer. Hale, A. 2011, Linking Communities to Historic Environments: A Research Review Summary, Edinburgh: RCAHMS. Available at: [last accessed 5/11/12]. Hodder, I. 1999, The Archaeological Process: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell. Hodder, I. 2008, ‘Multivocality and social archaeology’, in Habu et al. (eds) 2008, 196–200. McGuire, R.H. 2008, Archaeology as Political Action, Berkeley: University of California Press. Merriman, N. (ed.) 2004, Public Archaeology, London: Routledge. Pluciennik, M. (ed.) 2001, The Responsibilities of Archaeologists: Archaeology and Ethics, Oxford: Archaeopress.

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Scarre, C. & Scarre, G. (eds) 2006, The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Selman, P. 2012, Sustainable Landscape Planning: the Reconnection Agenda, London: Routledge. Shanks, M. & Tilley, C. 1987, Social Theory and Archaeology, Cambridge: Polity. Tarlow, S. & West, S. (eds) 1999, The Familiar Past? Archaeologies of Later Historical Britain, London: Routledge. The Scottish Government 2010, Scottish Planning Policy. Available at: [last accessed 6/11/12]. Thomas, S. 2010, Community Archaeology in the UK: Recent Findings, York: Council for British Archaeology. Available at: [last accessed 5/11/12]. Trigger, B.G. 1984, ‘Alternative archaeologies: nationalist, colonialist, imperialist’, Man 19, 355–70. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 1998, Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. Available at: [last accessed 5/11/12]. Zimmerman, L.J., Vitelli, K.D. & Hollowell-Zimmer, J. (eds) 2003, Ethical Issues in Archaeology, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

Part One Constructing Memories, Constructing Communities

Open-Air Museums, Authenticity and the Shaping of Cultural Identity: An Example from the Isle of Man Catriona Mackie The first publically owned open-air museum in the British Isles opened at Cregneash, Isle of Man in 1938. Now in the care of Manx National Heritage (MNH) and designated The National Folk Museum, it began with a single cottage and has grown to include a number of houses and farm buildings offering the visitor a glimpse of 19th-century Manx life in a rural crofting village. The museum has also provided a focal point for the preservation and perpetuation of traditional crafts and customs.   Since their inception in Scandinavia in the 1880s, open-air museums have been criticised for presenting a static, sanitised, idealised and reconstructed view of the past. This raises important questions concerning historical accuracy and authenticity, and the ways in which the portrayals of heritage in such museums may influence cultural and national identity. These issues are examined in relation to the development of the museum at Cregneash, important as one of the few open-air museums in the world that is fully in situ. The buildings at Cregneash are examined as both artefacts in their own right and as exhibition spaces for other artefacts. Through the images of the past represented at Cregneash and the portrayal of Cregneash as a ‘national’ museum, MNH is shown to play an important role in the shaping of Manx cultural identity. The origins and ideology of open-air museums

What is widely believed to be the world’s first open-air folk museum was opened at Skansen in Sweden in 1891. It was the brainchild of Artur Hazelius who, in 1873, had founded the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, which exhibited examples of folklife from around the country. It was Hazelius’s desire that the Nordiska Museet be ‘of benefit to science and at the same time arouse and fuel feelings of patriotism’, as well as ‘contribute to the strengthening of national feeling generation after generation, infusing love of one’s country … among young and old’.1 This was a nationalism not of politics, but of culture. Likewise, Hazelius saw Skansen as a means to educate the Swedish population, and visitors to the country, about Swedish history, geography and culture, and to further instil in them a sense of national pride and self esteem. The museum at Skansen contained examples of buildings from different levels of society and included traditional livestock and cereals. Above all, it was important that

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the museum be peopled, and Hazelius employed costumed guides and labourers as well as introducing life-sized sculptured figures. Festivals were established that revived folk customs relating to farming and religion, and there were regular performances of dance, song and storytelling.2 It was an all-embracing concept that, above all, imbued visitors to the museum with the strong sense of emotion that was missing from the more traditional museum environment.3 In fact there had been earlier attempts to bring together buildings from different regions onto one site. In the early 1880s, a collection of buildings was created in Oslo, Norway, at the King’s manor, in order that they might be preserved and displayed to the public.4 However, regardless of which was the first, there is no doubt that Skansen was the most influential of the early open-air museums, and it was to have a lasting influence on the development of such museums throughout the world. The innovative idea of exhibiting folk objects not in a display case, as in a traditional museum, but in context (albeit a reconstructed context) quickly spread throughout Scandinavia.5 In Britain, however, while the antiquarian movements of the 19th century had sparked interest in national folklore, it was not until the 1930s that a real interest in folklife and the material culture associated with it became widely developed. This change was at least partly associated with changes in agricultural practices, which led to objects which previously had had a relatively long lifespan becoming obsolete, and the recognition that rural ways of living were changing in such a manner that the material culture and associated folklore were in danger of being lost.6 The post-war years in particular saw a marked increase in the number of open-air museums throughout Europe and North America. Notable achievements in the British Isles were the foundation of the Welsh Folk Museum at St Fagans in 1947 and the Ulster Folk Museum in 1958.7 In the wake of such pioneering enterprises, there have emerged an indeterminable but substantial number of open-air museums throughout the British Isles, including those with both national and regional remits. The first publically owned open-air museum in the British Isles opened in 1938 at Cregneash in the Isle of Man. It, too, was born of a desire to display folk artefacts in context and to instil in the Island’s population a pride in their native culture and a deeper knowledge of what it meant to be Manx. Like Skansen, the museum grew to include not only the preservation of buildings and material artefacts, but also the perpetuation of folk customs and agricultural practices. Unlike Skansen, the Isle of Man founded its museum in situ, and created not just a living museum, but also a living village. Presenting the past

Since the growth of heritage tourism in the 1970s, the scholarly literature on heritage attractions has focused on issues of authenticity in the representation of the past. In particular, the commodification of heritage has led several writers to question whether visitor experience has, in some cases, taken precedence over historical accuracy.8 These issues are of particular relevance for open-air museums, where the marketed appeal is that visitors can ‘experience’ the past, rather than viewing it passively in a traditional museum context. It also has implications for the way in which the museum artefacts, including buildings, are presented to the public. Visitors are reliant on the museum’s



OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 15

selection of the period or periods to represent, the buildings, artefacts and cultural practices that are included (and excluded), and the methods chosen to display them. If, as is often the case, the provenance and life-history of the objects on display is not made apparent, the visitor often has little option but to accept on faith the authenticity of the exhibits. While historical accuracy has been a significant issue for critics of open-air museums, it has not necessarily been a matter of a concern to museum visitors. It has been shown that many who visit heritage attractions (including open-air museums) do so out of a ‘general interest’ in the site, rather than any specific historical or educational interest.9 A 1997 survey of local visitors to a selection of Isle of Man heritage sites (including Cregneash) found that ‘a general day out’ was the most common motivation for the visit, followed closely by ‘to broaden one’s general knowledge’ and ‘to spend time with family and friends’.10 However, many open-air museums do seek to play an educational role within their own community, and it is important to remember that the vision of the past which is being presented to visitors from further afield is also that which is being presented to the local population. It is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that visitor experience is not entirely dependent on the historical accuracy of the selected exhibits. Rather, the visiting public themselves also play a significant role in the way in which they experience open-air museums. Recent studies have examined the concept of emotional and experiential authenticity, whereby authenticity is measured not in terms of strict historical accuracy, nor as an inherent attribute of a material object, but in terms of the visitor’s overall experience and the emotional response that is triggered by the museum visit and the objects being observed.11 Studies have also shown that many people knowingly use open-air museums as a ‘cultural tool for remembering’, whereby visits can be used to retrieve and legitimise memories.12 Smith notes that such legitimacy is ‘not necessarily gained through the in situ authenticity of the material culture, or the authenticity of its dirtiness, but in its ability to invoke and signify and connect with people’s wider social experiences and knowledge’.13 Even for those who had no personal connection to the past portrayed at the museum, the visit still engendered memories of their own past that they could relate to their museum experience.14 Historically, the authenticity of material objects has been associated with the concept of originality.15 However, Crang has challenged this critique, noting that the very discussion of authenticity presupposes that there is one authentic or ‘original’ reality which, over time, has become degraded.16 Buildings in open-air museums are frequently restored and presented in a perceived original and pristine condition, rather than in the actual condition in which they were found before being incorporated into the museum. This applies both to buildings which have been relocated and reconstructed on the museum site and to those which survive in situ. Of course, as museum artefacts, as well as in the interests of health and safety, it could be considered a necessary and normal part of the conservation process that buildings should be cleaned and restored before being put on display. However, by doing so, the history of the building and its connection to the present can be lost. Perhaps more importantly, the buildings as restored and presented often do not reflect the realities of life during the period in question. A common criticism levelled at open-air museums is that they present a sanitised and somewhat ­idealised view of

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Figure 1.1: The Isle of Man.

the past.17 The positive aspects of a past life are displayed, while the negative aspects are largely ignored. The artefacts of everyday life are presented, particularly those that are deemed ‘interesting’, but the more ordinary activities of the people are not. The public is thereby presented with ‘show houses’ rather than ‘homes’. Open-air museums have also frequently been criticised for presenting a static view of the past, which shows little connection to contemporary society.18 Few such museums show buildings in a way that demonstrates development though chronological sequence; rather they tend to emphasise regional differences or focus on a specific historical period. As a result, the passage of time is often not in evidence; the past is presented as a fixed entity, a static tableau, rather than as one point on a continuum to the present.19 The relationship between past and present is thereby negated and, as a consequence, the past can become ‘a foreign country’, a place to visit before returning ‘home’, rather than a way-station on the journey itself.20 The past which is presented in open-air museums is also often isolated, not just from its own prior history and later development, but from other people and places.21 There is often a distinct lack of the wider social context, with the result that issues such as conflict and trade are either ignored or glossed over,



OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 17

thereby presenting the visitor with an isolated, idealised, sanitised and simplified view of the past.22 These critical issues will now be discussed in relation to the development of Cregneash as an open-air museum in the Isle of Man, exploring in particular the national, cultural and historical contexts that importantly influenced the intention of its creators. The role of Cregneash as a ‘touchstone of traditional Manx identity’23 will be shown to have been in place since its inception in the late 1930s and to have been developed through successive administrations to have a significant role on the island in the portrayal of aspects of Manx history and culture. The Isle of Man

The Isle of Man sits at approximately the geographical centre of the British Isles (Fig. 1.1). It covers 227 square miles, much of which is agricultural, and has a current population of over 80,000, less than half of whom are Manx-born.24 The Island is a British Crown Dependency, with its own parliament, called Tynwald, and its own laws and taxation. Manx National Heritage (MNH) is the Island’s national heritage agency, established by Statute and governed by a body of Trustees. It incorporates the National Trust and has charitable status. MNH’s stated mission is to ‘preserve, protect, promote and communicate the unique qualities of Manx natural and cultural heritage’, through community involvement, education and marketing.25 During the last three decades of the 19th century, the Isle of Man was experiencing its own revival movement. The Island already had considerable political independence, and so the revival focused primarily on developing a cultural identity – specifically, at that time, a Celtic identity – through the study of archaeology, language and folklore. It was during this period that an Act of Tynwald led to the creation, in 1886, of the Manx Museum and Ancient Monuments Trust, the precursor to MNH, whose primary aims were to preserve the Island’s cultural heritage and to establish a national museum. A lively antiquarian movement on the Island led to the collection and extensive publication of Manx folklore; however, the material aspects of folklife were largely ignored at this time, at least by those living on the Isle of Man. Folklife was, however, of great interest to tourists. By the late 19th century, the Island was welcoming over 300,000 tourists each year, most of whom came from the factory towns of the north of England.26 Tourists came for the Island’s many and varied attractions, including the picturesque landscape and coastline, grand houses, ruined castles and standing stones. Another important attraction was the Manx people – in particular, rural people engaged in rural crafts and activities. This attraction arose partly from the Victorians’ love of the rural idyll. It was also partly a result of the success of the novels of the author Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine, a number of which were set in the Isle of Man. A cottage near Ramsey, in the north of the Island, became particularly popular with tourists, as it was photographed for an American edition of Caine’s novel The Manxman, as the home of one of the book’s characters, Old Pete. The real-life occupant of the house, John Kennish, regularly posed for postcards and photographs. Postcards of the Island abounded during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, many of them portraying whitewashed thatched cottages and people engaged in ‘traditional’ activities. By the late

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19th century, it could be said that the Isle of Man was already cashing in, to some extent, on an early form of cultural tourism. In 1922, a building in the island’s capital, Douglas, was finally given over to the creation of a Manx Museum.27 Manxman William Cubbon was appointed Secretary and Librarian, and ten years later he took over the role of Museum Director.28 Cubbon was a Manx nationalist, who sought to instil in his fellow countrymen the importance and merit of their cultural and linguistic heritage.29 In 1936, Basil Megaw was appointed as Assistant Director. Megaw was from Belfast and had studied Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.30 He shared with Cubbon an enthusiasm for Manx culture and, particularly, material culture, and between them they helped to develop the study of folklife on the Isle of Man. The next few years saw the development of a new Folk Culture Gallery, which opened at the Manx Museum in 1937.31 Public interest in Manx folklife was also stimulated that year, as a result of a lecture at the Museum by Iorwerth Peate of the National Museum of Wales, who ‘demonstrated the importance of preserving every tangible thing relating to Manx heritage’.32 The lack of artefacts for the new gallery prompted Cubbon and Megaw to undertake what Megaw described as a ‘campaign of field work in the country, on the principle that we would not obtain what we required unless we went to look for it.’ 33 These developments marked, in Megaw’s own words, the ‘new policy of bringing the Museum into closer touch with everyday life’.34 Both Megaw and Cubbon saw the study of folk culture as an important part of understanding what it meant to be Manx. Megaw noted, in 1939, that ‘it is only the realisation of the common fund of experience, traditions and history revealed in the Folk Section which entitles us to call ourselves a nation’.35 Through the help of volunteers, the Museum soon amassed a reasonable collection of domestic artefacts. A reconstructed farmhouse kitchen was opened in the Folk Culture Gallery in 1938 and, in the same year, Harry Kelly’s cottage at Cregneash in the south of the Island was opened to the public as the first publically owned open-air museum in the British Isles. Cregneash

Cregneash is a small upland village which sits in the centre of the Meayll peninsula, in the Parish of Rushen at the southern tip of the Isle of Man (Fig. 1.2). The village developed sometime during the mid to late 17th century as a community of small tenants involved in farming and, later, fishing.36 By the early 19th century, Cregneash was already perceived to represent a way of life that was fast dying out elsewhere on the Island. It is mentioned in many of the Island’s early guide books, with writers frequently commenting on its isolation and perceived primitiveness. Oswald’s Guide of 1824, for example, described it as ‘a small mountain village of the most aboriginal, wild, and desolate appearance’.37 In 1863, it was noted that ‘[t]he inhabitants are very exclusive and primitive in their habits, and in many instances cannot converse in the English tongue’.38 By 1899, it was described as ‘the most primitive place in Manxland … a little village of thatched cottages, where both Manx and English are spoken’.39



OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 19

Figure 1.2: Cregneash Village (August 2010).

In 1933, a Celtic philologist from the University of Oslo, Professor Carl Marstrander, paid his third visit to the Isle of Man and spent three weeks making audio recordings of six of the last native speakers of Manx Gaelic, all of whom were in their eighties.40 These included Harry Kelly, a bachelor crofter-fisherman who lived at Cregneash. Kelly’s house was a small, two-roomed cottage with a half-loft above the bedroom, and it had belonged to his father and his grandfather before him.41 It is believed to date to the early 18th century.42 Marstrander was particularly impressed with Kelly, whom he perceived to be the last native Manx-speaker who still used the language in his daily life, right up until his death in 1935.43 In 1936, Marstrander invited Cubbon, then Director of the Manx Museum, to visit him in Oslo, and it was during this visit that Cubbon was first exposed to the Scandinavian open-air folk museums, of which there were none in the British Isles at that time.44 Marstrander himself was very interested in the folk museum movement, and he suggested that, if such a thing were to be developed on the Isle of Man, Harry Kelly’s cottage would be a fine start. On his return to the Island, Cubbon approached Kelly’s nephew, who had inherited the house upon his uncle’s death.45 After a short period of negotiation, the cottage was gifted to the Museum with the express purpose of opening it to the public, which it did, on 4 June 1938. The museum at Cregneash

A number of alterations were made to Harry Kelly’s cottage before it was opened to the public. It was re-thatched and whitewashed (internally and externally), and a modern cast-iron range was removed to reveal an original stone hearth complete with hearth stone, recessed stone shelves and a pot-chain (Figs 1.3 and 1.4).46 Although it was to be called Harry Kelly’s Cottage, it was not intended that the cottage be portrayed as Kelly

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Figure 1.3: Harry Kelly’s Cottage, Cregneash (September 2008).

himself had latterly lived in it. Rather, it would be ‘an illustration of a typical Cregneash home of past days’.47 In particular, the Museum was keen that the interior be representative of a 19th-century Manx cottage, complete with furnishings.48 Some items of furniture belonging to Kelly remained in the cottage, including the dresser, the table, the bed and the grandfather clock. A number other items belonging to Kelly were also gifted to the Museum, including his lustre ware pottery.49 Pottery and porcelain for the dresser and mantelpiece were donated by Kelly’s sister, and a number of other items, such as wall pictures, a carpenter-made chair and a rag rug, were donated by neighbours in Cregneash and by individuals from elsewhere on the Island.50 Requests were made in the local press for additional items such as wooden platters, milk pails, a paraffin lamp, a brass candlestick, a small bedroom mirror, a spinning stool, and hand-made shoes and stockings.51 Even before the opening of the museum, Cubbon had a vision for Cregneash that extended beyond Harry Kelly’s cottage.52 Indeed, at the opening ceremony, Cubbon expressed the desire to acquire another cottage at Cregneash to house the hand loom which was being donated by Mr Alfred Hudson of Ballafesson (also in the Parish of Rushen).53 A two-storey slate-roofed house was subsequently purchased, and the loom was housed in a thatched outhouse attached to the west gable. The house itself was given over to the museum’s caretaker, who had been taught to use the loom by Hudson in order that he might give demonstrations.54 It had never been the intention simply to preserve the artefacts of traditional Manx culture at Cregneash, but rather also ‘to main-



OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 21

Figure 1.4: Interior of Harry Kelly’s Cottage, Cregneash (July 2010).

tain the traditions of rural craftsmanship which was [sic] formerly carried on there’.55 Known as ‘The Weaver’s House’ (though that was not its original function), the building was opened to the public in July 1939.56 Further improvements took place at Harry Kelly’s cottage around the same time, including the removal of some areas of concrete floor, which had likely been laid in the early 20th century when some of the newer properties in the village were being constructed.57 The floor was removed in the kitchen, but not from under the dresser, where a thick layer of concrete can still be seen. The concrete floor was also left in the bedroom – the desire to reveal the original puddled clay floor was moderated by the desire to protect the wooden furniture from damp by retaining the layer of concrete. The outbreak of war in 1939 did not stop the development of the Cregneash museum, and the period from 1939 to 1944 saw the procurement of the Karran Farmstead (Fig. 1.5) and a disused outbuilding which was rebuilt as a turner’s workshop to house a newly acquired treadle lathe (Fig. 1.6).58 By 1944, it was anticipated that the museum would not be extended by the purchase of additional properties. Instead, Megaw noted that ‘it is perhaps most likely that further development (if any) will take the form of erecting new buildings on ground belonging to or adjoining the property already acquired.’59 It is possible that Megaw intended to recreate at Cregneash different types of buildings from around the Island. This is suggested from a lecture he gave in 1939, in which he

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Figure 1.5: Karran farmstead, Cregneash (July 2010).

discussed a recent survey of several hundred dwelling-houses on the Island. Megaw noted the regional variation in house-types and in building materials (which included sod, clay, stone and brick) and commented that ‘I hope there will soon be models of each of the main house-types on exhibition.’60 In fact, this intention never materialised. Several further existing buildings were to be acquired at Cregneash, but no new buildings have ever been constructed for the museum. Since its inception, the Cregneash museum has been period-specific. The last house built in the village dates to around 1910 and, while many of the houses in the area have since been modernised, it was felt that the museum should portray village life as it would have been in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.61 The museum currently comprises eleven named properties and is surrounded by over 300 acres of nationally owned land. Church Farm is a relatively recent addition (purchased in 1988), comprising a farmhouse and associated outbuildings, both old and new. The corrugated iron barn dates to the 1970s and is rather an anachronism in what is purported to be a 19th-century farmstead. However, in addition to aiding in the daily working of the farm, the barn provides additional exhibition and storage space for farm machinery and a large area in which indoor events can be held. The farm operates a variety of machinery dating from the late 19th century to around 1950, including reaping machines, threshing machines and tractors. Visitors from April to



OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 23

Figure 1.6: Turner’s shed, Cregneash (September 2008).

October can watch costumed farm-hands operating these machines in the fields around Church Farm. These fields are farmed in a traditional manner, using historical varieties of crops and crop rotations, and there is a ‘farm trail’ for visitors, complete with panels describing the crops and livestock that can be seen. Since 1965, Loghtan sheep (a native Manx breed) have been housed in the village.62 Cregneash is unusual among open-air museums in that all of the buildings are preserved in situ, although not all retain their former uses. Cregneash is also unusual in that MNH owns the majority of the buildings in the village, including those that comprise the folk museum. Of the 29 buildings in Cregneash, MNH owns 24, 14 of which are let out to private individuals. Only five remain in private ownership.63 This decision to let out properties in the village dates from as early as 1951, when it was decided that a cottage acquired by the museum would be renovated and let to a private tenant, ‘since it is not at present required for display’64 and it was hoped that a tenant would be found who would ‘assist in the Folk Museum by demonstrating traditional crafts’.65 Through the course of the 20th century, depopulation took its toll on Cregneash (as in other rural communities), as the older generation passed away, and the younger generation moved out to the Island’s towns, or abroad. Towards the end of the century, many of the buildings at Cregneash were being used as holiday homes and were empty

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for long periods of time each year.66 It was from a concern for the preservation of the village as a whole that the Manx Museum began acquiring further properties which would not become part of the folk museum itself, but which instead would be let to private residents, who would live in the village year-round, thus preserving, or perhaps creating, a village community. The interiors of these dwellings were modernised, while the ‘traditional’ exteriors have been preserved. Some of these buildings have since become incorporated into the museum, while others are still let to tenants. Many of the tenants have traditional craft skills and contribute to the running of the museum as demonstrators or farmhands. Those buildings that remain in private ownership are subject to planning legislation that prevents overt exterior modernisation. This has led to some tension between those private owners wanting to extend their properties, and MNH, which has successfully overturned planning decisions in order to preserve the ‘traditional’ character of the village.67 The roads in Cregneash are public highways. However, there is a charge for entering the museum, which is open only at designated times. A visit to the museum begins in the interpretation centre, which was opened in 1984 in a two-storey building named Cummal Beg. Here, visitors may purchase a guidebook and can view The Cregneash Story exhibition comprising an audio-visual presentation about Cregneash together with display boards documenting the history of the village and its people. On leaving the centre, visitors are able to wander freely around the village, and can enter those buildings which are part of the museum. To maintain the ‘unspoilt’ character of Cregneash, there is little interpretive material on display in the village itself or in any of the museum properties. However, costumed interpreters and traditional craft demonstrators are often on hand to talk about the buildings, the artefacts and the way of life of the village. As artefacts in an open-air museum, the buildings are there to be experienced rather than explained and, for this reason, as in many such museums, the preference is to avoid the use of on-site textual interpretation.68 Buildings as artefacts

The buildings displayed at Cregneash evoke the stereotypical Manx cottage of the Victorian era, freshly whitewashed and newly thatched. Photographic evidence from the 1930s and 1940s, however, shows that many of the buildings in the village, including Harry Kelly’s cottage and the Karran Farmstead, were not regularly whitewashed.69 The decision to improve the external appearance of the buildings was quite deliberate. Shortly after the acquisition of the Karran farmstead, Basil Megaw commented that ‘[c]onsiderable restoration is needed throughout but, when completed, the farmstead, with freshly whitewashed walls gleaming below honey-coloured thatch, will form an attractive and lively scene’.70 There are, of course, a number of understandable reasons why it would be desirable to present such a sanitised view of the past. The fact that the buildings were in situ gave Cregneash an authenticity that perhaps did not make it seem necessary to preserve or simulate the patina of age. Commercially, as a tourist attraction, clean, whitewashed walls and straw thatch were not only attractive but also fulfilled the idealised vision of the rural idyll that had come to be associated with the British countryside. In addition,



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the intention was that the museum should create a positive image, indeed a positive collective memory, of past life on the Island – serving as a monument to past generations71 and thereby instilling in the Manx people ‘a pride in the great traditions and heritage of their race’.72 As such a monument, Cregneash museum had to represent something that the islanders would be proud of. In Cregneash village, the visitor is clearly able to see how some buildings have been adapted for modern life. However, those buildings do not form part of the museum complex, and the life of the present villagers is unseen by visitors except as it may be inferred from signs of ‘No admittance’ and ‘Private property’. As a result, the visitor may leave the village with no meaningful experience of the continuity from past to present. Of those buildings which do form part of the museum, Harry Kelly’s Cottage has been reverted to a perceived former state, with the partial removal of the concrete floor and of the iron range in the kitchen. However, the blocked up back door and the extension of the loft over the corridor between the two doorways have both been left, as has the concrete floor in the bedroom. The result is that Harry Kelly’s cottage, as it is presented to the visitor, was never like this at any period in its history. Other buildings which form part of the museum display in their fabric evidence of change of use. For example, one of the buildings which forms part of the Karran Farmstead has blocked up window and door openings in what is currently the back of the building, revealing its former use as a house. There is, therefore, a history of Cregneash village that is not being fully told by the museum. A further issue at Cregneash arises directly from the fact that the buildings which form the museum are all in situ and form part of the village. The perception thereby created is that of an organically connected series of buildings in meaningful context, with each building in clear relation to every other building within the village. On the ground, this is true – all of the structures that form part of the museum are in their original locations. However, the function of some of the buildings has been changed or adapted by the museum. This means that while the physical relationships between the buildings are accurately portrayed, the functional relationships are not. Justification for modifying existing buildings in the village was given by Megaw in 1944, when he stated that it would not have been uncommon for buildings to be turned over to different uses in the late 19th century, such as a joiner setting up in a disused stable. In this way, the reuse of old buildings is seen as a tradition continued, rather than a tradition broken.73 Yet this raises an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, reuse of buildings (including for museum purposes) can itself be seen as a manifestation of the continually changing life of a village. On the other hand, several buildings in the village were never used for the purposes currently portrayed until these uses were brought into being by the museum. It could be argued that this creates a degree of inauthenticity, particularly if these changes in use are not made clear to the visitor. At Cregneash there is little explicit explanation of the way in which buildings have changed in appearance or use, although the current Souvenir Booklet & Site Guide does make it clear that the Smithy, which opened in 1958, is a reconstruction (Fig. 1.7). While the present site manager is keen to point out that the museum does not intend to represent old Cregneash exactly, this is not made overtly clear to the visitor.74

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Figure 1.7: Smithy and joiner’s workshop, Cregneash (July 2010).

Buildings to house artefacts

The inclusion of artefacts in an open-air museum is necessary in order to present the image of the buildings as authentic, lived in, and worked in spaces. A number of the buildings at Cregneash currently house artefacts, including Harry Kelly’s Cottage, Church Farm farmhouse, the Smithy and the Weaver’s Shed. In Harry Kelly’s cottage, for example, on initial inspection the cottage appears as it would have when Harry Kelly himself was living there. The two-roomed house is fully furnished with tables, chairs, a dresser and a bed. The dresser is full of crockery; the mantelpiece holds ornaments; and various implements and utensils can also be seen. There is an open fire on the hearth, and often an interpreter dressed in costume sitting by it (Fig. 1.4). The clear aim is to enable the visitor to experience a general sense of the interior and to imagine what it was like to live there, rather than to study every artefact in the house. The interior of the cottage appears somewhat sanitised, although it is unclear to what extent since there are no known images of the cottage interior as it was when Harry Kelly was alive. There is a proliferation of artefacts, from a variety of sources, and there is little indication of the provenance of the objects on display. As a result, it is not entirely clear which items are in situ or belonged to Harry Kelly, and which have been brought in from the museum’s collection of folk objects. The on-site interpreters are sometimes



OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 27

able to shed some light on this, but not always, and the standard narrative focuses on what may seem to be more interesting facts about the cottage, such as the turves under the thatch, which have not been replaced since 1851, and the unusual four-poster bed which Kelly brought back by boat from the Calf of Man (a small island to the south of the Meayll Peninsula). Such stories are important in helping to situate the visitor and give them a sense of connection to the past but, without further clarification about the contents of the cottage, visitors are presented with a somewhat misleading image of Harry Kelly’s life in the cottage. In this way, the cottage takes on a dual role. It is not only an artefact in itself, but it also becomes a building in which to display other artefacts. For example, objects are included in the house which Harry Kelly, a lifelong bachelor, would clearly not have possessed, such as a spinning wheel, a baby’s crib and female clothing. Of course, this is not a criticism that is specific to Cregneash; rather it is a common trait in folk museums.75 A conceptual separation occurs between building and artefacts, resulting in the house becoming an exhibition space in which non-intrinsic artefacts are accommodated, rather than a building which houses genuinely associated objects. The perceived need for a museum to display a range of artefacts that are deemed interesting wins over against the desire to portray a more accurate representation of a lived-in house. As a result, this may lessen rather than enhance the visitor’s experience, especially of those visitors who seek a more authentic representation of the past. The inclusion of promotional material within the house also serves to remind the visitor that they are in a museum rather than a house. This tension between (a) presenting buildings as artefacts in their own right and (b) using them as repositories for other artefacts raises interesting questions, which cannot be explored fully here, about curatorial methods and the nature and purpose of contextual displays such as those found in open-air museums. Hazelius’s intention was that Skansen would not only ‘show household goods in the actual houses’ but that these houses would be presented in such a way that ‘[i]t would seem almost as if one had crept in, while the people in the house had gone out for a moment’.76 This is no longer the case in many open-air museums, where buildings are used primarily to display a range of artefacts rather to present authentically staged cameos of life in the past. This suggests that, as in traditional museums, the display of material artefacts in open-air museums is often considered to be more important than attempting to portray accurately the contexts in which they were used. Heritage and identity

As previously indicated, since the museum’s inception, it was intended that Cregneash should not simply preserve and present the material artefacts of Manx rural life, but that it should also help to continue traditional crafts and farming practices. As early as 1939, weaving demonstrations were given at Cregneash, and by the 1980s, spinning, weaving and blacksmithing demonstrations were a regular attraction during the summer season.77 In 1983, an annual open day was set up, with free entry to the museum and demonstrations including sheep shearing, dry stone walling, woodturning, blacksmithing, folk dancing, net making, thatching, quilting, patchwork and Manx language.

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Workshops in traditional skills and crafts were added in 1989, and have proved to be extremely popular.78 Today, from April to October, there are daily demonstrations of traditional crafts throughout the village. The events calendar has also been expanded and Cregneash has become a focus for traditional agricultural practices, including horse ploughing matches and turnip thinning competitions. The museum owns large tracts of land in and around the village, which permits the demonstration of larger-scale agricultural practices, some of which may not otherwise have survived. Folk activities are also the focus of many seasonal celebrations, including May Day and Hop Tu Naa (the Manx equivalent of Hallowe’en). These events are firmly aimed at the Island’s community, particularly the younger generation. Visitors are taught traditional songs, customs, stories and crafts, such as how to make turnip lanterns, corn dollies, Hollantide biscuits and protective crosses. Such events have become extremely popular, and are seen as a way of passing on traditional customs and skills. In addition, they are strengthening and promoting a unified cultural identity for the Island. In a very real way, selected elements of Manx folklore and folklife that were in danger of being lost have been revived and are being taught to a new generation. That these events are being run by MNH gives such customs validity, authenticity and acceptability among the Manx community that they might not otherwise have had. In this way, Cregneash museum plays a key role in preserving and promoting both the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the Isle of Man. In 1991, the Manx Museum and National Trust adopted the working title Manx National Heritage.79 This change of name reflected a shift in the operational policy of the organisation, which has become more firmly centred on improving community involvement and education, more actively engaging with the tourist market, and continuing the promotion of a positive national and international identity for the Island.80 By the early 1990s, the population of the Isle of Man was nearly 70,000, only just over half of whom were Manx-born.81 It therefore became recognised that the Manx ‘community’ was made up of an increasingly large proportion of residents who had little or no knowledge of the Island’s history and culture and this was seen as having social and political consequences for the Island. It was felt by MNH that ‘[a]t a time of changes in the resident and visiting population structure, the work of Manx National Heritage in securing the roots of Manx identity promotes internal stability and pride as well as the basis for external economic promotion’.82 Cregneash, in particular, was seen as playing a central role in helping to promote Manx cultural heritage, and was described by MNH’s Director, Stephen Harrison, in 2006 as providing ‘a touchstone of traditional Manx identity’.83 Since its inception, there have been various changes in the way in which the Cregneash museum has been defined and designated. In its early years, it was referred to as ‘The Cregneash Open-Air Museum’ and ‘The Manx Village Folk-Museum at Cregneash’.84 The first guide to the museum was published in 1957 under the title The Manx Open-Air Folk Museum and a subsequent guide published in 1985 was titled the Cregneash Village Folk Museum. Most recently, the museum has been rebranded as the Island’s ‘National Folk Museum’. This recent change in designation to a National Folk Museum firmly places the Cregneash exhibits as representative of the Island as a whole. The MNH website states that



OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 29

‘The National Folk Museum at Cregneash provides a living, working illustration of life in a typical 19th century Manx upland crofting community.’85 The implication is therefore that the buildings, artefacts and way of life represented at Cregneash, were once typical of the whole of the Island. However, this was not strictly the case. As Megaw noted in 1939, there was tremendous variation in building techniques throughout the island. Although the social history gallery at the Manx Museum in Douglas has been extended to include other examples of rural life, no further house types have ever been exhibited on the Island. As a consequence, Harry Kelly’s cottage at Cregneash remains the accepted model of a traditional Manx dwelling. To the extent that Cregneash styles itself as a ‘National Folk Museum’, this may lead to the risk that ways of living, buildings and related material culture from other parts of the Island are ignored and eventually become lost to succeeding generations. Of the six houses that form part of the Cregneash museum, only two are presented with furnished house interiors. One of these is Harry Kelly’s cottage, and the other is the larger and more affluent farmhouse belonging to Church Farm, the downstairs of which forms part of the museum. Two additional cottages are used as exhibition spaces, and two others form the café and interpretation centre. Another two cottages, which were acquired in a ruinous state, have intentionally been left as ruins. The Cregneash museum therefore only fully portrays two types of dwellings – the small cottage and the larger farmhouse – and, as discussed earlier, the portrayal of Harry Kelly’s cottage can be questioned in various respects. To the extent that building types and artefacts are presented as having been uniform across the Island, other types of building and ways of living inevitably become excluded. This exclusion is subtly reinforced through the use of words such as ‘typical’, ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’ when describing the buildings and other artefacts on display at Cregneash.86 This can further instil in the visitor’s mind a static, romanticised vision of Manx rural culture. Such a vision is continually perpetuated in subtle ways through art, promotional materials and popular literature. For example, the image chosen for the MNH Christmas card in 2008 – the 70th anniversary of the opening of Harry Kelly’s cottage – was a painting by contemporary artist John Caley of a winter scene at Cregneash, showing Harry Kelly’s cottage in the foreground and the Turner’s Shed to the rear: certainly an attractive and appealing image, but not one that paints an accurate historical picture. When acquired by the Museum, the Turner’s Shed was a disused outbuilding, with a single-pitched corrugated iron roof. The roof was later converted into double-pitch and thatched. The painting therefore presents an image that did not exist in Cregneash until it was created by the museum. Conclusions

Cregneash is both village and museum. The entirely worthy idea of re-establishing a rural community at Cregneash, dedicated to the preservation and promotion of rural cultural heritage, has resulted in a village in three main parts. Those buildings owned by MNH are all preserved externally and protected from development. Some of these form the National Folk Museum, while others are lived in, mostly by museum staff. The

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smallest third comprises privately owned buildings which are also restricted from overt development by MNH and strict planning regulations. With regard to the built environment, in many ways Cregneash is an excellent example of the way in which a village transforms over time. Existing buildings date from the early 18th to the early 20th centuries, and extensions and alterations undertaken during the first half of the 20th century can be seen throughout the village. However, this sense of progression is not clearly portrayed in the Cregneash museum itself, where all of the buildings are dated to a specific time period. While the reuse of buildings for new purposes is accepted and employed by the museum, for example in the recreation of a village smithy, the way in which the buildings in the village have actually developed over time is not currently part of the Cregneash story as told. Incorporating such developments into the official narrative would not only reveal the passage of time during the life of the village, but would demonstrate the ever-changing nature of the built environment, providing an important representation of the link between past and present. Cregneash would, in fact, be the perfect place to demonstrate the development of rural housing throughout the 20th century. Under the current Directorship, there are plans to reassess all of the MNH sites on the Island. This includes a strategy to develop Cregneash that aims to address many of the issues raised in this paper.87 Despite the extensive evidence which points to the ingenuity and adaptability of people who lived in the countryside, folk museums have a tendency to portray people and buildings as both conservative and unchanging. By ‘restoring’ buildings to an imagined original state, a misleading view of rural life can be perpetuated. Harry Kelly’s cottage remains the only 19th-century Manx cottage on public display and there are no plans to open up to visitors any other cottages from this period. By presenting only a single example of such a cottage, this may further serve to perpetuate a single, fixed image of the rural past. While the presentation of multiple histories in a museum context could be a demanding and costly pursuit, a more explicit indication that Harry Kelly’s cottage represents only one of many realities of 19th-century crofting life on the island would at least encourage consideration of other building traditions and ways of life. Likewise, accepting a less-sanitised version of the past would allow for meaningful discussion about how people in former times dealt with the rigours of everyday living, such as sanitation, waste disposal, drainage, temperature regulation, and managing the supply of food and goods, and how this may offer interesting comparisons with the ways in which contemporary society deals with these same issues. The balance between the portrayal of an authentic historical representation of a building interior and the display of interesting artefacts is currently skewed to the latter in many open-air museums. As a result, museum buildings presented ‘in period’ typically house a range of period artefacts, including many which are not in their true domestic or working setting. Paradoxically, although the aim is to present these artefacts in period context, the very inclusion of so many and so varied artefacts often destroys the authenticity of the context which the museum is seeking to create. At Cregneash, with few exceptions, current exhibitions in those museum buildings that are not portrayed ‘in period’ tend to comprise series of wall-mounted displays, rather than displays of artefacts. A clearer understanding of, and separation between, intrinsic and non-intrinsic artefacts, with the latter being displayed and interpreted in those museum



OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 31

buildings not explicitly portrayed ‘in period’, would permit a more accurate representation of the period interiors. Visitors would then have access to relevant information about the varied artefacts on display without this intruding into the recreated tableaux of the period buildings. As a national museum, Cregneash could be seen as claiming to represent authentically the past rural life of the whole Island and, as the sole example of its kind, this claim to authenticity is not widely challenged. But, for the reasons discussed, there is a clear risk that by focusing only on Cregneash village, the folklife and material culture from other parts of the Island are not adequately represented, and therefore may become lost and forgotten. In addition to preserving and protecting the Isle of Man’s rural heritage, the National Folk Museum at Cregneash is also responsible for presenting this heritage (both tangible and intangible) to the general public, both Manx and non-Manx. In choosing which buildings to include in the museum, and how to portray them, and in choosing which aspects of folklore and folklife should be demonstrated and learned, MNH plays an important (and perhaps largely unrecognised) role in the shaping of Manx cultural identity. The idealised image of the Manx cottage that was presented to tourists and other outsiders during the Victorian era, has also been, and is still being, presented to the Manx people themselves as a symbol of their shared heritage and national identity. While this may help to instil a sense of national pride, and of collective ownership and responsibility for the Island’s past, it would seem important that this past is represented as honestly and as fully as possible. There are difficult and contentious issues at the heart of the debate concerning the conservation and representation of the material culture of the past, including vernacular buildings and their associated artefacts. An early critic of open-air museums, Sophus Müller, believed that buildings and monuments should not be moved or restored, but should be preserved as they are in situ. In his view, to reconstruct buildings in a museum environment was tantamount to falsification and not, in any case, what visitors wanted.88 Hazelius’s response was that ‘[t]o seek without deceit to achieve illusion is quite different from forgery ... The open air museum’s main task is ... more a matter of seeking truth than reality’.89 Open-air museums can never be truly authentic – they cannot be the past, they can merely represent aspects of it – and in very many ways Cregneash is more authentic than most. Acknowledgements

In preparing this paper, I would like to acknowledge the help of the staff of Manx National Heritage, particularly Edmund Southworth, Yvonne Cresswell, Andrew Johnson and Andrew Metcalf, and the staff of the MNH Library.

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Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

Quoted in Rentzhog 2007, 17. Rentzhog 2007, 8–10. Rentzhog 2007, 29. Rentzhog 2007, 48. Rentzhog 2007, 33. Kavanagh 1991, 192–3. Kavanagh 1991, 193. MacCannell 1973; Walsh 1992, 94–115; Waitt & McGuirk 1996; Goulding 2000; Waitt 2000; Halewood & Hannam 2001, 566–8. Prentice 2010, 250–1. Prentice 1998, 52–3. e.g. Bagnall 2003; Smith 2006, 195–236. Smith 2006, 218. Smith 2006, 235. Smith 2006, 235. See the discussion in Jones 2010, 184–6. Crang 1999, 463. e.g. Kavanagh 1991, 199–200; Bell 1999, 34–5; Smith 2006, 40. e.g. Walsh 1992, 108; Bell 1999, 31–2; Crang 1999, 452. Sorensen 1989, 65. Lowenthal 1985; Walsh 1992, 115. Crang 1999, 452. Young 2006, 323. Manx National Heritage 2006. Isle of Man Government 2010, 9. Manx National Heritage 2010, 4. Belcham 2000, 223, 431. Harrison 1986, 12. Harrison 1986, 19. Harrison 1986, 17. Harrison 1986, 20. Megaw 1941, 382. Megaw 1941, 383. Megaw 1941, 383. Megaw 1941, 384. Megaw 1941, 388. Display, National Folk Museum, Cregneash. Oswald 1824, 66. Thwaites 1863, 420. Quine 1899, 94. Cubbon 1939, 161. Isle of Man Examiner, 10 June 1938, 4. Manx National Heritage n.d.(a). Isle of Man Examiner, 31 December 1937, 7. Isle of Man Examiner, 11 February 1938, 6. Isle of Man Examiner, 22 October 1937, 8. Cubbon 1938, 43. Isle of Man Examiner, 22 October 1937, 8.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89

Isle of Man Examiner, 3 June 1938, 1. Isle of Man Examiner, 22 October 1937, 8. Isle of Man Examiner, 3 June 1938, 1. Isle of Man Examiner, 22 October 1937, 8; 3 June 1938, 1. Isle of Man Examiner 22 October 1937, 8. Isle of Man Examiner 10 June 1938, 4. Isle of Man Examiner, 28 July 1939, 10 Isle of Man Examiner, 15 January 1943, 8. Farrant and Megaw 1940, 189–90. Isle of Man Examiner, 10 June 1938, 4. Megaw 1944, 134. Megaw 1944, 135. Megaw 1941, 384. Andrew Metcalfe, Site Manager, Cregneash, pers. comm., August 2010. Manx Museum and National Trust 1966, 8. Cresswell n.d. Manx Museum and National Trust 1951, 6. Manx Museum and National Trust 1953, 5. Andrew Johnson, MNH, pers. comm. August 2010. Manx Radio 2007; Rushen Parish Commissioners 2008. Jenkins1972, 510; Rentzhog 2007, 419–20. e.g. Harrison 1986, 59, 68–9. Megaw 1944, 134. Isle of Man Examiner, 10 June 1938, 4. Isle of Man Examiner, 10 June 1938, 12. Megaw 1944, 133. Andrew Metcalfe, Site Manager, Cregneash, pers. comm., August 2010. Carruthers 2003, 93; Young 2006, 332; Macdonald 2010, 282–3. Quoted in Rentzhog 2007, 7. Manx Museum and National Trust 1982, 5. Cresswell n.d. Isle of Man Government 1991, 92. Isle of Man Government 1992, 72; MNH n.d.(b). Isle of Man Government 2010, 9. Isle of Man Government 1993, 84. Manx National Heritage 2006. Farrant and Megaw 1940; Megaw 1944. The National Folk Museum at Cregneash n.d. The National Folk Museum at Cregneash n.d. Edmund Southworth, Director, MNH, pers. comm., April 2011. Rentzhog 2007, 30. Quoted in Rentzhog 2007, 387.



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Cresswell, Y. n.d., Box files on Cregneash, Manx National Heritage.

Loyal yet Independent: Archaeological Perspectives on Remembering and Forgetting World War I on the Isle of Man Harold Mytum The material evidence for World War I on the Isle of Man includes both the sites and artefacts from the internment camps for alien civilians held by the British, and the war memorials to the Manx who lost their lives through conflict. The physical form of the memorials, and the selective processes of remembering that involve them, demonstrates how material heritage is active in contemporary society. This can be contrasted, using Connerton’s (2008) types of cultural forgetting, with those aspects of the wartime experience that are not recalled and where the material evidence is destroyed or hidden. Archaeologists should consider how the materiality of the past, or its eradication, are both key elements in the complex processes of making and re-making social memory. Introduction

The Isle of Man is an independent Crown Dependency, with the Queen as head of state and an ambivalent and at times uncomfortable relationship with the British government. In the early 20th century the Lieutenant Governor was a powerful and significant figure on the island, balancing and indeed controlling the powers of the Tynwald parliament. From 1902 the Lieutenant Governor was Lord Raglan, who had come from the post of Under Secretary for War and been a major organiser of the Boer War campaigns. He was an intensely conservative figure, charming to those in his circle but with firm views on how the island should be run, and on its relationships with the British government. The Tynwald was dominated by a wealthy Manx elite with its own interests, sometimes at odds with Raglan, so during the War there were several issues on which they disagreed, and other matters that led the populace to protest as their concerns were often ignored by all in authority.1 Against this background of political manoeuvring, the holiday season of 1914 was cut short in August as most of the Steam Packet’s steamers were requisitioned for the war effort. 2 During World War I the island became involved in the conflict in two main ways: the supply of men to fight, and as a base for two German civilian prisoner of war camps. It was also affected by the loss of its main economic activity, tourism, as well as by the general shortages that affected all civilians in the British Isles, though with particular local problems due to supply and local legislation.3

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Raglan raised three companies of Manx volunteers who served in the British army, some eventually seeing conflict as far afield as Salonika,4 though the memorials themselves reveal a wide variety of regimental associations and the listings in the papers show fatalities in many theatres of war on land and sea. About 8,000 Manxmen served in the armed forces, over a third of the male population; the National War Memorial lists 1,165 named fatalities. In addition, many guards were locally recruited to serve at the two internment camps on the island that were used to house civilian internees – mainly of German origin but with some Austro-Hungarians and Turks – who were seen as a threat to national security in an increasingly xenophobic Britain.5 The internment of up to around 30,000 civilians was the island’s unique contribution to the war effort, the equivalent to half of the civilian population of the Isle of Man. Internment created opportunities as well as logistical problems for the local people, and the internees lived with frustrations but also showed impressive creativity. The effects of the war lasted into 1919 on the island: not only was the removal of the internees slow, but also only three of the Steamship vessels survived the conflict, and peace came too late for any 1918 tourist season. However, during the summer of 1919, over 340,000 visitors came, and this rose to over 560,000 the following year.6 Employment and the economy began to regain balance, and the process of remembering – and forgetting – was now well under way. It is the dynamics of remembering and forgetting, and the role of material culture in that process, that is the focus of this chapter. Social memory, practice and agency

Paul Connerton7 awakened much interest in the social construction and perpetuation of memory, and his views have had a significant impact in historical archaeology on considerations of time and the role of monuments in creating and perpetuating memories.8 More recently, however, Connerton9 has moved on to consider the counterpoint to remembering – forgetting – and how this should not be seen as some failure in fixing people, places and events in social memory but rather as a deliberate and positive process. The dynamics of remembering and forgetting have recently been recognised as a critical issue by archaeologists influenced by various theories including those of Halbwchs, Heidegger, Peirce and Ricoeur.10 This paper considers the ways in which some aspects of remembering the World War I experience of the Isle of Man were publicly focused in physical monuments that have continued to act in a number of ways to the present day whilst others were erased and have had limited and restricted roles. One of the main ways in which societies retain memory is through repetitive rites,11 and the Remembrance Day services and wreath-laying at memorials created an annual revisiting of times and places which in the immediate aftermath of the war had direct personal as well as wider social meanings. Over time, the rites were imbued with more generalised sacrificial themes, and additional conflicts were appended, most notably in a physical form with World War II losses added to most memorials in some form. Many studies have been undertaken of war memorials elsewhere,12 but the Manx monuments have not been subject to specific analysis, though lists of extant structures have been compiled.



REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING WW 1 37

a

b

c

Figure 2.1: Manx war memorials a: Andreas; b: Douglas; c: National Memorial, St John’s.

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Form and decoration of the monuments Whilst no two Manx monuments are identical, there are clear trends in the choices of form and decoration in many that were commissioned. A small number are internal wall monuments; these are not discussed further here, with analysis concentrated on the external examples, of which there are fifteen on the Isle of Man. Each monument was individually commissioned, and most but not all were designed by local architects and carved by local monumental masons. Some clearly sit within the range of forms widely found across Britain: the Douglas monument on the sea front (Fig. 2.1b) sits within the Lutyens tradition, though designed by local architect Ewart Crellin who also designed the only other memorial with a figure, that of Lezayre. The Andreas monument is unusual in its simplicity, only broken by the use of incised lozenges (Fig. 2.1a). Most monuments, however, were of some type of ringed cross. The choice of this particular form of monument is informative of identity and cultural affiliation. Whilst many memorials in Britain and indeed elsewhere gained inspiration from the styles and architecture of the Middle Ages, this was generally linked to the Gothic and concepts of chivalry,13 and the ringed cross evoked different resonances. The cross form was a frequent choice throughout Britain, and although the catalogue produced for the Victorian and Albert Museum war memorials exhibition criticised their use,14 they remained popular perhaps in part because that very exhibition included plaster casts of Celtic crosses as exemplars, and also displayed a replica of the Kirk Braddan Scandinavian cross which was indeed used as a model for that parish memorial, and is discussed further below. The frequency of the cross on Manx monuments, also visible on several of the monuments that were not themselves ringed crosses, was due to its popular association not with death itself but with sacrifice and resurrection, a feeling more shared by the bereaved than those who had survived and witnessed the carnage.15 The Jurby cross has an IHS monogram at its centre (Fig. 2.3c), further emphasising the Christian theme. The selection of the local Scandinavian tradition of monuments as an inspiration for the parish war memorial is best exemplified by that erected at Kirk Braddan (Fig. 2.2). The war memorial is prominently visible beyond the eastern apse of the church, overlooking a major road junction. This monument was inspired by one of the Viking Age crosses preserved inside the church. The Captain of the Parish, Mr Drinkwater, drew attention to this in his address, emphasising continuity in loss, a sense of place, and an enduring monument for those who had fallen. He stated: … we have an odd Runic stone, of great antiquity … erected by a father to the memory of his son, who fell in battle; and we thought we could not do better than follow the model of it. It is the same blue stone as the old Braddan cross, a fact which speaks well for its lasting capacity. We shall all pass away, and the trees which surround us will pass away; the old buildings will probably pass away; but that stone will be there in a thousand years’ time. It is graceful in outline, and adequate in size …16

The design is taken directly from the cross called Thorleif ’s cross, originally standing with other ancient crosses in the graveyard17 but now housed within the church. The design was well known and the published analysis and drawings by Kermode18 were



REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING WW 1 39

Figure 2.2: Scandinavian influence on Manx war memorials. Left: Thorleif ’s Cross, Kirk Braddan (Kermode 1907); right: war memorial, Kirk Braddan.

available to augment any personal visit to the crosses. The design is a slightly simplified version of the original, with the same number of interlaced beasts and with similar pellet patterns on the bodies, but with less detail on the ribbon and other ornamental features. Whilst the original has a runic inscription on one narrow face, all surfaces of the modern cross are covered with animal interlace ornament; the commemorative text is placed on the stepped base, a component not present on the original. The modern memorial was carved by a local firm and is inscribed at the base of the cross shaft on the narrow, northern face ROYSTON SC; this same company had also carved a series of private memorials using this design but at a smaller scale. One such example is that to the Revd Clarke, Canon of German and vicar of Marown and buried in that graveyard (died 1903). Another of similar design can be seen at Onchan graveyard, where a monument of similar shape but with different designs is located. The

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a

b

c

d

Figure 2.3: Smaller Manx parish war memorials of a ringed cross form. a: Ballaugh; b: Bride; c: Jurby; d: Malew.



REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING WW 1 41

Royston firm of monumental masons were clearly able to carve elaborate monuments beyond the normal range of early 20th-century products, though it was to another Douglas company – Quayle’s – that Archibald Knox turned for his individual and war memorial commissions.19 Several other memorials are also inspired by local Viking Age crosses, including Jurby in the north of the island and Malew in the south (Figs 2.3c, 2.3d). In some cases it is the shape of the cross and its shaft which evokes these local ancient sculptural traditions, in other cases it is the form of the decoration. The war memorials tend to be significantly larger than the ancient sculptured monuments would have been, but with simplified decoration. A number of the crosses suggest more of an Irish rather than a Manx inspiration in both their form and decoration. The preference for these perhaps comes out of the Celtic cross tradition already fashionable for individual memorials across the British Isles and present also in Manx churchyards in small numbers in the decades before the war.20 The largest crosses take this theme, perhaps in order that an appropriate High Cross style matches the intended monumentality, as seen with the short-lived Douglas Head cross. The impressive sandstone monument in the town centre at Ramsey includes a truncated pyramidal form of base that vaguely mirrors crosses such as the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise,21 though the very short cross shaft makes the proportions unlike any Irish cross (Fig. 2.4a). There is an indication of a central boss and the top of the cross extends further beyond the ring than the arms, but it does not incorporate a shrine/oratory form on the top. At German, the cross has a plain rounded boss, and a longer shaft set on a simple base (Fig. 2.4b). The National War Memorial at St John’s was designed by antiquarian P.M.C. Kermode, author of the standard work on Manx ancient sculpture,22 yet with a very clear Irish inspiration. It has the tallest cross shaft of any war memorial on the Island, and is set on a trapezoidal base. The ringed cross-head has a number of rounded bosses with Celtic interlace, and the top of the vertical cross arm is surmounted by a shrine/ oratory roof, though here this sits merely on the arm, not as part of a separate coherent structure as with Irish high crosses (Fig. 2.1c). The ring of the cross is also carved on its front, back and lower faces. Again an inspiration from the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise seems most likely, though the proportions of the shaft and use of bosses may also reflect an awareness of the Iona crosses.23 The Irish-inspired crosses all have varying degrees of interlace decoration panels that reflect Irish layouts, though there are no figural scenes on the war memorials. The use of interlace had already developed on the personal memorials that were inspired by the late 19th-century Celtic revival. 24 Here we see something of the tensions in Manx identity and its links to heritage, whether that be a Celtic heritage that aligns with the Manx language or a Viking heritage which makes links with the independent government exemplified by Tynwald. Just as Man, Empire and the British Isles are all held in tension as affiliations in the texts and speeches related to the monuments (see below), so the origins and nature of the Manx nation have competing claims. It is unlikely that any one stylistic choice was made to explicitly support one or other ethnic origin over the other; rather the choices probably merely reflect the ambivalence towards these competing claims and the lack of a coherent origin myth for this small nation.

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a

b

c

Figure 2.4: Manx war memorials with a strong Irish High cross inspiration. a: Ramsay; b: German, Peel; c: Location of National Memorial between St John’s church and the Tynwald mound.



REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING WW 1 43

The texts All the monuments include relatively short introductory texts, followed by lists of the names of those who died in the conflict. The wording of the inscriptions emphasises and so encourages remembrance of certain values and excludes and thereby potentially accelerates the forgetting of others. Whilst the concept of sacrifice is universal, other emphases vary. Two of the texts make explicit reference to king and country. At Andreas the main text panel states: ‘To the glory of God / and in grateful remembrance / of the men of this parish / who fell in the service of their / king and country / 1914–1918’. Similar in sentiment, though including those who served as well as died, is the text from St Mark’s: ‘To / the glory of God / and in grateful memory / of the gallant men who enlisted / from St Marks / and in sacred memory of the / following who gave their lives / in the service of God, / King and country / in the Great War, 1914–1918’. At Santon, the inscription includes a short verse: ‘In armour clad, with flag / unfurled, / the heights of death they trod, / translated from the warfare / of the world / into the peace of God’, followed by a question: ‘Is it nothing to you / that pass by?’. These both display a revealing choice of words: the Isle of Man has the monarch of England as the Lord of Mann, not king or queen, and the flag unfurled would have been the Union Jack in the British army, not the Manx one, which raises questions as to what the country was envisaged as the one for which they fought and died. The question on the end of the Santon memorial inscription raises issues of forgetting, suggesting that even by the time that the monument was erected the level of popular interest was already waning. The more pressing issues of economic rebuilding and social adjustment to the age and gender imbalance was perhaps more notable on a small island, especially as the Tynwald was slow to effect legislation that mirrored the social improvements introduced by the post-war Parliament in Britain.25 A more grand vision of wartime service is offered at German, in the grounds of the cathedral at Peel: ‘To / the eternal / and / grateful memory of / the men / of this parish / who / laid down their lives / for their country / and for the / whole civilized world / in the / Great War / 1914–1918’. The saving of civilisation resonates with British wartime propaganda, with ironically the exact equivalent visible in the increasingly proGerman sentiments extolling German culture and achievements in the internment camp newspapers produced on the island during the war.26 The monument at King William’s College to all the old boys from the school who died is extremely simple, yet also enigmatic ‘Pro Patria / 1914–1918’. In both these cases, what defined ‘country’ is unclear, but there is little in most of the parish monuments to suggest that only the Isle of Man was implied by this term. At Malew, a text that runs round the base cannot all be seen at one moment and the viewer is encouraged to circle the cross and, thus, also to see all the panels of names of the deceased. The text reads: ‘For God + honour + home + they gave their youth + their life + their all’. Here home rather than a country is emphasised – in whatever way home may be defined by the reader. This may suggest more localised identities were to the fore in this case. Other parishes, such as Ballaugh, Braddan, Bride, Castletown, Jurby, Lezayre, Marown and Maughold, avoid mention of the worldly authority for whom the fighting took place. The same choice was made for the National monument at St Johns, close

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to the Tynwald mound (Fig. 2.1c), where emphasis is clearly placed on all the names of the deceased rather than detailed expression of wider sentiments. Here one might have expected some statement of national identity for which the sacrifice was made, but the silence in this regard is powerful. Just as the varied cultural associations seen in monument style reflects ambivalence of identity, so does the avoidance of explicit national affiliation. Whilst many were of strong Manx nationalist sentiment, many others were not, and these monuments were to unite the community not create further divisions at a time when the social order was potentially under threat. As with the Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh,27 the Manx National memorial names each one of the servicemen who perished during the conflict, and emphasises the unity of identity and commonality of sacrifice across the polity. This is in contrast to the English who did not have a national memorial28 but who had their local monuments with all the relevant names and, at the national level, the imperial generic cenotaph in Whitehall. Inauguration speeches and the initiation of communal memory Most inauguration events were reported in some detail in the local press. These reveal the attitudes of those in authority, through the lens of enthusiastic and deferential reporting. The feelings of the majority of the populace remain unknown. Nevertheless, the sentiments expressed in the speeches would have been publicised both through the addresses themselves and in the newspaper reports, and so form part of the consolidation of memory even if alternate threads may also have been woven alongside them. Many of the speeches emphasise expected themes of sacrifice, some additionally mention the wounded and those who survived apparently unscathed but who also served. This remembered non-fatal sacrifice, much appreciated by those hearing the speeches, is noticeably absent from the physical war memorials, and has not been retained in the social memory. There was repeated concern that the monuments be maintained and that they be a lasting legacy, something which has thus far been fulfilled, at least for the war dead. A number of addresses do mention a nationalist theme of fighting for the country, but this is rarely more explicitly defined. One exception was for the internal monument in St Barnabus’ Church, Douglas: a slate wall monument designed by Archibald Knox. The vicar’s warden Mr George Green, who lost three sons in the conflict, unveiled the tablet and the Lieutenant governor then stated: ‘These men went forth with many other gallant comrades to fight for King and country …’.29 At King William’s College, the burial of the unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey was described as the ‘Valhalla of our illustrious dead’, though later in the address emphasis is placed on belonging to an Empire, in language redolent of the public school administrative and officer class of its audience: There were Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders; there were dusky warriors from the banks of the Ganges, and the Indians; there were the black Sudanese, all proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our soldiers, to fight with them, and if need be, to die for a Motherland that had done so much for them.30

The monuments were erected by those with mindsets of the early 1920s, but they have



REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING WW 1 45

continued to serve as foci for remembrance to subsequent generations each with their own experiences, language, morals and attitudes to war. It is important to look back at these comments of the time to see the ways in which those involved attempted to rationalise all that had happened, and chose to create physical forms of memory that allowed one route for the society to knit back together in the face of so much trauma. From that time on, however, the social memories passed on over the years have changed considerably, even if the physical memorials form a tangible link back to the time of the conflict. Location of monuments Most memorials were placed in the parish multi-denominational churchyard. Unlike most parts of the British Isles there are not separate denominational burial grounds on the Isle of Man, and all residents of the parish are buried in the same graveyard surrounding the parish church, or in family plots in their home parish. By the early 20th century, graveyard extensions meant that the context of contemporary burial in most parishes was somewhat distanced from the Anglican place of worship and the regimented layouts resembled those of secular cemeteries. This happened elsewhere in the British Isles31 but was particularly noticeable on the Isle of Man because most graveyards had unusually frequent extensions as each served a significant population. Commemorations of war dead on family memorials therefore were placed in locations away from the church focus, but the communal war memorials were, where possible, placed in a prominent position either in the old part of the graveyard near the entrance, as at Ballugh and Jurby (Figs 2.3a, 2.3c), or outside the graveyard but again near the entrance, as at Andreas (Fig. 2.1a). Within the graveyards, the memorials were prominently placed, generally near to the main paths leading from the gate to church door. Most could also be easily seen from outside the churchyard, ensuring that their effects were beyond those who regularly attended the Anglican churchyards. About half the population were Methodists, but all denominations were buried in the parish graveyards, so this would not have been viewed as a sectarian selection. Rather, they were symbols of the parish as a unit, an identity of some significance on the island. Visibility to a wider audience was noted in some of the inauguration speeches, as with the Bishop of Man’s address which noted how the Marown cross would be visible from the main road along which not only locals but holiday makers would travel. Likewise, the placing of the Maughold cross at the highest point of the graveyard, albeit far from the church, gave it a suitable setting in the graveyard but also meant that it was visible from the sea. There were some important exceptions to the parish graveyard location, however, and these deserve particular attention. The local Douglas memorial is on the sea front, a suitably public location which ensured that the thousands of holiday makers would be reminded of the contribution made to the war by those on the island, reinforcing unity, loyalty and commonality with the largely northern working-class clientele that also suffered greatly during the war. Lezayre was placed at a significant road junction, perhaps because the church was on a side road and not visited apart for services, and the same may have been the case for Santon, though later the memorial was moved due to road widening and so placed next to the graveyard extension. Other monuments have also been moved due to road widening, at Onchan and at Malew. Another memorial

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was placed on Douglas Head, which the donor Mr Goldie-Taubman noted was the last part of the island visible to the troops as they headed for the battlefields. It was also generally visible to the many holiday makers as well as residents who enjoyed the headland, though the large Irish-style ringed cross did not survive a storm of 1928, and was replaced with a smaller monument. Two other exceptions to parish churchyard locations are worth noting, one being the memorial at King William’s College, the public school of the island, for Old Boys who died in the war, which still stands outside the school chapel. The other is in Castletown, the historic power centre of the island, where the cross was placed in the town square with Castle Rushen forming an appropriate backdrop. There was no obvious ecclesiastical location for the war memorial in Castletown but, as with Ramsey, there is an open area in the town centre which provides a public setting, in the latter case set within a small gardened area. Just as the Scottish National Memorial was placed close to the symbolic centre of power on the Edinburgh rock,32 so the Manx national monument was set beside the processional route between the Tynwald Mound and St John’s church (Fig. 2.4c). The placing of this high cross at the symbolic centre of power on the island was appropriate for its role in Manx commemoration, and its open aspect allows it to stand proud, if somewhat distant from passers-by. Each war memorial was commissioned and erected to form a commemorative focus, and they all continue to serve this function through their updating with World War II casualties and also in some cases later deaths. They emphasise the continuing service in the British Armed forces of Manx men and women. Most have a significant number of wreaths laid on Remembrance Day each November, and they are subject to official and unofficial maintenance to ensure that they stay in good condition. Forgetting

The emphasis of analysis to this point has been on remembering, but forgetting is also clearly part of the Manx reaction to World War I. This is in many ways more socially informative, but also more problematic to study especially from a material perspective. In archaeology remembering is often linked to continuity, and this is important when taking analogies back through time, assuming that what is done in a documented context is a passed-on trait from earlier generations. But discontinuities abound in archaeology, as prehistorians recognise when they grapple with the intermittent reuse of sites of power where meanings may change, and pasts are adapted or created to suit the needs of that time. Connerton33 notes that forgetting can be a dynamic and positive element in the construction of new identities, and following World War I much was socially forgotten. The horrors of the actual battlefield were forgotten; the misery of the civilians was forgotten; and there is clear evidence that even significant elements of local history, such as the Manx internment camps, were forgotten. Connerton34 defines seven types of cultural forgetting, but only some are relevant here. One of these is ‘prescriptive forgetting’, initiated by the state but thought to be in the interests of all. This is evidenced in Man as elsewhere in the British Isles with the forgetting of all home front issues (including rationing, munitions factory accidents and internment – and past internees do not figure in this scenario as they were mainly



REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING WW 1 47

repatriated not to their homes they left in the war but back to Germany). Conflict resolution was designed to heal class-based wounds and hide the different impact of the conflict on the few winners and many losers in the war. Forgetting as part of the formation of a new identity may also have been important for some groups in society, though the elite hoped to return to pre-War power structures. A third of Connerton’s types was ‘structural amnesia’; this was undoubtedly part of the forgetting strategy – here people only remember aspects of the past that are socially important in the present. Much of what was experienced in the war was irrelevant later, and remembering was ineffective in living in the new peace. This was particularly so in the Manx context where the local economy remained weak in many respects, and social reform was slow.35 One aspect of forgetting with regard to war memorials are all those who fought and survived, but were maimed physically or mentally; moreover, civilian support and sacrifice for the war is not part of the formal commemoration. The novel War Horse36 and now the play and film exemplify other sufferings and sacrifices not normally remembered, but which current generations may also consider significant. Another forgotten aspect of the war is the presence of civilian internment camps on the Isle of Man. The internment camps Initially, one internment camp was planned for the Isle of Man. Cunningham’s holiday camp on the outskirts of the major town of Douglas was selected in 1914.37 The site was rapidly made secure with barbed wire perimeter fences, watch towers and lights, though most of the existing camp infrastructure was easily used for its new purpose. However, numbers interned were larger than anticipated, and a specially constructed camp was created at Knockaloe Farm, near Peel on the west coast. This was constructed after riots in November 1914 at Cunningham Camp, caused by difficult living conditions as autumn weather set in on a camp that was designed only to be occupied in weekly stints by young working-class men during their summer breaks. Moreover, widespread xenophobic public hysteria followed the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915,38 and this forced the British government to intern even well-established alien males, causing the Knockaloe camp to be expanded considerably. The contrasting nature of the two camps, and the mind-sets and actions of both authorities and internees, are the subjects of archaeological research. 39 Internment was clearly a physical, material condition creating conditions that all were unfamiliar with. The psychological impact of this was described at the time as ‘barbed wire disease’,40 and this impact has been discussed at length with reference to internment art produced on the island during both World Wars.41 The material culture thus produced often therefore carried negative connotations for the producers, and just as most soldiers from the Front did not wish to talk about their experiences, so such objects may not have been as active in the social construction of memory as similar craft products produced in other circumstances. There were, however, exceptions – the internee Hozinger used the Three Legs of Man symbol for his post-war knitting factory in Hamburg following his release.42 The internees felt a growing identity with the island during the war years, though an ambivalent one as increasing affiliation with the German homeland was fostered by the literary and cultural activities in the camps, as recorded in their camp newspapers.43 After the war, for most internees it was structural amnesia that

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allowed them to adjust to their return to Germany, as their Manx experience became irrelevant; they also rapidly dissipated, having no regimental or other structure through which to retain corporate memory, unlike the armed forces. The concern here is with social rather than personal or family memory, and the types of material culture produced in the camps were not suitable for use in such contexts. The World War I experience was traumatic both for the internees and also for many natives on the Isle of Man. The impact of the internment camps on the Manx people was largely restricted to those who worked there or who provided them with foodstuffs and other supplies. There were, however, work gangs who laboured all over the island, sometimes billeted for short times on farms, and these carried out projects such as straightening the Sulby river and improving the reed beds to provide materials for a fledgling basketry industry. Recent research on the Manx police during the war by Jennifer Kewley Draskau44 has indicated how many locals were sympathetic to the internees, despite the anti-German propaganda, and it may be that the improvements made by the internees, and informal contacts made during these work gang outings, created more positive memories of these aliens. Moreover, locals and internees alike suffered. Indeed, there were protests over loss of boarding house income early in the war, and in July 1918 a general strike in protest at bread prices when Tynwald did not initiate subsidies in line with those of the British government because it would have led to the introduction of income tax.45 The British government then threatened to impose the tax themselves, so Tynwald capitulated and allowed both tax and subsidy. There is, however, no social memory or focus on the suffering of Manx civilians during the war. This is no doubt in part due to the elite profiting from the commercial opportunities provided by the war itself and the internment camps, and the successful creation of ‘prescriptive forgetting’ by the elite. The Cunningham family, for example, not only gained all-year-round income from their Douglas Holiday Camp, but also saw improvements to its infrastructure and facilities, and also the construction of model farm buildings, field drainage and boundaries by internee labour at their Ellerslie Farm, which then in part provisioned the camp. This social forgetting of all but the military losses – and even there concentrating solely on the deaths, not the physical and mental impact on survivors – is not unique to the Isle of Man but widespread across the British Isles. What is striking in this case, however, is the rapidity and completeness with which all trace of the internment was removed. Perhaps not surprisingly, Cunningham Camp was quickly transformed back to its holiday camp status; removing the barbed wire and towers was rapidly achieved and the chalets and tents could easily be made ready for the 1919 summer season. Its internment use would not have been a positive image with which to rebuild the tourist base interrupted by the war. However, within months of the Armistice, all the Knockaloe huts were dismantled, and most were taken to Peel for shipment abroad, though a fire on the quayside destroyed those stored there. Only a few were distributed about the island by railway for reuse, and today hardly any survive. All the infrastructure of the camp was cleared, leaving only the buildings that had already been on the farm before the war. Only the stone engine shed from the specially built railway spur for the camp remains as a physical sign of any non-agricultural use (and historical knowledge is required to



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identify the association of spur and camp). Today, a sign indicates that the camp was at this location, but this is the only recognition of the importance of Knockaloe farm in Manx 20th-century history. This, and a small display with artefacts in the Manx National Museum, recognises that these events took place, but by the very nature of the acknowledgement distances them from any active role today. Even the researches of museum curator Yvonne Cresswell, whilst opening up family memories and greatly increasing our understanding of the camps,46 have not awakened any demand for a social memory. The heritage implications of remembering and forgetting

The archaeologist and other heritage professionals can be concerned with those aspects of the heritage that are already socially recognised, such as the war memorials, and others that are forgotten. The internment camps would, for all but a tiny minority, be viewed as forgotten. The continued use of the war memorials brings both security in their survival and their continued active role in social memory. Whilst vandalism is quickly noted and resources are available to deal with this and with general maintenance, the cleaning and preservation of monuments may not always follow conservation best practice, and advice should be offered to those who look after these iconic features in the local landscape. The very social value of the monuments may mean that they are often treated only as artefacts of today, and not as parts of a heritage that require expert management. The forgotten elements require more sensitive attention by archaeologists; they are not like most forgotten heritage that is routinely identified and protected, such as prehistoric and medieval sites and some categories of post-medieval site. The Manx camps do not fall into the more extreme range of the painful heritage exemplified by some prisoner of war sites,47 yet they may still not be seen as a valued part of the Manx or indeed the British past because they largely relate to transitory aliens. At present, the Manx sites are not given any special heritage status, and indeed much of the Douglas camp has been destroyed in recent redevelopment without archaeological intervention of any kind. While the state of English sites was reviewed by Thomas,48 there has been little active management. Those who consider elements of heritage such as these camps to be valuable – and indeed those who might value the forgotten experiences of the maimed and wounded, of civilians including women and children, and indeed animals – need to consider how best to incorporate other experiences beyond those of the war dead. Those who lost their lives have a material heritage around which social memory can be constructed; the rest do not, and this hinders their recognition and remembrance. Others may not wish for some or all of the maimed, aliens, women, children or animals to be remembered, however, for either personal or wider political reasons. There are ethical issues to address in working with war heritage,49 and archaeologists and other heritage professionals need to be aware of the immediate and longer-term consequences of both their actions and their inaction.

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Conclusions

The development and perpetuation of social memory in relation to World War I was selective on the Isle of Man. The role of the island as a location for prisoner of war camps was rapidly forgotten, linked to systematic erasure of the large Knockaloe camp and the reformulation of the Douglas establishment back to a holiday camp, recreating a different tradition of memories that benefited both the owners and the community. Whilst there are practical reasons for such a complete erasure of this aspect of island wartime life, and it is one seen elsewhere in the British Isles, it may also have served to hide the benefits gained by some whilst most of the population suffered from loss of holidaymaker business and indeed the levels of rationing and isolation. Later, as Manx political identity grew, there was little interest in reflecting on this role in history, though the National Museum has a small exhibition display (and indeed actively collects material form the camps) and the Manx Notebook50 has relevant publications of this theme. In contrast, the war memorials continue to attract attention. They have an ongoing social role binding communities together through military associations; the camps and other civilian experiences have been forgotten through the strategies suggested by Connerton.51 The war memorials are treated much as those in the rest of the British Isles, being maintained by local authorities and continuing to be the foci of commemorative services every year. At many memorials the range of wreath donors indicates a wide response from different elements in the communities to these events. Clearly the World War II commemorative texts updated the relevance of these monuments, and in a few cases subsequent military losses are also incorporated. Nevertheless, signs of marginalisation can be seen in the movement of memorials during road widening, not always to equally visible locations, for example at Santon and Malew. The trigger of Remembrance Day instigates ceremonial visiting, but otherwise the monuments are largely part of the undifferentiated landscape of everyday life. The texts on the monuments reflect their times, but only a large-scale sociological survey would expose the Manx popular attitude to the British Armed forces and for what and for whom the volunteers now serve. Even for these monuments there has been much forgetting and recreating meaning, not simple replication over generations. The materiality of the monuments has in some cases changed – with the addition of inscriptions and in some cases change of site – but largely they are fixed and carry significance for that very stability. Their community meanings and values have no doubt changed from the intensely personal to the more symbolic, and few of the values expressed in the dedication speeches and reflected in the minority of inscriptions with explicit sentiments would be held today. This reflects the ways in which material culture can be active, but how it impacts on those who react to the monument is largely in their control; messages from the monument can be heard but ignored, misheard, or heard and reinterpreted. The agencies of remembering and forgetting as discussed by Moshenska52 can be seen to be played out on the Isle of Man at the war memorials and elsewhere. Whilst God is timeless, social memory is fully contextualised in the present, even when using historic props such as the war memorials and erasing traces of other pasts such as those of the camps.



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Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

Kermode 2000; Skillicorn 2001. Winterbottom 2007, 177. Skillicorn 2001 Winterbottom 2007, 177 Panayi 1993. Winterbottom 2007, 181. Connerton 1989. Tarlow 1997; Moshenska 2010. Connerton 2008, 2009. Usefully summarised in Borić 2010 and Jones 2007. Connerton 1989. Inglis 1998; Kidd & Murdoch 2004; Mayo 1988; Winter 1995; Winter & Sivan 1999. Goebel 2007; Mytum 2007 Moriarty 1992, 68. Moriarty 1992, 69, 73. Anon 1921. Cresswell 2001, 153. Kermode 1907, fig. 57. Cresswell 2001. Mytum 2004a. Richardson & Scarry 1990. Kermode 1907. RCAHMS 1982. Sheehy 1980. Skillicorn 2003. Kewley Draskau 2009; 2012.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

Calder 2004. Black 2004, 88. Anon 1923. Anon 1923. Mytum 2004b. Calder 2004. Connerton 2009. Connerton 2008. Skillicorn 2003. Morpurgo 1982. Sargeaunt 1920, 58–60. Panayi 1993, 58–60. Mytum 2011; 2012; 2013. Hughes 1920; Vischer 1919. Cresswell 2005; Behr & Malet 2004; Hinrichsen 1993. Kewley Draskau 2009, 102–3. Kewley Draskau 2012. Kewley Draskau 2010. Skillicorn 2001; Winterbottom 2000. Cresswell 1994; 2005. Mytum & Carr 2013. Thomas 2003. Moshenska 2008. Coakley 2009. Connerton 2008; 2009. Moshenska 2010.

Bibliography Anon. 1921, ‘War Memorials in the Isle of Man: St. Andrew’s Douglas, Marown, Michael, German, Maughold, St. Barnabas’ Church, King William’s College, Port St. Mary’, Manx Quarterly 27, 257–61. Anon. 1923, ‘War Memorials in the Isle of Man: St. Andrew’s Douglas, Marown, Michael, German, Maughold, St. Barnabas’ Church, King William’s College, Port St. Mary’, Manx Quarterly 29, 73–82. Barker, D. & Cranstone, D. (eds) 2004, The Archaeology of Industrialization, Leeds: Maney Publishing. Behr, S. & Malet, M. 2004, Arts in Exile in Britain, 1933–1945: Politics and Cultural Identity, Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies 6. Belchem, J. (ed.) 2000, A New History of the Isle of Man, Volume 5, The Modern Period 1830– 1999, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Black, J.A .2004, ‘Ordeal and re-affirmation: masculinity and the construction of Scottish and English national identity in Great War memorial sculpture 1919–1930’, in Kidd & Murdoch 2004, 75–91. Borić, D. (ed.) 2010, Archaeology and Memory, Oxford: Oxbow. Calder, A. 2004, ‘The Scottish National War Memorial’, in Kidd & Murdoch 2004, 61–74.

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Carr, G. & Mytum, H. (eds) 2012, Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity behind Barbed Wire, New York: Routledge. Cesarani, D. & Kushner, T. (eds) 1993, The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain, London: Cass. Coakley, F. 2009, Manx Notebook, [last accessed 28 September 2012] Connerton, P. 1989, How Societies Remember, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Connerton, P. 2008, ‘Seven types of forgetting’, Memory Studies 1.1, 59–72. Connerton, P. 2009, How Modernity Forgets, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cresswell, Y. 1994, Living with the Wire, Douglas, Isle of Man: Manx National Heritage. Cresswell, Y. 2001, ‘Designs and Beliefs Set in Stone’, in Martin 2001, 147–61. Cresswell, Y. 2005, ‘Behind the Wire: the material culture of civilian internment on the Isle of Man in the First World War’, in Dove 2005, 45–61. Dove, R. (ed.) 2005, ‘Totally Un-English’? Britain’s Internment of ‘Enemy Aliens’ in Two World Wars, Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies 7. Finch, J. & Giles, K. (eds) 2007, Estate Landscapes: Design, Improvement and Power in the PostMedieval Landscape, Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Goebel, S. 2007, The Great War and Medieval Memory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hinrichsen, K.E. 1993, ‘Visual art behind the wire’, in Cesarani & Kushner 1993, 188–209. Hughes, W.R. 1920, ‘Chapter IV. The internment Camps’, in Thomas 1920, 43–56. Inglis, J. 1998, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, Carlton: Melbourne University Press. Jones, A. 2007, Memory and Material Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kermode, D.G. 2000, ‘Constitutional Development and Public Policy, 1900–1979’, in Belchem 2000, 94–184. Kermode, P.M. 1907, Manx Crosses, London: Bemrose & Sons. Kewley Draskau, J. 2009, ‘Relocating the Heimat: Great War internment literature from the Isle of Man’, German Studies Review 32.1, 82–106. Kewley Draskau, J. 2010, ‘Keeping the peace in time of war: the Isle of Man constabulary in the Great War’, Police History Journal 25. Kewley Draskau, J. 2012, ‘Kulturkrieg and Frontgeist from behind the Wire: World War I newspapers from Douglas Internment Camp’, in Carr & Mytum 2012, 201–26. Kidd, W. and Murdoch, B. (eds) 2004, Memory and Memorials. The Commemorative Century, Aldershot: Ashgate. Martin, S.A. (ed.) 2001, Archibald Knox, London: Artmedia Press. Mayo, J.M. 1988, War Memorials as Political Landscape: The American Experience and Beyond, New York: Praeger. Moriarty, C. 1992, ‘Christian iconography and First World War memorials’, Imperial War Museum Review 6, 63–75. Morpurgo, M.1982, War Horse, London: Kaye and Ward. Moshenska, G. 2008, ‘Ethics and ethical critique in the archaeology of modern conflict’, Norwegian Archaeological Review 41.2, 159–75. Moshenska, G. 2010, ‘Working with memory in the archaeology of modern conflict’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20.1, 33–48. Myers, A. & Moshenska, G. (eds) 2011, Archaeologies of Internment, New York: Springer. Mytum, H. 2004a, Mortuary Monuments and Burial Grounds of the Historic Period, New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Mytum, H. 2004b, ‘Rural burial and remembrance: changing landscapes of commemoration’, in Barker & Cranstone 2004, 223–40.



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Mytum, H. 2007, ‘Monuments and memory in the estate landscape: Castle Howard and Sledmere’, in Finch & Giles 2007, 149–74. Mytum, H. 2011, ‘A tale of two treatments: the materiality of internment on the Isle of Man in two World Wars’, in Myers & Moshenska 2011, 33–52. Mytum, H. 2012, ‘Photographs at Douglas Camp: deciphering dynamic networks of relationships from static images’, in Carr and Mytum 2012, 133–51. Mytum, H. 2013, ‘Materiality matters: the role of things in coping strategies at Cunningham’s Camp, Douglas during World War I’, in Mytum & Carr 2013. Mytum, H. & Carr, G. (eds) 2013, Prisoner of War Archaeology: Perspectives on the 19th- and 20th-century Mass Internment of Soldiers and Civilians, New York, Springer. Panayi, P. 1993, ‘An intolerant act by an intolerant society: the internment of Germans in Britain during the First World War’, in Cesarani & Kushner 1993, 53–75. RCAHMS 1982, Argyll Volume 4. Iona, Edinburgh: HMSO. Richardson, H. & Scarry, J. 1990, An Introduction to Irish High Crosses, Cork: Mercier Press. Sargeaunt, B.E. 1920, The Isle of Man and the Great War, Douglas: Brown & Sons. Skillicorn, P. 2001, ‘Crisis of Home Rule: the mounting pressure of war on the society and institutions of the Isle of Man 1914–1918’, Proc. Isle of Man Nat. Hist. Antiq. Soc. 11.2, 203–21. Skillicorn, P. 2003, ‘The problems of peace in the Isle of Man 1919–1925’, Proc. Isle of Man Nat. Hist. Antiq. Soc. 11.3, 343–59. Sheehy, J. 1980, The Rediscovery of Ireland’s Past, London: Thames & Hudson. Tarlow, S. 1997, ‘An archaeology of remembering: death, bereavement and the First World War’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7.1, 105–21. Thomas, A.B. (ed.) 1920, St. Stephen’s House. Friends’ Emergency Work in England 1914 to 1920, London: Friends’ Bookshop. Thomas, R.J.C. 2003, ‘PoW camps: what survives and where’, Conservation Bulletin 44, 18–21. Vischer, A.L. 1919, Barbed Wire Disease: A Psychological Study of the Prisoner of War, London: John Bale. Winter, J.M. 1995, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winter, J. & Sivan, E (eds) 1999, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winterbottom, D. 2000, ‘Economic History 1830–1996’, in Belchem 2000, 207–78. Winterbottom, D. 2007, Profile of the Isle of Man. A Concise History, Ramsay: Lily Publications.

Public Engagement at Prestongrange: Reflections on a Community Project Melanie Johnson & Biddy Simpson The aims of the Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project (2004–10) were two-fold: a) to explore what might survive of the pre-colliery landscape at Prestongrange (Prestonpans, East Lothian, Scotland); and b) to provide an opportunity for interested individuals to get involved with a local archaeology project. Although the archaeological discoveries and the outcomes of historical research have been fascinating and provide a wealth of new information, the engagement of the volunteers with the project has been of particular interest. The project started off as a predominantly top-down initiative with the fieldwork and training being undertaken by CFA Archaeology Ltd and the overall project overseen by the East Lothian Council Archaeology Service. However, a number of key elements defined the way in which the professionals engaged with the volunteers. A degree of fluidity in the way the project was organised allowed certain aspects of the project to grow organically, and for the volunteers to take on responsibility for research objectives.The project has been educational for all involved through the human dynamic and the interaction and relationships between team members. Background and introduction

Prestongrange is an open air colliery museum managed by East Lothian Council and located between Musselburgh and Prestonpans (Fig. 3.1) in East Lothian, Scotland. It has a lengthy and highly significant social and economic past. Standing remains of the 19th-century colliery and 20th-century brickworks dominate the site but it also had a historically-attested earlier life associated with the pottery and glass-making industries, which had taken place here adjacent to a thriving harbour.1 The Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project was set up in 2004 to explore the site’s earlier history, and it was completed in 2010.2 The project was developed and co-ordinated by East Lothian Council Archaeology Service and funded principally by the Heritage Lottery Fund and East Lothian Council. CFA Archaeology Ltd was engaged to run the fieldwork, develop excavation strategies, co-ordinate the post-excavation analysis and provide training and support to the project’s volunteers. Approximately fifty local volunteers were involved in the project at one time or another between 2004 and 2010; a core group of volunteers were with the project from the beginning. This project was conceived with a focus on community involvement. The main aims were to provide local people with an opportunity to get involved with an archaeological

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Figure 3.1: Location map showing Prestonpans (the location of the Prestongrange site) to the east of Edinburgh. The detailed plan shows the glassworks and pottery site, which was the focus of the project, in relation to Prestongrange Museum and the now defunct harbour at Morrison’s Haven.

excavation and to gain new information on the Prestongrange site. The project has had particular resonance with the local community as the colliery was worked within living memory and this has resulted in a very strong connection between the volunteers, the local community and the project. A variety of activities were undertaken, including test pitting and excavation, geophysics, survey work, historical research and oral reminiscence projects. Historical documents and cartographic sources indicate that the area was being used for coal exploitation and salt panning as far back as the 12th century by the monks of Newbattle. A harbour was established at Morrison’s Haven by the 16th century; this was only abandoned in the early 20th century and it is now infilled. The combination of coal and the harbour were vitally important in the growth of other industries on this site and 800 years of industrial activity can be demonstrated, culminating with the closure of the brickworks and colliery as recently as the 1960s and 1970s. The excavations undertaken as part of the community archaeology project concentrated on finding the remains of the pre-19th-century industries and, in this respect, the



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Figure 3.2: Glassworks flue under excavation by the volunteers. Copyright Chiaroscuro Productions.

project was very successful. The excavations located a pocket of preservation amongst the later industrial development, within which were the remains of an air flue from the 17th/18th-century glassworks and potentially related structures (Fig.3.2). The flue was well preserved, in part having been reused as an air raid shelter. In the early part of the 17th century, fine glassware was being produced by itinerant Venetian glass workers and, by the later part of the same century, mirror glass and plate glass were being produced. By the 18th century a pottery was founded on exactly the same site as the glassworks and, together with other important Scottish east coast potteries of the period, produced various pottery wares that were exported across Europe and further afield. Although no traces of the pottery production facilities were found, a highly significant deposit of locally made late 18th-century pottery products was found, dumped inside the now abandoned glassworks flue. Project initiation, aims and development

People’s first impressions of Prestongrange are often that it looks dilapidated and overgrown. It is hard to believe that the place used to be a bustling, noisy industrial centre and that Morison’s Haven, in its heyday, was a thriving, commercial harbour comparable to Leith, the harbour serving Edinburgh. East Lothian Council, who manage Prestongrange Museum, have always realised the potential of the site and had an ambition to

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try and find out more about Prestongrange’s past in order to help revitalise its story. With the help of the East Lothian Council Archaeology Service, funding was secured, CFA Archaeology Ltd was commissioned to direct the fieldwork and a team of local volunteers was identified. The main objectives of the first phase of the project were simply to: a) explore the precolliery remains of the site; b) provide an opportunity for local volunteers to be involved with an archaeology project; and, c) feed the findings into a future conservation strategy for the site. During this first phase, the net was cast wide to anyone who wanted to be involved and no attempt was made to try and target specific audiences, such as ethnic minorities, disabled groups or single parents, although a conscious decision was made not to involve young people under the age of 16 because of Child Protection issues. In the end, the volunteer taskforce was predominantly from the local Musselburgh to Prestonpans area, aged between mid 30s and 60s, with the majority in some form of employment. By having an open and inclusive methodology and not focusing on any particular audience, a ‘community of interest’ was created. By the end of Phase 1, the project had achieved its initial aims. Progress had been made with understanding the surviving archaeology of the site and a great group of volunteers was involved; but a set of new unconsidered outcomes had also come to light (particularly in relation to the volunteer task force), together with a set of growing ambitions and needs. These new outcomes amongst the volunteers included increased social networks and sense of community; greater confidence and capacity; team work; new skills; and an increased passion for local heritage with many of the volunteers actively seeking other opportunities for getting involved with archaeological projects. Linked with these outcomes were needs such as an increased desire to find out more; a wish to be involved with other aspects of the project; a desire to take on more responsibility; and an aspiration to leave some form of legacy behind. Through the course of the first phase it was also realised that there were other potentially interested audiences who wanted to be involved but who had not felt attracted to the project because they thought that archaeology was merely about digging and that you had to know something about the subject already. At a public seminar at the end of Phase 1, one of the volunteer team members got up and spoke to a packed room of 200 people about the project. She described new experiences, personal gains, hard work, fun and making new friends. Her speech inspired many of the new volunteers who joined us in Phase 2 of the project, many of whom were women who had never dreamed of doing anything like an archaeology project before. By Phase 2 it was apparent that the project balance needed to shift and that the project needed to become less of a pure ‘top down’ approach, more flexible and more organic. Phase 1 of the project had concentrated more on the archaeological elements of the project rather than the needs and ambitions of the volunteer task force so heavily involved with the project, so in Phase 2 the ambition was to ensure that the project provided not only for the archaeology, but also for the needs of the existing volunteer team and the needs of any potential new volunteer members. As a consequence of feedback, the new project ambitions became: 1) increasing opportunities to attract new audiences; 2) increasing opportunities for members of the volunteer task force to have responsibility for key elements of the project; 3) finding



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ways of telling a wider audience about the project; and, 4) finding ways of helping other community archaeology projects tell their story. Through the creation of task-orientated groups (such as historical research, interpretation, planting) it was hoped to attract existing and new volunteers who might have felt excluded from a traditional archaeology project because of their education, level of knowledge, level of fitness and/or level of interest. Through an oral reminiscence task group, the project started specifically and formally to engage with older generations. Through formal training in historical research and oral reminiscence work and allowing individuals to take responsibility for certain task groups and their final end products, the project attempted to increase opportunities for members of the volunteer task force to have responsibility for key elements of the project and to be actively involved in decision-making. By putting out calls for historical photographs, education events, open days, public talks, popular and academic articles in addition to a web site, Phase 2 of the project tried to attract new, non-participatory audiences to engage with the project and in turn, for the project to engage more with the wider public. Building on this, and using the Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project as a vehicle, an opportunity was provided for other, similar community archaeology projects to celebrate and promote their own projects and this was achieved, in partnership with Archaeology Scotland, through the first Scottish Community Archaeology Conference, which was held in May 2009 at the Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh.3 Food for thought

As the project has come to completion, the opportunity has arisen to reflect on the project, examine those areas where it was very successful and learn lessons from areas which were not as successful as anticipated. In terms of the archaeological resource used as the basis for the project, the recent past provides many valuable opportunities for engaging people in archaeological projects and in their local heritage. While many people may think of archaeology as pertaining more specifically to prehistory, anyone thinking of setting up a community project is advised to consider the recent past as the topic for a project. The advantages of a recent period to a community project are varied, and include the ease with which the solid, tactile archaeological remains can be understood by those with little previous archaeological experience, giving much more immediate results and a satisfying learning experience. However, the advantages are more wide ranging than simply the physical process of excavation. The recent period can readily fire up the imagination and provide tangible links with recent ancestors and ways of living, allowing participants to have a greater appreciation for the history of their local community and to harness an appreciation for the loss of community spirit which modern society can bring. Alongside this, the scope for oral reminiscence work, linking current younger populations with older people, fosters interaction between the generations. It also allows project members to contribute their own knowledge and stories, from direct or indirect experience (for example, family members who worked in the colliery at Prestongrange in living memory, and from the varied backgrounds and experiences of the volunteers

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themselves). Such projects allow historical research to develop and progress rapidly, through census records, documents and maps, and other records not available to the more distant past, all in a language which is still readily readable. This provides opportunities for ‘non-diggers’ to be involved and an appreciation that the results of their research can have an immediate effect on the understanding of the archaeology and the direction the excavations may take. Perhaps more importantly, participation in a community project based in the recent past and local community can foster respect, pride and identity with the local area. It can encourage local government and local societies to re-identify with a heritage asset and identify ways for it to be conserved and sympathetically developed, perhaps more successfully due to the engagement with that asset and a feeling of ownership over it. The Prestongrange site was personal to many of the local people who volunteered, some of whom had family links to the colliery and brick and tile works. Many team members had relatives who vividly remembered the previous landscape, now so dramatically changed, and the harbour when it was still open. It was fascinating to hear the stories told and to see the effect they had. The attraction of an archaeological project involving the relatively recent past was that local audiences and volunteers could really engage with it. However, community archaeology projects are not always plain sailing and each project will have its own successes and sticking points. The Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project, as any other project, struggled in some instances and provides good examples of a variety of such situations. It is the intention, in setting out some of these difficulties here, to equip those who are involved with community archaeology projects with some food for thought. The volunteer task force all had very different reasons for being involved with the project. Some joined because they had an interest in local archaeology and in particular the site at Prestongrange, some because it got them out of the house and doing something active, some because it was a way of meeting new people and making new friends and, for some, it was just an opportunity to do something a bit different. It can be difficult to juggle all of these expectations and aspirations within the same project, and to maintain interest in the project’s objectives when the archaeology itself was perhaps not the prime motivation for being involved. In terms of progress with the work on site, it was important to remember that the majority of the team members were volunteers and that they could choose not to be there (particularly if it was raining). ‘When you look at the picture, taken on the pier at Morrison’s Haven, there are faces of people who despite the rain, disappointments and mud, came back year on year. Their reasons are varied: was it for the chance of discovering new things – even about themselves? To discover more about where they live and work? Even to get fit? Or maybe it was a mixture of these things?’ (Graham Robinson, PCAP volunteer)4

Many of those who concentrated on the digging really were just interested in the digging, and were reluctant to get involved with recording or other tasks integral to the archaeological process. Many of the volunteer team members did not have a background



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in archaeology and this meant it was sometimes difficult for them to understand the wider process, and the importance of how certain tasks contributed to producing the site archive, analysis, understanding of the site and eventual publication. There was occasional apathy and no interest in some of the off-site tasks, like preparing exhibitions for open days (although this slowly changed). Following feedback, the PCAP coordinators discovered that some team members were just happy to be a part of the team and quietly work away, some wanted to gain experience in different aspects of the project, whilst others wanted more responsibility and more of a say on the direction of the project. It was clear that, although the project was ‘top down’ and had been initiated by the Council, for at least some of the longerserving volunteers there was a desire to have more input into the running of the project. As the community was an artificial one, thrown together by the act of volunteering, it was difficult at times to maintain the objectives and evolvement of the project while also creating opportunities for volunteers to feel that they could not only be involved in many aspects of the project but also, importantly, feel that they could be part of the decision-making process. However, encouraging and supporting active involvement in decision-making amongst the volunteers could be a double-edged sword. Some members increasingly felt ownership towards the project and its products. This is an advantage on one hand, but at the same time could lead to frustrations due to the top-down approach meaning that the project’s aims were already set and agreed with the various funding bodies and stakeholders, or to misunderstandings from volunteers without the benefit of an overall view of the project, its budgetary restrictions and time limits, and funders’ stipulations. With increased decision-making and participation there ultimately comes increased responsibility, accountability and expectations. Whilst some volunteers were occasionally unhappy that certain decisions had to be made without them (in order to keep the project on track or moving forward), so too some volunteers were unhappy about taking responsibility and making decisions themselves. Increased volunteer decisionmaking and ownership needs to be balanced with the aims and objectives of the overall project, the expectations of the funding bodies, and the expectations and needs of the team members. Although the project had clear aims and objectives, a certain amount of fluidity and flexibility was built into it to allow the research strategy to develop along with the project. For example, some of the project aims were designed to be adaptable to the results of the excavation and survey work, the results from the historical and oral reminiscence work and the thoughts and viewpoints of the project team members. The contribution made to the project through the non-digging aspects of the work not only encouraged the project volunteers to appreciate their value but allowed those volunteers not particularly interested in fieldwork to contribute to, and feel more fully engaged with, the overall project. Final reflections

In hindsight there are elements of the project that could have been designed better or a different approach taken but, all in all, the project was a remarkable success. Without

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doubt the main reasons that the project stayed on track and was so successful were the character of the team members, strong relationships between those team members, continued interest in the heritage of the site, a culture of listening to one another’s concerns and of ensuring that the project was flexible and adaptable. Although every outreach, participation or community archaeology project is unique, the Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project learnt the following lessons: Project design. Keep it simple and clear. Know and keep reminding yourself of the overall project’s aims and objectives. With hindsight, PCAP probably had too many disparate elements and too many ambitious end products and, although the overall project manager (East Lothian Council Heritage Officer) could see the bigger picture, sometimes the volunteer team members lost track of how the job they were doing was contributing to the overall project. Communication is absolutely key. Project relationships. Identify the stakeholders who have a vested interest in the overall project and ensure that all team members understand all these relationships, the chain of command and the boundaries and role of each relationship. Feedback. Feedback is absolutely essential in monitoring the state of any project and the happiness of the project team members. No matter how frank and honest it can be, feedback is critical to getting to the heart of any lurking problems before they grow into larger issues, which could damage the project. Flexibility. Project designs need to be flexible. Although the objectives of a project design need to be clear and firm, there has to be a certain amount of flexibility in terms of how the project reaches those objectives, so that unexpected problems can be accommodated and so that the project can respond to the needs and aspirations of the team members. Team continuity. Trying to maintain the same core of staff is really quite fundamental to creating and maintaining relationships, confidence and trust. Volunteer team members appreciate this continuity and, in turn, staff members can maintain a better feel of the pulse of the group, manage expectations and anticipate any concerns. Volunteers and audiences. The project design needs clearly to identify which audiences it wishes to reach and the reasons for that. The Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project did not target any particular audiences at first but did try to create varied opportunities for involvement. As the project developed, however, it became apparent that there were audiences that the project should and could reach and the project was adapted accordingly. If there were to be another phase to the project, the targeting of other audiences and efforts to reach further non-traditional audiences may be an important feature. Managing expectations. The project needs to be clear about its objectives: for example, are they archaeological or socio-economic, or both? Who is your audience and is it fine to have volunteers who are happy just to turn up or do you want volunteers to take on responsibility? Does your project need to engage with the community and do you need return volunteers? Have you made it clear to the volunteers what is and what isn’t expected of them?



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Project sustainability. Vital to the success of any project is the need to keep on delivering once the actual project is finished. The project design needs to identify ways in which the project can leave a lasting legacy and, most importantly, what will happen to the volunteers once the project has been completed. With the Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project, the team were keen to leave behind some form of legacy which not only told the story of what they had found out about Prestongrange but something that could continue to give both young people and adults alike something educational and inspiring. Happily, the products of the project are already being used by the public and by the Museum Service for new educational initiatives with local schools. In conclusion, however, the lasting legacy that community archaeology projects can leave behind is in the people who were involved. Community archaeology projects can inspire greater confidence, a sense of belonging, a sense of achievement and accomplishment, self pride and worth, and increased ownership of the past in addition to important, new, transferable skills and many new friends. These elements are often intangible and difficult to measure but they are definitely the most important legacy of any project.

Notes 1. 2.

See Oglethorpe 2006; Turnbull 2001. Cressey 2005; 2006; Cressey & Oram 2005; Richardson, Cressey & Johnson 2009; Cressey et al. 2012.

3. 4.

East Lothian Council 2010. In East Lothian Council 2010.

Bibliography Cressey, M. 2005, ‘Prestongrange Community Project: Interim Data Structure Report (Year 1)’, unpublished report, CFA Archaeology Ltd (Report number 950). Cressey, M. 2006, ‘Prestongrange Community Project: Interim Data Structure Report (Year 2)’, unpublished report, CFA Archaeology Ltd (Report number 1125). Cressey, M. & Oram, R. 2005, ‘Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project: Desk-based Assessment (Year 1)’, unpublished report, CFA Archaeology Ltd (Report number 937). Cressey, M., Johnson, M., Haggarty, G., Turnbull, J. & Willmott, H. 2012, ‘Eighteenth-century glass and pottery manufacture at Morison’s Haven, Prestongrange, East Lothian’, Post-Medieval Archaeology 46(1), 36–55. East Lothian Council 2010, Digging into the Past: 800 Years at Prestongrange, project booklet and accompanying DVD produced by East Lothian Council. Oglethorpe, M.K. 2006, Scottish Collieries: an Inventory of the Scottish Coal Industry in the Nationalised Era, Edinburgh: RCAHMS. Richardson, P., Cressey, M. & Johnson, M. 2009, ‘Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project, East Lothian (Phase 2)’, unpublished report, CFA Archaeology Ltd (Report number 1569). Turnbull, J. 2001, The Scottish Glass Industry 1610–1750, Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

Archaeology for All: Managing Expectations and Learning from the Past for the Future – the Dig Manchester Community Archaeology Experience Michael Nevell This paper provides an overview of the ‘I Dig Moston’/‘Dig Manchester’ community archaeology project, which took place in Manchester, England, between 2003 and 2008. This project involved the collaboration of local residents, school children, community groups and professional archaeologists from the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit and the Manchester Museum. The paper reviews the power structures and relationships which characterised the project, with reference to Arnstein’s ‘ladder of citizen participation’. It reviews the aims and impacts of the work, reflecting on methods for the evaluation of community archaeology initiatives. Introduction

This paper provides an overview of a five-year project that began life under the banner of ‘I Dig Moston’ in 2003 and finished as ‘Dig Manchester’ in 2008. Two seasons of highly successful community excavations at the site of Moston Hall in Broadhurst Park, northern Manchester, encouraged both the volunteers and professionals involved to apply for Heritage Lottery funding to deliver community archaeology across the city from 2005 to 2008 (Fig. 4.1). Through Dig Manchester, local residents, school children and community groups worked alongside professional archaeologists from the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit and the Manchester Museum on a programme of educational activities and community excavations. Four historic sites, all on council-owned land, were chosen for investigation. In 2005 the project continued the work begun by I Dig Moston in northern Manchester and completed the excavation of Moston Hall.1 In 2005 and 2006 excavations were carried out in southerncentral Manchester which revealed the remains of Northenden Mill on the banks of the River Mersey.2 Moving to Wythenshawe in southern Manchester, a set of 18thand 19th-century agricultural buildings was excavated at Wythenshawe Hall in 2007 and, finally, in 2008 the landscape around Peel Hall Moat was investigated. Like the original Moston Hall dig, the excavation of the Peel Hall Moat site was instigated by a local group who also jointly ran the excavation: the South Manchester Archaeological Research Team (SMART) formed in May 2007 as a direct consequence of the project.

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Figure 4.1: Map showing the location of the Dig Manchester sites mentioned in the text, relative to the historic township of Manchester (now Manchester city centre).



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The intention here is not to look at the archaeological sites investigated by the project, or to dwell on the large number of people who participated (c. 2,000 volunteers and c. 6,000 school children). Rather, the aim is to review the power structures and relationships within the project, as expressed through the expectations of the participants, and to review the way in which the aims and impact of this jointly-delivered public/professional project were developed and recorded. The progress of the project was formally and informally assessed at several points and the findings of these assessments provide valuable evidence in recording the interaction, progress and impact of Dig Manchester. The scope and aims of Dig Manchester: power structures and public involvement

From the very beginning, the project aimed to engage groups and individuals who had never experienced archaeology or who were at risk of social exclusion, which is why three of the four sites chosen were in some of the most economically and socially deprived wards within the city. This strategy was not without its critics. The project prompted a lively debate in the pages of Britain’s leading popular archaeology magazine, Current Archaeology, during 2005 and early 2006, centring on the questions: what constitutes ‘community archaeology’ and by whom can this kind of activity be undertaken?3 The debate focused upon how far the project was initiated and controlled by professional archaeologists rather than local individuals or voluntary groups, with a central question being ‘whose archaeology is this: amateur groups, middle class professionals, disadvantaged groups, children or all of the above and more?’ Intriguingly, most of the adverse criticism of the project came from people who had not visited the sites, had not participated in the digs and did not live within Manchester; thus ’they [Dig Manchester] prefer simply to take in whoever happens to be living locally and to avoid having any amateur archaeologists who may actually know something about the subject’.4 Yet, remote commentators still felt they had a right to comment upon the project because ‘it will be very important as this is re-defining the meaning of “public archaeology” and re-defining the reasons as to why archaeology is done, or should be done’.5 These arguments are familiar to anyone who has followed the development of social participation in heritage and public archaeology since the 1980s6 and go to the heart of who should have access to heritage and how far archaeology should be seen as a common inheritance. Such debates were sparked by the differing expectations as to how and by whom archaeology should be practised, from a variety of groups and individuals who in this context we might call the ‘stakeholders’.7 These stakeholders included local individuals and groups, local schools, the city council, the University of Manchester, Manchester Museum, the local Police Authority, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), national voluntary societies and the media. In the late 1960s the American planner Sherry Arnstein developed a structure for summarising how bodies like these represent the various power structures in contemporary society and how they interact when important decisions were being made, particularly in the planning process.8 Arnstein’s ‘ladder of citizen participation’ has eight ‘rungs’ grouped into three broad categories: ‘Nonparticipation’, ‘Tokenism’ and ‘Citizen Power’, the latter including the rungs of Citizen Control, Dele-

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gated Power and Partnership. Arnstein defined citizen participation as the redistribution of power that enabled the ‘have-not’ citizens presently excluded from the political and economic processes to be deliberately included in the future. Although critiqued within a public health context by Tritter & McCullum,9 who called for more recognition of the process of participation itself, and in an environmental planning context by Collins & Ison,10 who argued for a social learning approach that recognises the complexity of different group inter-actions in this field through a series of nested learning and participation steps, there is still much in this model that is relevant to public and community archaeology practice in Britain and beyond. Particularly relevant to Dig Manchester is the way in which Arnstein’s model allows decisions within a single project or process to move backwards and forwards across the spectrum of the ‘ladder of citizen participation’ from ‘Nonparticipation’ through ‘Tokenism’ to ‘Citizen Power’. This, I would argue, is one of the features of community archaeology projects within Britain, and especially of the Dig Manchester project. The idea of I Dig Moston came from a number of local Moston residents11 who initiated the project (Citizen Control), with much of the process of on-site implementation and practice being undertaken through a partnership between the professional and voluntary sectors (Delegated Power), as at Peel Hall Moat and Moston Hall where the local groups took the lead in identifying and excavating the sites. Consultation and information dissemination (elements of Tokenism) were also used within the project to engage a wider audience locally. Although the more traditional structures of British participatory archaeology (established local archaeology and history societies, young archaeologists’ clubs and an active extra-mural education programme)12 were present in the wider city region, they were lacking within the city itself in the mid-2000s and so could not be used to leverin volunteers. Indeed, this was one of the main reasons for the creation of the project. Arnstein’s three sub-categories of Citizen Power – Citizen Control, Delegated Power and Partnership – can thus be seen to be at the core of the objectives for Dig Manchester, with its emphasis on networks and relationships. The project aimed to develop pride in the community; to raise aspirations amongst young people; and to be accessible to as many people in the community as possible. Indeed, Isherwood13 has argued that Community Archaeology can be understood in terms of networks and relationships, distinguishing the approach from the more process-orientated Public Archaeology. A review of the first year of the Dig Manchester project, undertaken in early 2006, noted the origins of these core aims at I Dig Moston: The [I Dig Moston] project started as a result of demand from community archaeological groups, and in particular MADASH (Moston and District Archaeological and Social History group) who wished to have more professional guidance and access to digs and from the university who were anxious to encourage more people to apply to higher education.14

This was supported by the final impact study on the project in June 2008 which also noted the ‘shared central objectives’ of the two projects and how both had ‘developed organically from the grassroots’.15 Thus, these aims were not arbitrary but rather emerged from the I Dig Moston pilot project and were applied as the core aims of



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Dig Manchester; they were rooted in and derived from the expectations of the north Manchester community who initiated the pilot project and can be seen to fall under Arnstein’s upper heading of public involvement: Citizen Power. Measuring the impact and significance of Dig Manchester

Whilst the core principles of the project grew from the local community, and the individual site implementation can be seen as a series of ‘Citizen Power’ steps involving delegated power and partnership, the assessment of the project was delivered through professional bodies: the University of Manchester, Manchester Museum and Manchester City Council. The concept of measuring the impact of community archaeology has in the last decade developed beyond the traditional process-analysis approach (number of people attending, number of sites excavated etc.),16 although the experience of the archaeological process itself remains central to many participants’ views of what such schemes should encompass. This change in approach to measuring impact is also an important aspect of Isherwood’s argument about the value of networks and relationships in such projects.17 A variety of different approaches for measuring the impact of community archaeology projects have been suggested from the self-reflexive, the use of longitudinal data-collection and external comparison,18 to deficit, multiple-perspective and anthropological models.19 There remains, however, a need to quantify on a regular basis the number of participants within community archaeology across Britain in order to provide a wider context for these studies.20 Whilst archaeology has been very good at borrowing field and material analysis techniques from other disciplines in the sciences and social sciences, within the broader field of public engagement it has been slower to adopt methodologies used by charitable and public bodies. One such scheme in wide use is the Inspiring Learning community engagement impact assessment framework developed by the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in the mid-2000s. This framework was developed so that evidence of the impact of heritage-related activities could be provided through Generic Learning Outcomes (GLO) and Generic Social Outcomes (GSO). The Generic Learning Outcomes developed by the MLA encompassed five areas: attitudes and values; activity, behaviour and progression; knowledge and understanding; enjoyment, inspiration and creativity; and skills. These provide the foundation blocks for the generic social outcomes framework, which was designed to help museums, libraries and archives assess three areas of outcomes; stronger and safer communities; health and well-being; and strengthening public life. The Inspiring Learning framework was used by Manchester City’s Cultural Team to develop the evaluation criteria for Dig Manchester,21 making it one of the first community archaeology projects to adopt this particular approach to assessing the impact and significance of the project. The impact study involved primary research in the form of in-depth interviews of twenty-four stakeholders and key participants, group discussions in schools particularly with teachers and project workers, and participants’ questionnaires, with forty-three replies returned out of 120 forms sent out. There was also secondary research that involved reviewing the project reports and reviewing the statistics

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Figure 4.2: Graph from the impact study for Dig Manchester (Russell & Williams 2008). This graph indicates the percentage of respondents who felt that the project had resulted in positive outcomes relating to ‘sense of place’.

Figure 4.3: Graph from the impact study for Dig Manchester (Russell & Williams 2008). This graph illustrates the project’s perceived impact in relation to lifestyle indicators.



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Figure 4.4: Graph presenting results relating to from the impact study for Dig Manchester (Russell & Williams 2008). This graph illustrates the project’s impact in relation to legacy outcomes.

compiled throughout the life of Dig Manchester by the key stakeholders who included the HLF, Regeneration Partnerships and the University of Manchester. The analysis of this data used the Inspiring Learning framework to look at the cultural outcomes of the project in six areas covering ten topics (Figs 4.2–4.4): perceptions of the project; how the project engendered a sense of place and neighbourhood pride; how it improved perceptions of health and well-being; how it assisted children and young people to make a positive contribution; how it provided children with creative and cultural opportunities; and finally the legacy of Dig Manchester. In terms of the perceptions of the project this data revealed that interactions between groups and individuals on the project were very important. Many participants found ‘digging together was more important than who they are’.22 Dig Manchester also challenged perceptions discovered in the 2006 audit such as the view that university and archaeology were only for the upper classes,23 through a greater degree of diversity in the economic and social backgrounds of those taking part. The dig changed positively the perceptions of those living in the three deprived wards where Dig Manchester was involved, with positive feedback on the way in which the project boosted the confidence and sense of well-being of the participants and the way it promoted an interest in exploring the local history of the area. In particular the project made a major contribution to raising the profile of Wythenshawe as a cultural centre with its own heritage. It was also successful in breaking down barriers, since the multi-faceted nature of the dig meant that many voluntary sector agencies from various disciplines were able to work together within the city, some for the first time. This included co-operation and liaison between educational institutions, work and job centre agencies, regeneration agencies, mental health charities, agencies working with the visually and hearing impaired, the Sure Start programme and Greater Manchester Police. Equally important was the social

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mix of the participants of Dig Manchester which re-enforced the breaking down of barriers. Access and participation was a crucial part of the project and the involvement of organisations like Studio One helped make Dig Manchester accessible to people of all abilities, as did the open weekends and family days. A testament to the legacy of the project was that, as well as the continuation of the new local archaeology groups (Moston and SMART), the production of booklets and information boards about the sites and other activities, such as the Northenden Farmers’ market (which the organisers said had been inspired by the community feeling engendered by the Northenden Dig), were sustained through the working partnerships developed on this project.24 The adoption of the Inspiring Learning framework enabled the gathering of a large amount of targeted data which was used to assess the outcomes of the project, demonstrating the applicability of this method in such circumstances. However, there were several problems in the implementation of the framework. Firstly, it was only used systematically at the end of the project, in 2008, rather than at the beginning of the main project in 2005 (although some point-data is provided by the interim audit report from early 2006).25 This meant that it was only possible to recover general longterm or longitudinal data about the impact of the project, a deficiency that the Dig Greater Manchester successor project, launched in September 2011, will seek to address. Secondly, the assessment criteria were mostly designed by non-archaeologists and, whilst the Inspiring Learning framework is highly flexible, the implementation of the cultural outcomes process tended to focus upon the two core aims of the City’s Culture Strategy. These were increasing participation in culture by the people of Manchester; and using culture as a means to improve the profile of the city and to attract people to live, work, learn and play in it. Moreover, this approach occasionally focused too much upon the benefits for the organisations involved in the project rather than the benefits for the community participants or the benefits in terms of the project’s archaeological aims. This meant that the outcomes were more generic than would have been case if an archaeologist had been added to the assessment team. Whilst this bias does not devalue the results it does mean that there are potentially holes in the data from a heritage/ archaeological impact perspective. Conclusion

There are many different ways of engaging local communities and individuals in an exploration of their own past. Dig Manchester sought to promote archaeological work amongst some of the most deprived wards within the City of Manchester as a way of increasing participation in culture and as a means of improving the sense of worth of the communities involved. In terms of the power structures encountered in this process of public involvement two things were clear from both the initial pilot, I Dig Moston, and the full Dig Manchester project. Firstly, the greatest level of impact was achieved when the professionals involved gave up power in favour of greater community control. In other words, the most positive outcomes were in areas where individuals and groups were given more responsibility and where they were allowed the freedom to interact with other individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds. Secondly, the local groups and individuals involved accepted the desirability of having professional support in specific



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areas, such as archaeological skills training and specialist recording and reporting. Indeed in several cases this was specifically asked for. However, it was possible to vary that level of support across the life of the project, devolving responsibility in some areas and topics whilst increasing support in others. Identifying when such devolution was appropriate and likely to be successful was one of the challenges of the project. Recording the impact and outcomes of the project was a central concern for Dig Manchester, as the project was keen to stress that there were long-term beneficial impacts from such a programme. The use of a structured method of recording such as the Inspiring Learning framework – by no means the only model that could have been used to record this kind of impact data26 – helped to capture and quantify these outcomes and emphasised that new understandings of local identities will emerge from within a project and will continue beyond it. There have been increasing calls for greater public participation in archaeological practice within Britain as archaeology has become ever more professionalised as a result of the introduction of Planning Policy Guidance Note Number 16 (PPG16) in 1990 and the rise of developer-funded archaeology.27 These calls recently met with partial official approval, at least in England, with the publication of Planning Policy Statement Number 5, the short-lived replacement for PPG16.28 This planning advisory note called for local community groups to be consulted about redevelopment projects that affected their local heritage and culture, and although this document has now been incorporated within a wider national planning guidance framework it is expected that this call for community involvement in heritage will remain. Yet, as the recent Institute for Archaeologists Annual Conference session ‘Widening the audience for community archaeology: the significance of PPS5’ at Reading in April 2011 noted, community archaeology work undertaken through the planning process has naturally been biased towards top-down, formal programmes of public engagement, rather than the more inclusive programme of community archaeology described here. Without good examples of community engagement to follow, like Dig Manchester, and without the use of a structured scheme of impact assessment such as the MLA’s Inspiring Learning framework, community archaeology engagement through the planning process will not easily lend itself to wider engagement and the participation of marginalised groups. One of the advantages of a project such as Dig Manchester is that innovative approaches to engagement and assessing impact can be tested which might then be adopted by these more formal engagement programmes. This is not to imply there is anything wrong or less worthy in structured community engagement undertaken in the context of the planning process: Tim Schadla-Hall’s argument29 that archaeologists should be more forthright in acknowledging that there are good and bad public archaeologies does not apply in this case. Planning-related community archaeology programmes can be diverse and innovative in their impact, as was demonstrated recently by the public archaeology programmes for the M74 in Glasgow30 and Dig Hungate in York. Rather, we should use flagship projects such as Dig Manchester as templates of good practice which the archaeology profession can adapt and adopt with the aim of making all archaeology, community archaeology: done for the people with the people.

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Notes 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Garratt 2009. Bell 2009. See Current Archaeology issues 197 (May–June 2005), 259; 198 (July–August 2005), 310–11; 201 (January–February 2006), 506–7. Current Archaeology 197 (2005), 259. Current Archaeology 198 (2005), 311. Isherwood 2009; Merriman 2004. Merriman 2004, 12–15. Arnstein 1969. Tritter & McCullum 2006. Collins & Ison 2006. Garratt 2009, 4; Murphy forthcoming. Thomas 2010. Isherwood 2009. Briggs 2006, 3. Russell & Williams 2008. Collins & Ison 2006; Jones forthcoming.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Isherwood 2009. Isherwood 2009; Merriman 2004. Merriman 2004, 5–8; Simpson & Williams 2008. Thomas 2010. Briggs 2006, 6. Simpson & Williams 2008. Briggs 2006. Russell & Williams 2008. Briggs 2006. Jones & McClanahan 2005; Jones forthcoming. Merriman 2004; Isherwood 2009; Simpson & Williams 2008. DCLG 2010. Schadla-Hall 2004. Morton 2009.

Bibliography Arnstein, S.R. 1969, ‘A ladder of citizen participation’, Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35(4), 216–24. Bell, S. 2009, Dig Manchester. Northenden Mill Community Excavations 2005 to 2006, Manchester: The University of Manchester. Briggs, P. 2006, ‘Audit Report: Dig Manchester’, unpublished report by Manchester City Council. Collins, K. & Ison, R. 2006, ‘Dare we jump off Arnstein’s ladder? Social learning as a new policy paradigm’, in Proceedings of PATH (Participatory Approaches in Science and Technology) Conference, 4–7 June 2006, Edinburgh. Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) 2010, Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning for the Historic Environment. Available at: [last accessed 21/6/2012]. Downes, J., Foster, S.M. & Wickham-Jones, C.R. (eds) 2005, The Heart of the Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site Research Agenda, Edinburgh: Historic Scotland. Garratt, R. 2009, Dig Manchester. Moston Hall Community Excavations 2003 to 2005, Manchester: The University of Manchester. Heyworth, M., Merriman, N., Nevell, M. & Redhead, N. (eds) forthcoming, Archaeology for All: Proceedings of the 2006 Dig Manchester Community Archaeology Conference, York: Council for British Archaeology. Isherwood, R. 2009, ‘Community Archaeology. A study of the conceptual, political and practical issues surrounding community archaeology in the United Kingdom today’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Manchester. Jones, S. forthcoming, ‘Archaeology and the construction of community identities’, in Heyworth et al. (eds) forthcoming. Jones, S. & McClanahan, A. 2005, ‘Qualitative interviewing and participant observation’, in Downes et al. 2005, 117–18.



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Merriman, N. (ed.) 2004, Public Archaeology, London & New York: Routledge. Morton, D. 2009, ‘Involving the public in Glasgow’s Industrial Archaeology: the M74 Dig’, The Archaeologist 74, 36–7. Murphy, P. forthcoming, ‘Building up a head of steam’, in Heyworth et al. (eds) forthcoming. Russell, K. & Williams, J. 2008, ‘Dig Manchester Impact Study. An Evaluation of the Dig Manchester Project 2003–2007’, unpublished report by Manchester City Council. Schadla-Hall, T. 2004, ‘The comfort of unreason: the importance and relevance of alternative archaeology’, in Merriman 2004, 255–71. Simpson, F. & Williams, H. 2008, ‘Evaluating community archaeology in the UK’, Public Archaeology 7(2), 69–90. Thomas, S. 2010, Community Archaeology in the UK: Recent Findings, Council for British Archaeology. Available at: < http://www.britarch.ac.uk/research/community> [last accessed 21/6/2012]. Tritter, J.Q. & McCullum, A. 2006, ‘The snakes and ladders of user involvement: moving beyond Arnstein’, Health Policy 76, 156–68.

Rediscovering, Preserving and Making Memories at Community Archaeology Projects Robert Isherwood Community archaeology is a rapidly expanding approach to archaeological research. Whilst the archaeology itself is central to individual projects, issues of ‘community’ may be heavily implicated within the agendas of many project partners. In this paper, I will argue that community archaeology projects are complex arenas in which a variety of agendas are interwoven within both the planned activities and the unplanned outcomes that occur during the life of a project. Drawing on ethnographic evidence of community archaeology from my recently completed doctoral research as well as from recent experience of the proactive delivery of community archaeology I will focus on the role of memory in relation to both the initial design of community archaeology projects and also the ways in which projects come to be understood and valued by those who have supported and/or participated in them. I will identify projects as being arenas in which aspects of social memory can be central to much that is both planned for and experienced by participants. The rediscovery of lost memories, the preserving of fragile memories and the making of new memories will be shown to be especially significant within the narratives aggregating around individual community projects. I identify ‘living memory’ sites as being especially meaningful and effective for community archaeology and argue that the event of a community archaeology project can serve as an arena for the construction of community in the present. The implications of this, I argue, need to be appreciated and understood by heritage managers who are charged with the identification, determination and management of heritage assets. ‘Rediscovering’ memory

Collective memory is a central component within the construction of community groups. Olick and Robbins1 have argued that ‘collective memory is the active past that forms our identities’ and Samuel2 has identified memory as being a dynamic, active, shaping force. Within individual community archaeology projects it is possible to identify the ‘rediscovery’ of memories as the motivating desire behind the instigation of the project in the first instance. Within my PhD thesis I proposed a relational view of community archaeology and argued that community archaeology concerns the relationship between communities and the materiality of their places.3 Interestingly, there appears to be a tendency for projects to occupy opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of the strength of the relationship between people and place. In places where there is a strong sense of

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Figure 5.1: The evening shift. Volunteers at the entrance to the Dunbar Vaults.

shared attachment to place, active community members are likely to be found acting as custodians of community heritage. Oral histories are most likely retained and celebrated in such circumstances and there are likely to be community members with longstanding genealogical connections to the past. Conversely, localities at the other end of the spectrum – localities in which negative perceptions of place predominate, localities in which residents have limited attachments to place, perhaps localities designated as regeneration zones – have, in recent years, become the focus of state-funded political initiatives that seek to raise the profile of the locality through programmes which seek to develop positive relations between people and place. The provision of a community archaeology project in which individuals can ‘discover’ unknown or lost heritage in their place can be seen as a potential means to connect people to place, to rediscover lost memories as well as creating new ones, memories that can form the nucleus of a community identity. Some case study examples

Rediscovering memories in localities where there are community groups with strong attachments to place The chance discovery of archaeological material that was unknown in the historical record was the stimulus for projects at Dunbar in East Lothian4 and Liss in Hampshire.5 At Dunbar, the discovery of underground chambers by a fisherman rebuilding



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Figure 5.2: Volunteers working at the Liss Roman Villa project.

his store at the harbour came as a surprise to locals (Fig. 5.1). When the archaeological consultants who had been commissioned to report on the vaults identified the chambers as probable ice-houses for the preservation of fish, local historians and fisherman realised there was a mismatch between the archaeological interpretation and transmitted memories contained in the extensive, locally-held, oral histories. The vaults represented lost memories and this situation needed to be addressed. There was perhaps a sense in which the custodians of the community’s heritage were obliged to resolve the anomaly and extend and enhance the knowledge of past peoples in this place. The design for the project which followed involved a range of project partners but, in essence, its viability depended upon the presence of community members with the skills to drive a community project. In particular, it required the presence of community members with the knowledge, skill and determination to communicate both the design and the worth of their project to a funding body, in this case the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). At Liss in Hampshire, the discovery of Romano-British artefacts during road construction work indicated the presence of a ‘lost’ settlement site (Fig. 5.2). The desire to extend the knowledge base of the existence of past peoples in their place encouraged local residents to embark on a community project using Heritage Lottery funding. In both Liss and Dunbar there was a strong sense of attachment to place felt by many local residents. Amongst these residents there was substantial local knowledge of the past and oral histories were a strong feature. Community archaeology projects in places with a social dynamic akin to Dunbar and Liss appear to be especially viable and may tend

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to occur in response to new archaeological discoveries. Moreover, the model for such projects would appear to align well with Heritage Lottery funding policies: interviews with HLF officers during my doctoral research6 has suggested that projects which are driven from within community groups are looked upon with particular favour; ‘bottomup’ is often the terminology used in relation to such projects.7 Rediscovering memories in localities where attachments to place are minimal and relationships with place negative or weak Following the completion of my doctorate I set up as an independent community and educational archaeologist. The emphasis of my work has changed from being an observer of community projects to being an initiator or facilitator of projects. Locating potential clients and, in particular, clients with access to funds for the provision of community projects has involved much networking. Recently, such networking has resulted in the establishment of a new project, which is in its early stages of development. The project is centred on a housing market renewal (HMR) area in Rochdale: the Kirkholt Estate (Fig. 5.3). Quoting from the Oldham/Rochdale HMR website:8 Housing Market Renewal (HMR) is our big chance to create great and lasting change in Oldham and Rochdale.… The Oldham Rochdale HMR Pathfinder was set up by the Government in 2004 to tackle long-standing problems which have caused neighbourhoods across the boroughs to become less popular places to live.

Kirkholt is a large housing estate built for Rochdale Council in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The estate was built on farm land and its construction required the compulsory purchase of this land and demolition of a number of historic farmsteads and settlements formerly associated with the manufacture of woollen cloth. The former landscape was completely lost and virtually all traces of the past were removed from view. Old route-ways were removed or renamed. Indeed, the design of the estate took virtually no account of the earlier historic landscape. A whole new population was imported into the newly constructed landscape. From the 1970s, the estate began to decline and to be associated with negative perceptions. In 2004, Kirkholt was designated as a housing market renewal area as a consequence of the housing market being identified as being weak or dysfunctional. A range of ‘strategic interventions’9 were planned, including the commissioning of a heritage assessment, which was delivered in March 2008. One of the recommendations of the heritage assessment was that consideration should be given to the possibility of archaeological investigation of the site of Balderstone Hall within the HMR area which could include excavation within a community archaeology project.10 This recommendation appears to have remained dormant until my networking in the area resulted in the establishment of a web of relations which included planning officers, schools, the county archaeologist and me as an independent community archaeologist. The outcome was the commissioning of an archaeological desk-based assessment of the area by the local authority, with the intention that this would inform and lead into a programme of community archaeology which would include work with local schools. The heritage report stated that ‘recognising and building on the heritage value within the existing



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Figure 5.3: Discovering the archaeology of Kirkholt. Communicating the findings of the archaeological desk-based assessment (DBA) of the estate in a ‘fun day’ at the local park. Digital versions of the DBA were provided free to visitors.

communities is acknowledged by the HMR Partnership … to be a key component of the overall strategy for renewal’.11 This is a crucial point: here, planning professionals are viewing the identification and promotion of heritage value within a locality as a key component of strategies for renewal. The research I undertook for the archaeological desk-based assessment resulted in the identification of sixty-two sites in the area.12 Seven of these sites were identified as suitable for community archaeology with the expectation that these would become fieldwork sites within later phases of the project. The Historic Environment Record (HER) for the area had only contained records for ten sites. In the process of rediscovering lost places I also rediscovered lost people, through extensive study of census records; and past editions of local newspapers provided narrative details of past events. In the short space of time in which I embarked upon the rediscovery of these past places, people and events I found my relationship with the place and its people, past and present, developed quickly. My role, in essence, became one of employed custodian and communicator of Kirkholt’s material heritage. At Dunbar and Liss this role was undertaken by local people, many of them who were associated with local historical or archaeological groups. Here at Kirkholt no such group was in existence. Top-down projects such as this are instigated and designed by professionals on behalf of communities in the belief that they hold the potential to improve perceptions of

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place within resident communities. The process of first identifying lost heritage places and then rediscovering or constructing narratives that are associated with these places is promoted as a means to connect present day residents with the past and provide tangible and valued heritage places in an otherwise barren urban landscape. The politics of heritage lie very heavily within such understandings of how the past can be used in the present for social and economic advantage. This will inevitably be the case for top-down community archaeology projects which require sizeable budgets which tend to be derived from the state. The case of the now concluded ‘Dig Manchester’ project provides evidence of this.13 This was a large-scale community archaeology project driven by local politicians and council officers, facilitated by archaeological and other professionals and funded by a grant of £431,500 from the HLF. The use of public funds on such a large scale obviously carries with it a burden of responsibility, and a need to justify the expenditure and demonstrate value. Indeed, positive social and economic outcomes are required to be identified, related and celebrated. In the case of ‘Dig Manchester’ this was most overtly presented within a BBC Radio Four programme which posed the question ‘Can an archaeological dig reduce crime?’14 The contention was forcibly argued for by the councillor who instigated the project. Further weight was given to this argument by the provision of apparently supporting statistics by archaeological facilitators of the project.15 Whilst such arguments may be contentious and hard to support they are likely to continue to be presented where there is a social and political need to provide evidence of value. Indeed, the same account was retold by David Lammy MP, then Minister for Culture, in his keynote speech in the ‘Archaeology for All’ conference at the University of Manchester in November 2006. Later in this paper I will argue that the value of community archaeology in respect of its capacity to have causal effect on social relations within and between community groups acts in more subtle ways than those argued in respect of ‘Dig Manchester’ above. I will suggest that it is the event of a community archaeology project itself that provides an effective arena for the construction of shared narratives and ultimately collective memories, aspects that are crucial in the construction of community. Preserving memory

As part of my doctoral research I interviewed many people in the localities of community archaeology projects. With participants and site visitors, I usually began by asking them why they were attending. With non-participants, I asked them if they were aware of the archaeological project in their locality. In most cases these short enquiries provoked extensive narratives that, when analysed, provided evidence of the perceived significance and value of both the project itself and the place in which the project was located in the mind of the interviewee. As part of my analysis, I classified the received narratives that emerged from these interviews. One of the projects, at the site of Northenden Mill, South Manchester,16 produced many narratives that I categorised as relating to ‘memories’ or ‘oral history’ (Fig. 5.4). This was in sharp contrast to my other case study sites. The distinctive feature of Northenden Mill, in comparison to the other case studies, was that the Mill was a set of buildings that had existed and been in use in living memory. The Mill itself and the wider landscape around the mill site featured heavily in related



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Figure 5.4: Community Arts at Northenden Mill. The project site became a venue for community activities.

narratives, which, inevitably, were told by long-standing, senior local residents. The project itself became a catalyst for the preservation of oral histories. Joe: ‘The mill’s not really that old you know. It was still here in the 60s. A bit further down Mill Lane was Jackson’s boats.’ Will: ‘I remember the mill. There was a boatyard next to it. You would get a boat and row down the river to a pub further on. There was boxing. Joe Griffen – he was the one – he was famous – from here – I helped bury him sometime back. The river was full of life. I remember salmon traps being used. I started off as a farrier. Work began to dry up around here in the 50s. I was being trained under a blacksmith.’ Ted: ‘I remember the wheel – climbed on it – it was broken of course then. There were rowing boats here, canoes and a pleasure launch.’ Hilda: ‘There used to be so much going on. There was an arena for boxing and wrestling. There were tea rooms. All sorts of artists would come. That Big Daddy used to wrestle here – a friend used to get us the best seats. We would bash him with our umbrellas. You could buy anything in Northenden in those days – you didn’t need to travel.’

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Figure 5.5: Political interest in community archaeology. Michael Meacher MP visits the ‘Royton Lives Through the Ages’ Project.

Listening to the stories of long-term residents it is immediately apparent that the presence of the project has reawakened memories and that for them the project is serving to reproduce those memories and pass them on to future generations. Significantly, these long-term residents communicated their joy in seeing young people and school groups participating in the project and discovering and re-inhabiting the places known to the older generation in their youth. The project provided a stage and a receptive audience for their stories. A particular aspect of living memory sites such as Northenden is the way in which they are especially able to maintain the connection between people and place. The notion of a genealogy of place seems to be very appealing and effective in terms of community archaeology projects. Another community project in Greater Manchester that has close parallels in terms of the function and value to local people was the excavation of Royton Hall, near Oldham (Fig. 5.5). Here, the project was named ‘Royton Lives Through the Ages’,17 and its prime focus was the connecting of people and place through time and the preservation of oral histories. Living memory sites such as Northenden appear to have special qualities in respect of their capacity to preserve fading memories, memories that are highly prized amongst older community members. Traditional assessments of value in respect of archaeological remains, based around ratings of rarity and period, do not align with the valuations of



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many participants at community archaeology projects. The opportunity to revisit lost buildings and spaces appears to hold particular appeal. The excavation of demolished terraced housing has been particularly popular at Hungate in York and would appear to be much more meaningful to many community archaeology participants than the excavation of rare and fragile Viking remains that lie in close proximity.18 The discovery of once familiar artefacts tends to instigate social discourse and collective memory in a way that unfamiliar artefacts from a more distant past cannot possibly hope to rival. Similar experiences can be seen in community excavations of World War II bomb-demolished properties at Shoreditch Park, London.19 It could perhaps be viewed as an advantage for the future advancement of community archaeology that many sites which hold particular appeal to community participants are ones which are less likely to stir up debate as to whether untrained amateurs are competent to undertake archaeological work. Project designs for community archaeology initiatives frequently allude to an intention to develop and enhance the relationship between people and place. Such project outcomes may have been the aim of project partners but the ways in which such relations develop can be unintentional and unplanned but equally effective. An example of this concerns an interview I held with Dimi, a Greek Cypriot now living in Northenden. The excavation of the mill and the discovery of a millstone reawakened memories of life in Cyprus. He told of grinding mills for oil, cut out of rock, turned by donkeys, with channels in the rock for the oil to run out. The mill site was clearly meaningful to him and served as a catalyst for the telling of personal narratives, narratives that helped to preserve memories that related to a different place but which were given context and relevance in this new place. A significant feature of community archaeology projects, therefore, is their propensity to act as a locus for the preservation of memory, not just memories that directly relate to the site being investigated but also to places elsewhere. Particular activities associated with a site or particular finds from the site may make other significant cultural connections. An old boot recovered from the site of Northenden Mill and displayed during an open day at the site became the subject of a lengthy narrative told by a retired cobbler. It is also possible for aspects of a site to be analogous with sites elsewhere. An example of this can be seen in a project I developed within a Rochdale school in the 1990s. Here, the project developed by chance because of the discovery of a very powerful analogous connection between a local valley and a valley in Kashmir. Watergrove reservoir, the site of a drowned village, was chosen as a school visit place essentially because it was within walking distance of the school, but also because of the interesting social history that was connected with the valley and the accessible archaeological remains. On visiting the valley with parents and children I told stories about Watergrove – the eviction of many families for the flooding of the valley, the demolition of homes demolished in advance of the flooding or because access to them would have been lost, the forced relocation using received compensation. I was surprised and delighted to receive parallel narratives telling of emigration to Rochdale and Bradford by many hundreds of families utilising the compensation money paid when their own villages were flooded for the construction of the reservoir at Mangla, Kashmir. Very quickly a close bond developed between the families whose children I was teaching and the Watergrove valley. It became a place we returned to often. The narratives that were told in relation to this place in England were

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many, but concerned a place several thousand miles away. Many of the children had previously been unaware of the background to their families’ emigration from Kashmir, perhaps one or two generations ago. Now the discovery of an analogous place close to their present home provided an opportunity for the preservation and communication of significant family, community and cultural narratives in the place which was their relocated family home. Making memory

The event of a community archaeology project in a locality provides the opportunity for the making of memory. Indeed, narratives of community archaeology most frequently refer to the social aspects of participation. Community archaeology projects can therefore be seen as serving to construct and maintain communities through their propensity to provide an event around which community ‘happenings’ take place. These ‘happenings’ then become the focus of community dialogue and are turned into significant community narratives. Such narratives, I will argue, are crucial to community construction. In seeking to identify significant aspects of the function and significance of community archaeology projects to the communities they serve, I have considered ideas from other areas of archaeological debate. I remember as an undergraduate being involved in debates about the function of Neolithic monuments and being drawn to arguments which suggested that the function and significance of such monuments should be viewed not in terms of a finished ‘product’, but rather in terms of the event of construction. It was the moving of the stones themselves that was of central significance rather than the creation of a particular architectural form. The event of monument construction itself was of prime community significance and above that of any ‘finished’ monument. The event of construction provided the opportunity for the creation of collective memory. Such collective memory would have been crucial to the construction of communities. This appears to parallel what is happening in the ‘event’ of a community archaeology project. Individuals and groups come together in a shared endeavour for a limited period of time. The event itself provides a central arena for the construction of narrative. The nature of the archaeology under investigation may be largely irrelevant to many participants. The physicality of the event should not be underestimated, and I would argue that excavation should be seen as being a particularly important aspect within a community project because of its potential in creating an extended repertoire of narratives. For example, in the community archaeology project I studied at Liss in Hampshire, I came across Joan during a visit to the village community centre. She was an elderly resident of the village and sported a magnificent black eye. Joan: ‘I did this on the dig [said proudly rather than resentfully]. I stepped down into a post-hole by mistake – lost my balance – fell on my elbow to support me – and banged myself in the eye.… It’s very sociable at the dig. We get to know one another. There’s people who come from all over.’

She proceeds to tell me the history of the site. Later, after I have moved away to talk to others and also to observe, I overhear Joan being quizzed by another couple.



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Male: ‘How often do you get up there?’ Joan: ‘I get up there twice a week.’

She describes using a ‘tiny trowel’ and then she elaborates on the process. She describes some of the finds that ‘have come up’. She talks avidly and explains how the site is ‘beginning to come to life now’. Two days later I recount the story I had heard to Brian, a site supervisor at Liss. I suggested to him that the lady had seemed to view her injury as a sort of trophy. He concurred: Brian: ‘Oh yes, that would be Joan. She would see it as a trophy.’

In the course of her archaeological activities, Joan has become a significant individual within the project. She has acquired knowledge that is consumed by members of her home community and she carries the physical markings that demonstrate her active involvement. Her activities have brought her to the attention of the site supervisor. She has acquired added cultural capital both in respect of the community that exists on site and the communities that she is affiliated to away from the site. This propensity for participation in the project to confer transformed and enhanced identities on its participants can also be seen in the example of Tom, a prominent volunteer at Liss. Tom: ‘People kid me that I’m some sort of lucky mascot. It’s always me who seems to find things.… People pull my leg all the time – especially the supervisor.… I was in Liss one day and there were some kids messing around. Anyway, outside a house, a lady’s pot got broke. I went to help clear it up. Then someone started joking that I wasn’t to take it on one of my digs and pretend I had dug it up. There’s all sorts of leg-pulling. One day on the dig, someone found some plastic. They scratched my name on it in Roman letters and put it in the patch where I was about to dig. They wanted me to dig it up and think I had found something.’

The comment made to Tom about ‘one of his digs’ suggests that in the minds of some villagers he has become an archaeologist and this new identity is one that he appears be both comfortable with and proud of. His experience of the dig is very much a social experience, a social experience aggregated around a shared and meaningful endeavour. Within the network of social relations which surround both the project and village life, Tom has enhanced his profile and his social standing. Community archaeology projects appear to be impacting upon community relations in two ways. Firstly, by becoming central characters in community narratives, individuals are able to acquire cultural capital, thus enhancing their status within the community. Secondly, the newly constructed narratives themselves serve as ‘objects of community discourse’. In his ethnographic study of High Cedar Farm, Nigel Rapport20 identified such ‘objects of community discourse’ as being essential symbolic markers within the process of community construction. Within the examples I describe above, we see individuals establishing and advancing their status within community groups and we see how knowledge of current community discourse serves as a means to demonstrate ones membership of the community.

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In an age when issues of public value are highly prominent in political debates and the spending of public money on heritage initiatives is heavily scrutinised,21 an appreciation of the ways in which community groups are using community archaeology projects is, I believe, vital. The examples I have presented provide evidence of the ways in which community archaeology projects are arenas in which community itself may be re-worked, negotiated and constructed. At Castleford, West Yorkshire, Laurajane Smith22 has observed archaeological remains being utilised by communities and argued that the importance of such remains should be viewed ‘in terms of how they provide opportunities for experiences and social activity’. She further argues that community identity is made through shared community experiences and that acts of remembering and commemoration are significant processes within this. It is perhaps not surprising then that the issue of commemorating the event of a community archaeology project featured high amongst the concerns of participants interviewed within my doctoral research.23 Indeed, community initiatives, such as the production of DVDs at the end of each season of excavation at projects like Royton and Liss, are providing a new level of archaeological recording. Not only do they provide a physical record of the ‘open’ site but also they help to retain the memory and experience of the event itself. Breaking archaeological traditions of recording, they actively seek to ‘people’ the archaeological record. They record the project as a social event in which people are seen working and interacting. And, furthermore, they record a new dimension of history, not just the interpreted history from the revealed archaeological remains, but also the making of history in a significant community event. Archaeology and memory: tangible and intangible heritage

Community archaeology projects owe their existence in the first instance to the presence of material remains of the past. This archaeology may be newly discovered, as at Liss and Dunbar, or may have been known about and retained in the memory of living people, as at Northenden. The case studies that I have presented in this paper have demonstrated that, whilst the material remains of the past – the physical archaeology itself – are an essential ingredient for a community archaeology project, it is the engagement of the participants with that archaeology and their responses to it that determine the significance of the site as a heritage place. Community archaeology projects can be viewed as arenas in which multiple understandings of meaning and value can exist alongside, and even in competition with, one another. Traditional valuations of heritage places have focused solely on materiality: objects, structures and buildings present or associated with that place. Entry into discourse over the determination of heritage places has tended to be restricted to privileged experts within what has been identified as the authorised heritage discourse (AHD),24 and yet within the case studies presented we see meanings and values attached to the respective sites as being far more extensive and complex. In the case of Hungate, for example, the tangible archaeological remains of Victorian housing – archaeology which might be seen as inferior to Viking remains on the site if assessed purely in terms of the AHD – are given much greater value once the intangible dimension of past community practices and community memory is taken into account. The site of a community archaeology project is a place where memories may be



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Figure 5.6: The display board at Royton Hall. A permanent memorial in place before the site is closed.

rediscovered, preserved or made. These memories, and the narratives in which they are contained, are highly significant in transforming an archaeological site into a heritage place. The concept of heritage as being both tangible and intangible25 provides insight into the dimensions of meaning and value attached to community archaeology projects. The archaeological remains represent the tangible heritage attached to the site and the memories associated with the site represent the intangible heritage. The tangible and the intangible are both integral components of a site recognised as a heritage place. Indeed, this point is not missed by many participants in community archaeology projects. An issue of concern to many participants in such projects is that, at the conclusion of a programme of fieldwork, the archaeological features are back-filled and the finds are removed from the site and placed in an archive that may not be readily accessible. This situation is frequently met by demands from participants for the site to remain open and visible or at least for evidence of the archaeology to be placed on the site, whether as display boards or as reconstituted features of the underlying archaeology (Fig. 5.6).26 This would appear to be evidence of a recognition that the intangible heritage, the shared community memories and their associated narratives, will have a better chance of survival as a consequence of a material presence on the site, a physical memorial of not just the archaeological material that was recovered but also the memories that were rediscovered, preserved and made there.

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These observations and interpretations serve as contributions to wider debates concerning the concepts and definitions of heritage and archaeology.27 In response to the question of whether archaeological data is actually heritage,28 I would suggest that the evidence from the community archaeology projects presented above is that the ‘stuff’ of archaeology, the material remains, are things to which the intangibles of community interactions and relations are attached. It is the combination of the material with the human and the social that confers heritage status. The starting point of a project is the material: at Kirkholt my starting point was to identify the material remains. The next stage is to bring in the people. The involvement and participation of community groups induces the construction of narrative, memory and history, and attachments to place may be formed or reinforced. The archaeological site becomes or is confirmed as a heritage place as a consequence of these attachments and affiliations. In turn, those who form attachments to the place as a consequence of engaging with the material archaeology seek to maintain the intangible aspects of their heritage place through demands for retained access to the material remains. Conclusions and implications

Study of the role of memory in community archaeology projects throws much light on how heritage places are valued by community groups. In particular we see that living memory sites hold particular value to many community participants in archaeological projects because, for them, such sites are heritage places as a consequence of the memories that are attached to them. The implications of this should be taken into consideration when assessing the value of an archaeological site. Traditional valuations that place great distinction on rarity and/or antiquity do not align with valuations in terms of potential for community archaeology. In England, planning policy should be applied with this in mind, especially in the process of identification and determination of heritage assets. Indeed there would appear to be more scope for archaeological curators to be active in advocating the potential value of community archaeology and seeking to include community dimensions within developer-funded archaeological work. Within PPS5’s Historic Environment Planning Practice Guide29 it is stated that ‘people care about and want to conserve those elements of the historic environment that hold heritage value for them . . . . People also want the historic environment to be a living and integral part of their local scene. That requires proactive and intelligent management of heritage assets’. This paper has argued that living memory sites are especially valued by many community groups as significant heritage places. Intelligent management of such heritage assets requires curators to have an understanding of what constitutes heritage at a level that goes beyond the AHD and encompasses the intangible as well as the tangible. Archaeological determinations in respect of such sites should firmly identify them as heritage assets and take into account their potential for community engagement and participation. An understanding of the ways in which community archaeology projects are functioning amongst the communities in whose localities they are located provides strong evidence of the value of such projects. Whilst the initial motivation for projects has often tended to be rooted in archaeological objectives, case studies provide evidence



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of social value emanating from community archaeology projects and especially in the propensity of project arenas to be utilised in the processes of community construction. This should signal new opportunities for community archaeology. There is the possibility for projects to be initiated and funded on the basis of their potential social value to community groups. Moreover, project designs which explicitly identify social objectives and positive community outcomes will be able to access wider sources of funding than have traditionally been utilised for archaeological projects. When seeking to identify potential groups for inclusion in community archaeology projects, there might understandably be a tendency to focus on communities who have a genealogical connection to the place that is the focus of study. The reasoning behind this might be that for such groups the site would hold the greatest meaning. In this paper I have argued that such assumptions can be flawed and that sites have the potential to hold particularly strong meaning for a broad range of community groups due to aspects of how the site has been used over time. In particular, sites can hold especial meaning and value to immigrant groups and individuals due to analogous aspects of the site in relation to places of particular meaning elsewhere. The implication of this for the advancement of practice in community archaeology is that community archaeologists, those vested with responsibility to lead and direct projects, need to be knowledgeable not only of the archaeology in the place in which they are working but also of the communities who exist around the project site. The community archaeologist needs to have knowledge and understanding of local community groups and must develop a strong enough relationship with them in order to be able to identify which aspects of the archaeology will have particular meaning or resonance for particular community groups.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Olick and Robbins 1998, 111. Samuel 1994, x. Isherwood 2009, 22–3. See http://www.dunbarharbourtrust.co.uk/ trust/projects/projects_vaults.htm; Isherwood 2009, 28–36. See http://www.youtube.com/user/LissArchaeology/videos; Isherwood 2009, 36–44. Isherwood 2009. Isherwood 2012, 15. Oldham Rochdale HMR: [last accessed 12/05/2102] Lathoms 2008, 2. Lathoms 2008, 71 Lathams 2008, 2. Arrowsmith and Isherwood 2010. On the Dig Manchester Project, see Nevell this volume.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

You and Yours, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 12/4/2005. McNeil and Nevell 2005. Bell 2009; Isherwood 2009, 44–54. See http://www.rlhs.co.uk/new_page_9.htm; Thompson and Garrett 2008. Peter Connelly, pers. comm. Faulkner, Blair & Simpson 2006. Rapport 1986. See Clark 2006. Smith 2006, 264–5. Isherwood 2009, 227–31. Smith 2006, 29–34. Ahmad 2006; Munjeri 2004; Smith 2006, 252. Isherwood 2009, 227–31. Waterton & Smith 2009. Smith & Waterton 2009, 1. English Heritage 2010, 6–7.

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Bibliography Ahmad, Y. 2006, ‘The scope and definitions of heritage: from tangible to intangible’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 12(3), 292–300. Arrowsmith, P. and Isherwood, R.A. 2010, ‘Kirkholt Housing Market Renewal Zone, Rochdale – An archaeological desk-based assessment’, unpublished report for Vision for Kirkholt. Bell, S. 2009, Dig Manchester. Northenden Mill Community Excavations 2005 to 2006, Manchester: University of Manchester Archaeology Unit. Available at: [last accessed 10/2/2012]. Clark, K. (ed.) 2006, Capturing the Public Value of Heritage – The Proceedings of the London Conference, Swindon: English Heritage. Cohen, A.P. (ed.) 1986, Symbolising Boundaries – Identity and Diversity in British Cultures, Manchester: Manchester University Press. English Heritage 2010, PPS5 Planning for the Historic Environment: Historic Environment Planning Practice Guide. Available at: [last accessed 2/3/2012]. Faulkner, N., Blair, I.M.G. & Simpson, F. 2006, ‘Shoreditch Park: the archaeology of the Blitz’, Current Archaeology 201, 486–92. Isherwood, R.A. 2009, ‘Community Archaeology. A study of the conceptual, political and practical issues surrounding community archaeology in the United Kingdom today’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Manchester. Isherwood, R.A. 2012, ‘Community archaeology: conceptual and political issues’, in Moshenska. & Dhanjal 2012, 6–17. Lathams 2008, Oldham Rochdale HMR Pathfinder Heritage Assessment – Kirkholt Final Report. March 96 2008, Lathams, in partnership with Rochdale MBC, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing and Oldham Rochdale Partners in Action. McNeil, R. & Nevell, M. 2005, ‘I dig Moston’, Current Archaeology 198, 310. Moshenska, G. & Dhanjal, S. (eds), 2012. Community Archaeology –­­ Themes, Methods and Practices, Oxford: Oxbow Munjeri, D. 2004, ‘Tangible and intangible heritage: from difference to convergence’, Museum International 56(1–2), 12–20. Olick, J.K. & Robbins, J. 1998, ‘Social memory studies: from “collective memory” to the historical sociology of mnemonic practices’, Annual Review of Sociology 24, 105–40. Rapport, N.J. 1986, ‘Cedar High Farm: ambiguous symbolic boundary. An essay in anthropological intuition’, in Cohen 1986, 40–9. Samuel, R. 1994, Theatres of Memory. Volume 1 – Past and Present Contemporary Culture, London: Verso. Smith, L. 2006, Uses of Heritage, Abingdon: Routledge. Smith, L. & Waterton, E. 2009, ‘Introduction: heritage and archaeology’, in Waterton & Smith 2009, 1–8. Thompson, A & Garrett, R. 2008, ‘Royton Hall Archaeological Excavations 2004–7’, unpublished report by University of Manchester Archaeology Unit. Available at: [last accessed 9/2/2012]. Waterton, E. & Smith, L. (eds) 2009, Taking Archaeology out of Heritage, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Part Two Engaging the Past, Engaging the Present

Politics, Publics, and Professional Pragmatics: Re-Envisioning Archaeological Practice in Northern Ireland Audrey Horning Recent developments in the realm of public and community archaeologies have stressed the need for plurality, diversity, and a lessening of archaeological authority. The mandate for such community engagement is often the well-meaning desire to redress historical imbalances and injustices through prioritising the interests of certain constituencies. Yet the ethics of deciding what history will be prioritised and whose voice should be heard are often left unconsidered in our haste to demonstrate the social value of archaeology. In Northern Ireland, a host of anniversaries relating to the still contested past of the early 17th-century Plantation period lend an unavoidable immediacy to archaeological engagements. Drawing from several recent fieldwork projects, the parameters of a critical, publically-engaged Plantation-period archaeology are considered. The challenges of developing public archaeology in Northern Ireland, where both communities (Catholic and Protestant) have equal voices if oppositional historical memories, has the potential to critically inform the practice of ethical community engagement in other locales. Introduction: the past in the present

Public and community archaeologies clearly have their deepest roots in places characterised by structural, societal inequities, and in situations where archaeologists have sought to be inclusive. As such, community archaeology has been generally theorised within a postcolonial, post-processual framework whereby we as scholars and trained professionals question our own position and our right to talk about the past of ‘other people’, often disenfranchised people. As characterised by Gemma Tully, the principal rationale for community archaeology is that ‘better archaeology can be achieved when more diverse voices are involved in the interpretation of the past.’1 The best of these new inclusive archaeologies involve serious, long-term collaborative partnerships and strive to balance diverse opinions and hoped-for outcomes. The worst of these efforts serve only as ill-framed apologetics or patronising box-ticking exercises: ‘have you identified your stakeholders?’ The model of asymmetry and apology that characterises many exercises in public archaeology, particularly as they have developed in North America, is usually dependent upon the perceived need to right historic wrongs or challenge accepted narratives. There

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are a number of well-published examples, such as the Colorado Coal Field project of the Ludlow Collective, who consciously employ the archaeology associated with the 1914 ‘Ludlow Massacre’ – the killing of striking miners and their families by the United States National Guard – as a means of promoting workers’ rights in the present.2 Another example is the ongoing University of Denver project which is excavating the remains of Amache, the World War II Japanese internment camp in south-eastern Colorado. This project incorporates former internees and emphasises public presentation and the reconstruction of selected elements of the camp, such as the guard tower. The Amache project is overtly geared towards ensuring that the practice and legacy of Japanese internment is not forgotten. In the words of the project director Bonnie Clark, artefacts from Amache represent ‘physical evidence of the often very personal cost of “national security”’, and as such ‘these remains retain a particular vibrancy as touchstones in current debates’.3 Similarly, a Baltimore-area public archaeology programme aimed to highlight a working-class history the investigators viewed as underappreciated: ‘by interpreting a little-known and even little-imagined history, archaeologists can help communities strengthen their identities and to populate an otherwise empty past.’4 Overshadowing all of these community projects in its political ramifications and global resonances is the New York African Burial Ground project of the 1990s, where the local African American community took extreme measures to ‘seize intellectual control’ of the excavation, presentation and commemoration of the historic burial ground where thousands of enslaved Africans and African Americans had been interred in the 17th and 18th centuries.5 All of the above cited projects provided the means for archaeologists to use their archaeological research to address broader societal concerns, thereby satisfying themselves that indeed, there is a use for archaeology. Such models of inclusion, and allowing ‘stakeholders’ to set the agenda, clearly work best in situations where the ‘authority’ and ‘professionalism’ of the archaeologist is questioned or viewed as a hindrance to encouraging interest in the past, and where more ‘democratic’, community-led practice is an agreed-upon goal. Such efforts often employ the term ‘emancipatory’, and celebrate the wresting of control from the ‘heritage establishment’. As characterised by American archaeologist Paul Shackel, this new approach is part of ‘a growing movement to make heritage sites places that support moral relativism . . . where differences are voices and where a platform for reconciliation can be achieved.’6 A platform for reconciliation is clearly an admirable goal, and one sorely needed in Northern Ireland, the focus of this chapter. However, what is the appropriate response when the logic of exclusion and emancipation is far from clear? Few would question the choices made in Colorado to prioritise the story of Japanese internees or massacred union workers and their families. The power asymmetry in need of balancing is self-evident. But in Northern Ireland, society, and by extension historical memories, is dichotomous – divided between roughly equivalent populations that self-identify as either Catholic, heirs to the Gaels, or Protestant, heirs to the English and Scots planters of the 17th century. Furthermore, and despite the general equivalency of voices, both communities, Catholic and Protestant, self-identify as oppressed minorities.7 So when our profession is encouraging us to relinquish authority to promote local engagement, how should we respond when local communities instead seek professional archaeological authority as both a cultural value and as a



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means of overcoming community division? Most importantly, and this is not a new question, how do we balance our own responsibilities to the past and to the present in our rush to make archaeology meaningful in the contemporary world? For all of its ethical and practical challenges, or more likely because of those challenges, community archaeology in Northern Ireland has the potential to significantly influence practice elsewhere in the United Kingdom and beyond. For the most part, British archaeologists have not been particularly concerned with demonstrating the public value of archaeological research in terms of redressing past injustices or in highlighting forgotten or challenging histories. Put bluntly, fewer histories rooted in local sites are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as being anywhere near as overtly contentious as the New York African Burial Ground or the struggle for indigenous rights in places like the Americas and Australasia. By and large, British archaeologists have not been faced with many threats to their professional authority or integrity by marginalised or disenfranchised communities. Instead, working with avocational local history or fieldwalking groups and engaging with metal detectorists through the Portable Antiquities Scheme, have served as the primary modes of community archaeology. Indeed, as discovered by Faye Simpson and Howard Williams, a bigger challenge to community archaeology in Britain may be the sense that the past is not particularly important in the present. A project run by Simpson and Williams in Shoreditch, East London, was clearly a successful community effort in that local residents became very involved with the summer excavation, which focused upon a neighbourhood that had been destroyed by German bombing in World War II. Scores of local children and adults assisted on the excavations and enjoyed the attention brought by the television programme, Time Team. However, once the trenches were filled in, few volunteered for the behind-the-scenes work with no evidence that the dig had sparked any continuing interest in researching local history. From the neighbourhood point of view, the project was successful because it provided a focus for community activity and served as a mechanism to encourage new friendships and community cohesion. From the standpoint of the archaeologists, the project was unsuccessful because it did not particularly change anybody’s perspective towards the value (or lack thereof ) of archaeology and by extension, the value of archaeologists.8 By contrast, getting people to see a connection between the past and the present has never been a problem in Northern Ireland, nor has much about the past been particularly forgotten. Rather, the problem lies in how the past is actively remembered. History and memory in Northern Ireland

In recent years, a host of anniversaries relating to the still-contested past of the early 17th century have lent an unavoidable immediacy to archaeological engagements in Northern Ireland. These anniversaries relate to the Ulster Plantation, which was a scheme implemented by James I (VI) in which political control over the north of Ireland was to be attained and maintained through the importation of loyal British settlers, most of whom were Protestant, and include the 400th anniversaries of the 1606 Hamilton and Montgomery settlement of the Ards peninsula (outside of the formal Ulster Plantation), and the 1607 Flight of the Earls, when Gaelic leaders Hugh O’Neill, Rory O’Donnell and

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their followers sailed to the continent, leading Ulster bereft of a strong native leadership and paving the way for Plantation. The year 2009 marked the official creation of the Ulster Plantation scheme itself, while other recent and current anniversaries relate to the taking up of grants and the 1613 granting of town charters. Local authorities are charged with marking these events in a society where there is no agreed historical narrative and where divergent understandings are held by two groups of roughly equivalent power. Despite the functioning of the Northern Ireland Assembly, including the devolution of policing and powers of justice from the UK government, and the overall ‘normalisation’ of life since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the Troubles, which began in 1968 and claimed over 3,200 lives, are not wholly resolved. Between March 2009 and May 2010, according to the Independent Monitoring Commission, there were four paramilitary murders committed by dissident Republicans; while the number of Loyalist assaults increased by 88 per cent. A more recent murder has been attributed to the Loyalist UVF, while March 2011 saw the killing of a Catholic police officer Ronan Kerr by a car bomb claimed by Republican dissidents.9 Since January 2010, dissident Republican groups have been linked to over fifty bomb incidents and over thirty shooting attacks, leading the Northern Ireland chief constable, Matt Baggott, to warn that such groups have the capacity to carry out an attack on the scale of the 1998 Omagh bombing, the worst atrocity of the Troubles.10 Further evidence for tension can be found in the increasing number of ‘peace lines’ being constructed to separate communities in conflict. There are now 88 such walls, as opposed to only 29 in 1994 when the ceasefire was declared.11 Finally, revelations published in 2010 about the 1972 Claudy bombing, and the release of the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday keep the events of the past in the forefront. Against that backdrop, how does one approach the commemoration of such provocative anniversaries? Commemorating the past in the present? Approaching the anniversaries

Historical memories of early modern colonialism and British Atlantic expansion vary widely depending on local context. In 2007, Americans celebrated the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown, England’s first permanent New World colony, with events that overtly linked the site’s archaeology to the emergence of democracy. Considerable efforts were made by Virginia’s native peoples to employ the anniversary as a tool to publicise the Federal recognition bid of six tribes, yet the symbolic value of Jamestown as the wellspring of American democracy overwhelmed their efforts. Even the concomitant irony of a celebratory visit from Queen Elizabeth II, highlighting the achievements of Anglo-American society, was lost on most who attended.12 On the other side of the Atlantic, however, communities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland approached the 400th anniversary of the 1607 Flight of the Earls rather more cautiously. Unlike the emphasis on the actual site of Jamestown as the material manifestation of the process of becoming American, the traditionally-remembered location of the departure of the Gaelic lords, Rathmullan Priory in Co. Donegal, did not feature in commemoration activities. The site itself is physically problematic. Founded in the early 16th century by the MacSweeney Fanad as a Carmelite friary, the complex



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Figure 6.1: Rathmullan Priory.

was attacked and held by English forces in the 1590s. In the early 17th century, the priory (Fig. 6.1) was converted into a dwelling for the Church of Ireland Bishop of Raphoe, Andrew Knox. Architecturally, the ivy-swathed remains speak more eloquently of the defeat and departure of the Gaels than they do of the power and influence of the MacSweeney Fanad. That such reminders may not be locally welcome is implied by the decay of the structure and its garbage-strewn interior. Knox himself was a divisive figure who, prior to his appointment in Ireland, had attempted to impose Protestantism on the Catholic lords of the Scottish Isles through the statutes of Iona and was known for being ‘combative and quick-tempered’.13 Most Flight of the Earls’ anniversary events were instead held in the nearby town of Letterkenny.14 While the site of Jamestown anchors national narratives, the ambiguity of Rathmullan Priory prevents any simplistic symbolic use. Arguably, the inherent tension between nationalist and unionist versions of Irish history could yield a deeper consideration of historical realities than will ever emerge from the commodified narratives of colonial America. By contrast to the muted acknowledgement of the Flight of the Earls anniversary, the commemoration of the 1606 Scottish Protestant settlement of the Ards by the Ulster Scots Agency overtly sought common ground with the Jamestown anniversary: ‘As our American cousins head towards their own “Jamestown 400” celebrations in 2007, it is right that Ulster-Scots celebrate the success of the Hamilton and Montgomery Settlement of 1606.’15 According to their literature, the lands of the Ards peninsula were unimproved, empty wastelands despite the fact that archaeological research makes it

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very clear that the lands were not devoid of their native inhabitants, who themselves had left a considerable mark on the landscape through centuries of farming and a highly developed maritime economy.16 Because this part of County Down has a Protestant majority with strong cultural ties to Scotland, it is unsurprising that the Hamilton and Montgomery history is prioritised. This would seem to be entirely in keeping with inclusive, non-authoritarian approaches to public archaeology that, in a ‘Big Society’ kind of way, asks the public to set the agenda. This particular agenda prioritises an exclusive past which obscures elements of the archaeological landscape, but it does so in the service of an interest group that understands itself as the kind of threatened minority that in other places might attract the support of public archaeologists. The forthcoming (at the time of writing) 2013 town charter anniversaries have also precipitated a range of local activities. The most proactive so far is the successful bid by the city of Derry~Londonderry to be the first UK City of Culture in 2013. This is no mean feat, considering that many in the city would not self-identify or choose to be part of the United Kingdom. The city bid overtly traded on its convoluted history and its related ‘heritage assets’. What role will actually be played by critical engagements with the pasts of Derry~Londonderry remains to be seen, in so far as the primary goal is economic development. However, there is strong interest in local history, as attested by over-subscribed Plantation site visits organised by the City Council and funded through European peace and reconciliation money. However, it is clear that not all residents of Derry~Londonderry are happy with the ‘UK City of Culture’ designation. One negative editorial comment came in the form of a dissident Republican bomb detonated outside of the City of Culture offices in January of 2011.17 Belfast faces a different challenge for 2013, insofar as its pre-plantation history is little known or appreciated. In November 2009, Robert Heslip of the Belfast City Council organised a symposium to discuss how to mark the charter anniversary. The event, opened by the Sinn Féin Deputy Lord Mayor and facilitated by the BBC presenter William Crawley, was attended by a self-selected cross-community audience. The day featured a panel discussion following four talks: one on the challenges of teaching history in Northern Ireland by Professor Tony Gallagher of Queen’s University Belfast, one about the process of commemorating Liverpool’s eight hundredth anniversary by Professor John Belchem of the University of Liverpool, a presentation about the Jamestown commemoration from the perspective of the Virginia Indians given by Danielle Moretti-Langholtz and Buck Woodard of the College of William and Mary, and my own talk on the archaeology of the Ulster Plantation. In my discussion I considered the origins of Belfast as a medieval stronghold, noting the recent work of Belfast colleagues Ruairí Ó Baoill and Philip MacDonald that consciously aims to incorporate the Gaelic past of the settlement.18 Moving beyond Belfast, I discussed the archaeological and documentary evidence related to a range of Plantation-period sites, focusing particularly for evidence of significant daily cultural interactions between the Irish and the incoming British planters. Such evidence includes domestic assemblages from Plantation sites that incorporate a range of locally-made Irish ceramics; a documented reliance upon Irish forms of architecture in direct contradiction of Plantation regulations; and continuity in the use of Gaelic place names and settlement patterning. Another lesser known story focused upon the role of the Catholic



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Scots who settled along the north coast of Co. Antrim as part of the unofficial plantation on the lands granted to the Catholic Earl of Antrim, Randall MacDonnell, by King James I(VI). My aim was to highlight the capacity of the archaeological record to surprise; to contradict and complicate historical memories about the stark and absolute nature of early modern British expansion into Ulster. Public archaeology talks rarely change lives, and it is likely that few of the stories I told lingered long in the minds of the attendees. Most of the 1613 symposium participants were probably far more interested in the practicalities of planning their own anniversary events than in the revelations of archaeology, and understandably they paid greater attention to the words of panel member and chief executive of the Community Relations Council, Duncan Morrow, whose organisation serves as a significant source of funding for cross-community activities. I left the event questioning whether a few tales of pots and pipes could contribute much to contemporary debate. My sense of despair was dispelled during the course of a follow-on 1613 event organised by Helen Perry and Gemma Reid of the Coleraine-based Causeway Museum Service.19 This 1613 anniversary programme involved a one and a half day tour of Plantation-period sites in Counties Antrim and Londonderry attended by approximately thirty members of the public and led by the archaeologists Nick Brannon and Colin Breen and me, with discussion sessions over dinner on the first day and at lunch on the second. Some of the stops on the tour included Colin Breen’s excavations at Dunluce Castle, where unexpected evidence of the role of the Catholic Earl of Antrim Randall MacDonnell as a Plantation entrepreneur is being unearthed; Coleraine, where Nick Brannon recreated the haphazard nature of its early Plantation development; the Mercers’ Company village of Movanagher where my excavations uncovered a vernacular Irish-style dwelling in the midst of the Plantation settlement; the medieval priory at Dungiven where Nick Brannon unearthed a forgotten Plantation castle; the enigmatic Goodland/Ballyuchan settlement on the north coast of Co. Antrim that I believe is likely associated with Catholic planters from Islay; and Limavady, the site of a medieval O’Cahan castle and early 17th-century Plantation bawn which is the focus of my current research and discussed further below. Understandings of the character of late medieval Gaelic life in Co. Antrim were considerably complicated by a visit to Ballylough castle, where discussions focused upon the rivalry between the MacDonnells and the MacQuillans and the manner in which both clans (one Scottish and one of probable Welsh origin) presented themselves as Gaelic. Continuity from the 17th-century London Company Plantations was emphasised by the lunch hosted by the Irish Society at Cutts House overlooking the River Bann fisheries first granted to the Irish Society by the Crown as part of the Londonderry Plantation in 1609. At the end of the day, archaeologist Thomas McErlean of the University of Ulster presented a talk that emphasized some of the themes of the day – that archaeology of the Plantation period was by its very nature an archaeology of relevance to both communities. Feedback from this seemingly ordinary public archaeology exercise was surprising and sobering. Of the 26 participants who filled out comment sheets (11 self-identified as Protestant, 5 as Catholic and 10 declined to name a community affiliation), a majority of 22 felt that the event had changed their perception of the Ulster Plantation. When

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asked ‘What one thing stands out in your memory that you will tell other people about?’ one respondent stated ‘the hidden nature of the physical evidence and how it challenges our pre-conceived ideas’, another noted that ‘we need to revisit our understanding (preconceived ideas) about the whole process of the plantation’, while a third reflected that ‘there are people with real stories behind the guise of a history which has been contorted by personal views’. While I might question the value of a simple series of site tours, one participant was far more optimistic, suggesting that ‘similar tours in future for local people will be useful in promoting better society as a whole’, while another spoke directly about the role of archaeologists: ‘how by involving archaeologists they can exert such influence’.20 Influence implies responsibility. However much I may question my own authority, however much I may be sympathetic to a public archaeology that encourages diverse voices and prioritises local interests, my academic knowledge of Plantation-period archaeology places me in an influential position. Rather than questioning my place at the table and my right to comment, it would instead appear that I have a responsibility to comment, and in the context of Northern Ireland, a responsibility as a broker and a facilitator. In a divided society, there are clear advantages to being perceived as external. History matters? Dichotomous approaches to the past

So why did our stories about Plantation sites so surprise tour participants? Anyone engaging in a re-envisioning of the history of the Ulster Plantation and of the relations between Britain and Ireland must recognise how little many people in Northern Ireland, even those so interested as to sign up for a symposium or coach tour, actually know about the intricacies of 16th- and 17th-century history. This lack of understanding, even about sites and places that have been an influential part of a local community’s sense of place and identity, can be attributed in part to the nature of history teaching in the province. Before the introduction of the Northern Ireland curriculum in 1991, there was no standard approach to teaching history. Previously, Catholic schools were more likely to utilise history texts produced in the Republic of Ireland, while Protestant schools emphasised British history.21 Older people educated in the Protestant system acknowledge their ignorance of Irish and Ulster history: ‘In school I was told about the Tower of London but never Dunluce Castle; I heard mention of Stonehenge but never anything about Newgrange. I went through the Northern Ireland school system and came out knowing next to nothing about my own country, the whole focus was on English history.’22 The past unwillingness of schools to confront ‘local’ histories could be seen to presuppose the subversive potential of those histories. Even now with a national curriculum that encourages a balanced approach to history teaching, responsibility still devolves to individual teachers to challenge student understandings. In the estimation of Alison Kitson, the curriculum remains ‘aspirational’ as it depends upon the willingness and ability of teachers to engage with the more problematic elements. Furthermore, by the time students reach their teens, strong community associations have often already been formed. One can hardly blame teachers who may not be comfortable challenging accepted interpretations.23 Even when teachers do endeavour to present the complexities of Ulster history and identity, it can be very diffi-



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cult for students to reconcile new perspectives with those learned at home and in the community. Consider the response of one West Belfast pupil to the question of whether or not school history might change personal views: ‘If you are a deep down Protestant or a deep down Catholic, you’re not going to say, well maybe in front of people, maybe they were wrong, maybe they were right, you’ll keep that yourself, but you’ll still be as strong Protestant or Catholic at the end of it.’24 While the numbers of integrated schools have more than doubled since 1997, they still account for only 6 per cent of the total number. Thus, the overwhelming majority of children are still educated in either controlled majority-Protestant or maintained majority-Catholic schools. Even in integrated schools, an overemphasis on balance can rob the study of history of its contemporary power: ‘everyone had their reasons’. The results of a government survey on history teaching in Northern Ireland concluded that ‘the systematic linkage of the past and the present is not a sufficiently strong aspect of history teaching in Northern Ireland. It is considered instead largely in relation to a particular historical topic or issue, set within a defined chronological context, rather than as a matter in its own right to demonstrate how the past has influenced the present and might influence the future.’25 Arguably, the failure of schools to adequately address contested histories makes public and community archaeology all the more important insofar as we can reach out to diverse, intergenerational audiences in a non-threatening way. Exploring community archaeology in Northern Ireland

The evidence emerging from Plantation-period sites contradicts today’s dichotomous understandings of the period through revealing the incomplete and chaotic nature of the Plantation process and highlighting the ambiguity in relations between natives and newcomers. Lessons for the present can certainly be drawn from this past, but how should such a process be structured? One significant advantage enjoyed by archaeologists working in Northern Ireland is the tremendous public appetite for heritage and local history, borne of the intimate connection between past and present in structuring individual and community identities. At present there are close to 100 local history societies in Northern Ireland, for a population of just under 1.8 million, and a host of locally-produced journals.26 Unlike the Shoreditch project lamented by Simpson and Williams, community interest in local archaeology is guaranteed. By contrast to the rest of the United Kingdom, in Northern Ireland archaeological excavations can only be carried out by licensed professionals. Echoing the very strong heritage legislation in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland’s laws concomitantly provide protection for archaeological resources but discourage community involvement. In the last two years, however, efforts have been made to test the potential of a more engaged approach to exploring the province’s Plantation-era archaeology. The Dunluce village project, directed by Colin Breen of the University of Ulster and supported by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, provides a compelling example of the potential for public archaeology in Northern Ireland. During the field seasons of 2009 and 2010, local school and community groups were invited to take part in the excavation of the early 17th-century village in a field to the west of the castle, one of Northern

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Figure 6.2: Dunluce Castle.

Ireland’s ‘flagship’ monuments (Fig.6.2). As expressed by Breen, ‘it is great to see that archaeologists no longer perceive their work as being elitist and somewhat removed from the public. Instead most projects will open up their sites and in turn begin to remove the mystique that surrounds the subject.’27 In addition to removing professional mystique, engagement with the physicality and surprises of the past can facilitate difficult conversations. Some of the surprising histories emerging from the Dunluce soil likely to provoke such conversations include the manner in which the Catholic Randall MacDonnell, named Earl of Antrim by his fellow Scot King James I(VI), emulated the economic activities of other early modern, predominately English, entrepreneurs. MacDonnell designed the town outside of his castle as a commercial hub for the north coast, and redesigned his manor house after the prevailing fashions of the day. MacDonnell also actively planted his lands with settlers, most of whom were Scottish but not all of whom were Protestants. Those who participated in the excavation must reconcile those revelations with their own senses of history, framing a new understanding through a process of remembering and forgetting. Another project sponsored by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency similarly aims to engage the public in the process of reconsidering a site long associated with the upheavals of the Plantation. This site is the medieval settlement known as Limavady, once the seat of the O’Cahan clan who held sway over the lands that became the Londonderry Plantation. Situated a few miles from the contemporary settlement of Limavady, itself descended from the Plantation town of Newtown Limavady, the site is located within the Roe Valley Country Park and includes a later medieval O’Cahan tower house, demolished some time in the 18th century, and of subsequent developments by an English servitor, Sir Thomas Phillips, founder of the nearby Plantation



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Figure 6.3: A school group visits the site of the O’Cahan (and Phillips) castle in the Roe Valley Country Park.

town of Newtown Limavady. In 2009 the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) supported test excavations at the site to determine the survival of deposits and the potential for further work. Testing the interest and potential engagement of the local communities was also a core element of the project. Outreach activities were fairly standard and ‘top down’ and included a daily blog – surprisingly the first for a Northern Ireland excavation – school visits (Fig. 6.3), radio, television and newspaper interviews, and most importantly casual conversations with the many local residents who use the park for recreation but who would not necessarily seek out a ‘heritage experience’. Enough was found archaeologically to support further research, and the development of a community archaeology project in cooperation with the Causeway Museum Service, NIEA, and local schools.28 What conversations will the archaeology provoke? Local understandings of the site emphasise the O’Cahan history, with little attention paid to the role of Phillips (Fig. 6.3). Such apparent resistance to the Plantation narrative stands as the exact opposite of the situation in the Ards, where the Plantation history of the Hamilton and Montgomery settlements takes precedence over the medieval history. But like Dunluce, more complicated tales emerge from Limavady. For example, in 1602, Donal Ballach O’Cahan gave his allegiance to the English Crown in exchange for a knighthood and title to his lands. Rather than standing as a resolute defender of a traditional way of life, O’Cahan emerges as supremely pragmatic. The English system of landholding provided him with relief from the traditional Gaelic practice that required him to pay tribute to his overlord, Hugh O’Neill. Ultimately, O’Cahan’s efforts to manipulate the English system failed, as he was arrested for treason (without grounds) in 1608 and his ‘chief seat’ at Limavady was granted to Sir Thomas Phillips.

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Phillips re-edified the castle, constructed a manor house with formal gardens, a fish pond to store salmon (a lucrative commodity) and constructed a new Plantation town. However, Phillips’ experience of Plantation is not the basis for triumphalist Protestant history. Far from evicting the O’Cahan tenantry, Phillips was reliant on his Irish tenants. Documents attest to the presence of Irish in Newtown Limavady, while assemblages from the site of the O’Cahan/Phillips castle and bawn include Irish hand-built cooking pot fragments, wheel-thrown, gravel tempered pottery from North Devon, and English and Dutch pipestem fragments, hinting at a significant degree of material exchange.29 More than likely, the Irish near the castle stayed in place while witnessing the transition from O’Cahan to Phillips in the castle. How were they to know how the early 17th century would be remembered in 400 years time? Without such foreknowledge, it is debatable how much of their daily lives depended upon the identity of the owner of the castle. Just as they couldn’t predict the future, nor could Phillips. The planter died bankrupt in London in 1636 having spent his money in suing the London Companies for dereliction of their duties in meeting their obligations to the Londonderry Plantation.30 Archaeological evidence from Plantation sites like Limavady, Dunluce, Dungiven and Movanagher provides support for the crafting of a ‘useable past’ that emphasises processes of syncretism and hybridity, with clear lessons for the present. But as with the carefully balanced school history curricula, such a constructed past runs the risk of overemphasising the positive and obscuring the rather more complicated experiences of individuals and groups in the past. Acknowledging the concomitant existence of the violence and inequality in the Plantation period complicates the task of challenging historical memories, but is fundamentally more honest than presenting past people as pawns of the forces of colonialism, or as pawns to promote a contemporary agenda. It is certainly more honest than the decision by the newly reopened Ulster Museum to avoid any provocative, and therefore informative, displays about The Troubles. The current Troubles exhibit, ‘From Plantation to Power-Sharing’, is relegated to a dark corner of the museum. The gallery features black and white plywood house gables sporting stark text, augmented with black and white videos showing footage of disconnected events in random sequence. The exhibit text itself is basic and eventcentred: Wikipedia does The Troubles. No effort is made to consider the causes of The Troubles, nor is there any sense of chronology. The title of the exhibit intentionally links the Plantation period to the present, but this connection is left unremarked in the exhibit text, which begins with the events of 1968. The reliance on text and imagery implies that there is no material culture of The Troubles (a fact belied by the museum’s own stores), with the colour scheme suggesting that somehow the history of The Troubles can be understood as black and white. The greyscale sanitises bombs and bloodshed, denying the lived experiences of Northern Irish visitors by draining the colour from their memories. An apologetic statement opens the exhibit: ‘The gallery is arranged around particular events and themes. Some of them may be upsetting – most remain contentious. We acknowledge the sensitivity and deeply held views about the issues reflected here . . . We welcome feedback.’ Feedback has focused on the museum’s lack of courage. One visitor described the display as ‘a cop-out’ to the Irish Times,31 while the Guardian reviewer Jonathan Jones dismissed the exhibit as ‘small, muted, and evasive’.32 For Belfast reviewer and Linenhall librarian John Gray, the exhibit exemplified



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the failure of the new museum to deliver on its educational mission: ‘how the Museum now treats “The Troubles” in the light of past criticism of evasion has to be something of a litmus test. Here a museum exhibition that does not include a single original artefact fails at first base. Visitor centre style wall panels bombard us with facts at the expense of illumination. Different panels tell us that The Troubles started in October 1968, or, alternatively, in 1969, and none of them explore why The Troubles started at all.’33 Conclusion

Black and white-washing of the complexities of The Troubles and its convoluted roots in the Ulster Plantation and in the warfare, disruptions and migrations of the intervening four hundred years is not likely to alter anyone’s understanding of the past, present and future. Ultimately, sharing the convoluted history and ambiguous material evidence gives people the opportunity to decide for themselves what matters most about the events and human experiences of Plantation. While some may never wish to be challenged, it is only through challenging expected histories and the known linkages between past and present that the future, and its connection to historical legacies, can be realigned and re-envisioned. Those of us fortunate enough to spend our working lives unearthing and considering unknown, forgotten, unwanted or surprising histories have a responsibility to share those revelations, even as we cannot claim or aim to control the manner of their reception. In terms of community archaeology and reflexive practice, there are clearly cases where judiciously employing an element of the authority inherent in our role as professionals may be exactly what is required to foster those ‘diverse voices’ that can help us achieve a ‘better archaeology’. In 2009, Mark Pluciennik challenged archaeologists to admit the ultimately selfserving nature of many of our fervent efforts to engage with the public when he wrote that archaeology ‘is neither particularly useful nor necessary, but it is intellectual fun’.34 I agree that archaeology is fun, and I am equally cynical about the motivations underlying the recent flurry of interest in public archaeology. However, I chose to believe that there is more to archaeology than saving my job and having a good time. Consciously striving to balance our responsibilities to the past and to the present should allow for an archaeology that is neither useless nor unnecessary. But in the end, we all have to answer the question of ‘what use is archaeology’ for ourselves.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Tully 2007, 158. McGuire & Reckner 2005. Clark 2011. Gadsby & Chidester 2011, 111. LaRoche & Blakey 1997. Shackel 2011, 5. See discussion in Nic Craith 2002.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

Simpson & Williams 2008. ‘Ronan Kerr car bomb was fatal tragedy for Omagh’ . Kane 2010. McDonald 2009. Grasso & Wulf 2008.

108 13. 14.

15.

16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

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Kirk 2004. One exception was the 2007 conference of the Irish Post-Medieval Archaeology Group, which was held in Rathmullan in April. Ulster Scots Agency O’Keeffe 2009. ‘Derry Bomb Attack linked to Award.’ Belfast Telegraph, 17 January 2011. On 27 March, police defused a 50kg car bomb on Bishop Street in Derry, which has also been attributed to dissident Republicans. MacDonald 2006; Ó Baoill 2006, 2007. This event, and my reaction to it, is also discussed in Horning 2011. Causeway Museum Service 2009. Hargie and Dickson 2003, 15–36.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

Anonymous ex-UDA member, cited in Hall 2008, 7. Kitson 2007. As interviewed by McCully & Barton 2009, 40. Education and Training Inspectorate 2006. The 2009 population of Northern Ireland was 1,788,896 . Dunluce excavation blog http://blog.ni-environment.gov.uk/NIEA/?page_id=82. Horning 2009. Horning 2009. Moody 1939. Meredith 2009. Jones 2010. Gray 2010. Pluciennik 2009, 153.

Bibliography Casella, E.C. & Symonds, J. (eds) 2005, Industrial Archaeology: Future Directions, New York: Springer. Cole, E.A. (ed.) 2007, Teaching the Violent Past, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. Croucher, S. & Weiss, L. (eds) 2011, The Archaeology of Capitalism in Colonial Contexts, New York: Springer. Education and Training Inspectorate 2006, History Matters: Summary of main findings [last accessed 09/10/2012]. Gadsby, D.A. & Chidester, R.C. 2011, ‘Heritage and “Those People”’, Historical Archaeology 45:1, 111. Grasso, C. & Wulf, K. 2008, ‘Nothing says “democracy” like a visit from the Queen: reflections on Empire and Nation in early American histories’, Journal of American History 95(3), 764–81. Gray, J. 2010, ‘Ulster Museum’, Culture Northern Ireland, 13 October 2010 [last accessed 09/10/2012]. Hall, M. 2008, Divided by History? A grassroots exploration, Belfast: Island Publications. Hargie, O. & Dickson, D. 2003, ‘Putting it all together: central themes from researching the Troubles’, in Hargie & Dickson (eds) 2003, 15–36. Hargie, O. & Dickson, D. (eds) 2003, Researching the Troubles: Social Science Perspectives on the Northern Ireland Conflict, Edinburgh: Mainstream Press. Horning, A. 2011, ‘Subduing tendencies? Colonialism, capitalism, and comparative Atlantic archaeologies,’ in Croucher & Weiss (eds) 2011, 65–84. Horning, A., Ó Baoill, R., Donnelly, C. & Logue, P. (eds) 2007, The Archaeology of Post-Medieval Ireland c. 1550–1750, Dublin: Wordwell. Jones, J. 2010, Jonathan Jones on Art blog, 10 May 2010 [last accessed 09/10/2012]. Kane, S. 2010, ‘IRA hardliners “want to make a kill by the end of the month” as Northern Ireland police chief warns of another Omagh’, Daily Mail, 27 August 2010 [last accessed 27/08/2010]. Kirk, J. 2004, ‘Knox, Andrew (d. 1633)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, [last accessed 13 April 2011]. Kitson, A. 2007, ‘History teaching and reconciliation in Northern Ireland’, in Cole (ed.) 2007, 123–54. LaRoche, C. & Blakey, M. 1997, ‘Seizing intellectual power: the dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground’, Historical Archaeology 31(3), 84–106. MacDonald, P. 2006, ‘Medieval Belfast considered’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology 65, 29–48. McCully, A. & Barton, K. 2009, ‘When history teaching really matters: understanding the intervention of School History on students’ neighbourhood learning in Northern Ireland’, International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research 8(1), 28–46. McDonald, H. 2009, ‘Bridge over Troubles Water’, The Guardian 29 July 2009. McGuire, R.H. & Reckner, P. 2005, ‘Building a working class archaeology: the Colorado Coal Field War Project’ in Casella & Symonds (eds) 2005, 217–42. Meredith, F. 2009 ‘Minimal troubles at the Ulster Museum’, Irish Times 10 October 2009. Moody, T.W. 1939, ‘Sir Thomas Phillips of Limavady, Servitor’, Irish Historical Studies 1(3), 251–72. Nic Craith, M. 2002, Plural Identities Singular Narratives: the Case of Northern Ireland, New York: Bergahn Books. Ó Baoill, R. 2006, ‘The urban archaeology of Belfast: a review of the evidence’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology 65, 8–19. Ó Baoill, R. 2007, ‘Carrickfergus and Belfast’, in Horning et al. (eds) 2007, 91–116. . Pluciennik, M. 2009, ‘Fortuitous and Wasteful Mitigations …’, Archaeological Dialogues 16(2), 152–7. Shackel, P. 2011, ‘Pursuing heritage, engaging communities’, Historical Archaeology 45(1), 1–9. Simpson, F. & Williams, H. 2008, ‘Evaluating community archaeology in the UK’, Pub lic Archaeology 7(2), 69–90. Tully, G. 2007, ‘Community archaeology: general methods and standards of practice.’ Public Archaeology 6(3), 155–87.

Unpublished sources

Causeway Museum Service 2009, ‘1613–2013: exploration of the Causeway comment sheet evaluation’, on file Causeway Museum Service office, Coleraine Borough Council. Clark, B. 2011, ‘When Empires collide: the archaeology of an internment camp’, Paper presented at the Theoretical Archaeology Group, Stanford, CA, May 2011. Horning, A. 2009, Preliminary report on Excavations at SMR LDY 016:003 Roe Valley Country Park, Late Medieval Castle and Plantation Bawn, September 2009, report submitted to the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, Belfast. O’Keeffe, J. 2008, `The Archaeology of the Later Historical Cultural Landscape in Northern Ireland: Developing Historic Landscape Investigation for the Management of the Archaeological Resource: A Case Study of the Ards, County Down’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Ulster, Faculty of Life and Health Sciences.

Archaeology, Politics and Politicians, or: Small p in a Big P World James Dixon This paper will demonstrate, through recent fieldwork and political engagements in Bristol, UK, the potential for a new kind of political archaeology, not based around supporting political parties or facilitating community engagement as ends in themselves, but around creating new kinds of knowledge that can be used to influence politics and politicians at the highest levels. Introduction: big P, small p

The phrase ‘archaeology is a political act’1 is oft repeated, but as with any such definitive phrase when used in academia each word of it has multiple meanings. For instance ‘is’. Well, it is not always. Archaeology can be a political act and archaeology sometimes is a political act, but this is not a universal truth. Likewise, the word archaeology can be taken different ways itself. There is academic archaeology, private sector archaeology, public archaeology, uses of archaeology in the heritage industry and so on, all intrinsically connected, but each with nuances different enough to render universality meaningless. In this paper, I wish to put forward the possibility that contemporary forms of archaeological thought and investigation can play a role in redefining the ways in which politicians engage with ordinary people and everyday situations. Rather than limiting themselves to facilitating community engagement or lobbying politicians in relation to heritage legislation, I will suggest that archaeologists can move towards using their unique perspectives on contemporary and historic environments to change the very way in which the connection between archaeology and politics is conceived, using archaeological investigation to understand the nature of contemporary politics and feeding this back into the wider system of policy making instead of merely working within the confines of existing heritage legislation. In essence, this paper is an attempt to move archaeology beyond its heritage uses, or perhaps more accurately, to complement archaeology’s heritage applications with a use of archaeological investigation as a contemporary political tool in its own right. To begin, I will briefly explain how I will define the phrase ‘archaeology is a political act’ before moving on to demonstrate the potential for my own rather strategic definition to be applied in trying to form a new political use for archaeological thought and practice.

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A political act At the Glasgow SPMA conference ‘Engaging the Recent Past’ that led directly to this volume, much reference was made to the difference between ‘big P politics’ and ‘small p politics’, the former being, loosely, party politics and inter-governmental politics and the latter a more popular expression of political feeling or the effects of political decisions ‘on the ground’. This seems a good place to start as it implies an insurmountable divide between politicians and ordinary people. The space of this divide is passively obtained, a given. But this is a clear falsehood as it is also the space of protest, voting, political media and many more expressions of a more messily dialectic relationship between what we may call, for the sake of argument, the top and the bottom. If we can suppose that the act of being political is more usefully conceived as one’s engagement with that central space, as opposed to merely getting by with one’s own kind,2 we can consider in what forms such engagement might usefully exist. It is not the aim of this paper to get bogged down in political theory. Instead, we might pick up on a single reference, to Chantal Mouffe,3 as she describes her dissatisfaction with liberal ontological politics. She writes of the general liberal notion of the middle-ground as a happy compromise between competing interests and concludes that this notion is of little worth and barely political. What Mouffe prefers is a central space of conflict, in which terms, places, people, pasts and futures are actively contested and where it is the conflict itself that reveals the nature of the politics in question, not any mediated solution. This is the politics of the activist versus the activist, never the politics of compromise. It requires contest between particular positions, not the ‘by committee’ development of normative behaviours. This effectively removes the disconnection between people and politicians, as both must defend and promote their standpoints on an equal footing. In many ways, Mouffe’s ideas coincide with existential writings, particularly from Sartre, on authenticity4 and the notion of any reality only being found in the conflicting ideas of those who perceive it differently. So, as the first step towards providing a working definition of the phrase which began this paper, we can take a political act to be an active engagement with other actively contested political positions although not necessarily an act of party political allegiance. Is Ought we to be consciously political as a matter of course? Perhaps no, as to say so would not give individuals the choice to not engage. Certainly, there are many ways in which archaeology can be or has been political, too numerous to list here and a large proportion too ponderous. How can archaeology be political in the sense described above? Simply, archaeological investigation, thought and practice can play a part in elucidating particular (potential) political positions. It is also, as will be discussed further below, in a unique position to look at the effects of political conflict on people and places over time, particularly in the recent past, although it is to be hoped that the perspectives derived from contemporary archaeologies would be applicable to all periods of history. The detail of these kinds of engagements will be returned to below as the real subject of this paper; suffice it to say that archaeology can be a very real part of activist politics – indeed it has a distinct role to play through its very nature.



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Archaeology As stated in the opening paragraph of this paper archaeology, in the broadest sense, takes many forms or, perhaps more pertinently, finds many applications beyond its primary definition as the study of the material remains of past societies. Two common applications of archaeological practice are in community archaeology and public archaeology, both diverse and nuanced in their own ways, but generally taken to be based on notions of engaging the public5 in archaeological investigation of places that may have some referent connection to them, principally through physical location. There is also the use of archaeological thought and method in the heritage industry, wherein archaeological interpretations of material, whether excavated or above ground, lead to chosen parts of this archaeological record being afforded relative levels of value and, ultimately, protection or conservation. Strictly speaking, however, community engagement and the application of value judgements are not primary concerns of the archaeologist. Although it is, of course, desirable that archaeologists disseminate their work in ways which are understandable and accessible, we should not go down the path of undertaking archaeological investigation primarily to interest non-archaeologists.6 Neither should the practice of archaeological investigation be primarily directed towards preservation or with ‘heritage value’ in mind. Of course, these notions often dictate where we actually end up working, but when we get there, our work ought not to be exclusively directed towards those things deemed to be of value. While community archaeology and heritage are worthy uses of the results of archaeological investigation, this paper will seek to distance them somewhat from the kind of political action discussed above. Instead, the remainder of this paper will be concerned with the ways in which objective archaeological investigation can engage with everyday political action. Archaeology, used here, means primary archaeological investigation and, importantly, will make much of the role of the individual archaeologist in wider political engagements. It is important to stress that this definition of archaeology is intentionally different to that with which most readers will be comfortable. Stripping archaeology back to the primacy of its engagements with material culture, we are left with an archaeology that is not necessarily concerned with recording, or with preservation, or with any other meme with which archaeology has become associated. It is an archaeology that seeks to be objective without (necessarily) seeking to be scientific. We might, perhaps, see this primal archaeological action as close to a philosophical perspective on the relationships between people and things (and people and people, and things and things). I will not see archaeology here as the application of tried and tested methods, but simply as an attempt to understand how people exist with one another in relation to materials, buildings and landscapes through the observation of one with an archaeological background and training. If, for some, this essay requires a certain suspension of disbelief, it may also be read as an attempt to realise new potential in familiar materials, by consciously employing fluid, organic, multi-disciplinary methodologies and experimenting with what archaeologists can achieve without the compulsion to dig and to draw. Archaeology is a political act Before continuing, we can qualify the initially quoted phrase of the paper, ‘archaeology is a political act’. Here, it can be taken to mean, ‘archaeological practice can actively

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engage in agonistic political debate’. Re-phrasing thus, we can create a space in which to discuss the ways in which an objective archaeology, in the sense of being uncommitted, dispassionate and fair and as much in relation to those constructs of archaeology as to anything else, can occasionally and momentarily place aside heritage concerns and make a contribution to a different part of people’s daily lives than that which is aspirant to centrally defined notions of cultural value. Political landscapes

In determining what role archaeology might play in the agonistic politics of daily life in the contemporary world, it is necessary to first examine what the nature of politics looks like when interpreted through archaeological investigation. Though we might rely on media reports or be biased by party political allegiances, is there a discernible archaeology of politics? That is to say, can we objectively locate and describe the causes, actions and consequences of different kinds of political engagement in the present day? In recent years there has been a series of archaeological and other projects in central Bristol that have engaged with this problem in various ways. I will discuss only my own here, but connected work has been undertaken by other kinds of writer coming at connected issues in slightly different ways.7 Material networks The notion of material networks has long been a major component of archaeological investigation of the past and has found expression in many other kinds of study of the past and indeed the present. Material networks are often central to contemporary local politics, especially at the level of individuals or communities wanting or not wanting certain things in relation to what other people have. Thus, at a basic level, ongoing processes of urban decay and regeneration or gentrification are one kind of material network, albeit one in which people move in relation to material rather than the more common opposite. Internationally, we may think of the phenomenon of bidding for the Olympic Games as a bid to be at the centre of another kind of material network. At the other end of the scale, archaeologically defined and described material networks can be highly illustrative of politics in action. In 2008 there was an event, reported locally, nationally and internationally, in which a local man in St Andrews, Bristol, chained himself to a cast-iron lamp-post in protest against a Bristol City Council (BCC) plan to remove such historic street furniture to place it in another part of Bristol, Clifton, regarded as being one of the city’s more affluent areas.8 The reported, and widely accepted, political narrative here was of one man’s stand against the local council’s plans to favour the rich people on the other side of town. In investigative journalism they say ‘follow the money’. With archaeology we can follow the material. Investigation of the ‘other end’ of this particular movement of material reveals a different story: that a group in Clifton – Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society (CHIS) – purchase such historic material from the council with funds raised through their own activities. Indeed they have recently undertaken a survey of the historic lamp-posts in the area to identify those which needed replacing.9 What had been missed in the reported narrative was that the council was replacing historic



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lamp-posts with newer designs that could support a higher wattage bulb in a bid to tackle crime in what they had identified as a problem area. The Victorian lamp-posts, once removed, went to a central storage yard from which the council sells them (and other dislocated historic street furniture) to raise funds for their replacement. So, in this case we see, through following a material network and investigating three different locations connected with it, a discrepancy between how that material was viewed and used in each of those locations. The result of that discrepancy, that lack of understanding of the whole network as an archaeologist might, resulted in a public protest. In a similar vein, when material is removed or used relatively non-contentiously, we can follow where it came from or where it goes to understand in a clear way how the city works. Examples from Bristol include the redesign of the central area of the Broadmead shopping centre and reuse of much of the removed material, particularly paving bricks and large flower-pots, in Eastside Roots Community Garden at Stapleton Road station.10 We see here the use of material culture, regarded as in need of replacement in relation to one commercial vision in one place, to support another view of community cohesion in an entirely different part of town. These two examples demonstrate what archaeology can tell us about politics: that uncovering and following material networks can tell us something about how people identify themselves in relation to that material. They also start to approach the creation of a role for archaeology and archaeologists in these sorts of material-centred debates, i.e. contributing a wider perspective on the provenance, destination or materiality of such networked items, even if this wider perspective is to highlight a relative banality in the face of an assumed injustice. Culture clash In the Stokes Croft area of Bristol,11 the last five years have seen the rise to prominence of the area’s association with a particular political position: protest against adverse local council or private development of the area and in favour of the area’s designation as a ‘cultural quarter’. This movement, centred on the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC),12 has a particular archaeological signature. They decorate the frontages of disused buildings, paint the bins in the area yellow with a PRSC logo, have a head­ quarters building and design bespoke street-furniture. A grassed over building plot within the Stokes Croft area, Turbo Island, was even subjected to archaeological excavation as part of a joint PRSC-English Heritage project investigating homelessness, an issue with which Turbo Island is connected.13 However, rather than simply identify and describe the physical manifestations of a dominant narrative, that of the PRSC’s assertion of cultural ownership of Stokes Croft, archaeological investigation can begin to understand the different competing narratives being contested within the area, where these come from and how they connect to the material culture of the Stokes Croft area. Looking closely at Stokes Croft, we identify the dominant narrative as already described, locally driven regeneration through art and community engagement. The main opposition here, whether active or presumed, is private developers practising land-banking, owning properties but not maintaining them in the hope that the land value will rise. In this area, many of the plots of this kind can be seen to date to the mid-1970s when projected development along the M32 feeder road meant that landlords in the area stopped putting money into the upkeep of their

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properties. Not only can we therefore connect the PRSC narrative to the contemporary manifestations of a piece of 1970s landscaping, we can also connect it to events like the St Pauls’ Riots, widely held to be partially caused by the same kind of neglect of properties as still being acted upon in the same area.14 So far, so complicated. The other lasting legacy of the land-banking phenomenon is that the St Pauls Community, currently predominantly made up of a variety of ethnic minorities, cannot develop within St Pauls, as so much of the area is made up of land-banks and social housing that people born in St Pauls have to move away. This leads to the existence of a number of proposed developments of old, disused properties for housing in the St Pauls Area, ostensibly to allow people born locally to stay local as they grow up and leave home.15 The PRSC, as in the case of the Lakota nightclub, will make representations against such a proposal, arguing that existing buildings be put to cultural uses rather than being demolished and the site turned into housing. Enter Kingsdown Conservation Group, loosely speaking the residents association of Kingsdown Conservation Area, overlooking Stokes Croft. They also speak against the demolition of historic properties, this time arguing in favour of their retention as civic amenities, but argue further against the tolerance of homelessness, graffiti and so on, that is being promoted by the PRSC. Interestingly, Kingsdown Conservation Area was founded in 1974 after a Council for British Archaeology backed campaign against what was seen as adverse modern development in the area, the same wave of development that led to the land-banking and the St Pauls’ Riots.16 Meanwhile, other cultural organisations in the Stokes Croft area express concern at the PRSC desire to regenerate the area at all, arguing that they need low rents to survive and are assisted in this by the perceived decay of the area.17 I have chosen here not to go into great depth of detail in these inter-relationships. It ought to suffice to say that such relationships are revealed by particular flashpoints, in this case the proposed development of a nightclub site and its replacement with housing. What should be clear, however, is that not only can we use particular sites or landscapes to identify a number of competing narratives and the material around which their contests play out, we can also use the time depth central to archaeological interpretation to look at the contemporary problem, opposition to a proposed development, in its historical context of being as much the product of the particular material nature of 1970s town planning and architecture as of present day opposition to changes perceived as adverse. Lived time Perhaps the most important aspect of this kind of contemporary archaeology, that which makes it distinct from other sub-disciplines, is the way in which it can approach time as lived. When the catalyst at the centre of an archaeological investigation is a present day protest or a planning meeting, it is possible to see how these different material conflicts and oppositions play out in scales of months, days or even hours and minutes. It may be that for the archaeologist to understand ongoing change in the contemporary environment, it is necessary to understand what happens during the length of a planning meeting or what can happen within one week of the six-month construction phase of a new building. Thinking in this way, it is possible to consider the ways in which aspects of landscape or items of material culture can become of inflated importance for some-



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times remarkably short periods of time, as they are used to express political viewpoints and then discarded. It is also of the utmost worth to make use of the perspective that comes from looking at the relationships between people and things when there is no knowing what may happen tomorrow or when particular futures are projected and acted towards in the present but may never come to pass. This kind of futurity is essential to understanding the implications of contemporary acts of political engagement and has the potential to be the most valuable contribution of contemporary archaeology to the rest of the field. Archaeo-politics

What the case studies outlined here demonstrate, is a clear potential for the nature of politics and political action to have an archaeological signature, even if that signature is best deciphered using modes of archaeological thought and action different from those most readily accepted by the field at large. Despite the assertion at the beginning of this paper that community archaeology projects are some way removed from the primary justifications for archaeological investigation, the examples from Bristol demonstrate that there is a potential for a different kind of community archaeology. Rather than being an outreach exercise, however, this is an archaeology of community disputes both inter- and intra-. By understanding how materials, sites and landscapes become involved in different kinds of identity forming, conflict or development, we can start to believe that archaeology has a distinctive voice to add to this level of political debate. In the second half of this paper, I will present some thoughts on how archaeologists might work to make this distinct understanding of the nature of politics more widely known, particularly to those politicians best placed to make use of our archaeological perspectives to effect change. These thoughts are partly a call to action for those whose archaeological thoughts and lives engage with the kinds of manifestations of politics described above. It is also, however, intended to serve as a part-justification for the kinds of archaeology employed throughout this paper, suggesting that if we can use archaeological thought in new ways, we might be able to make some very real changes to people’s daily lives. My thoughts here are speculative, but not, I hope, fantastical. Politics and archaeology As shown, archaeology is uniquely able to apply a combination of understanding the relationships between people and material and understanding the wider temporal and geographical contexts of these relationships to understanding exactly what the nature of this local small-scale politics is. What we see when taking almost any site or material is that when a proposal is made to alter that site or material in some way, agonistic political positions develop surrounding it. It is not (necessarily) the place of the archaeologist to intervene at this point and choose a side. Rather, the archaeologist now has a responsibility to make the results of their investigation available to all. In what form should such dissemination take place? Archaeology is also intimately connected with politics in a number of different ways, the most obvious being that between private sector mitigation excavation and the planning policy documents issued by the Department

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for Communities and Local Government and its predecessors since the early 1990s, including Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) 15 on the historic environment, PPG 16 on archaeology, Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 5 which superseded both PPGs in 2010 and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) of 2012.18 Part of the commoditisation of an idealised vision of culture based on European urban models that started during Margaret Thatcher’s time as prime minister and that has been carried on by all governments since, this kind of archaeology is part of the same kind of politics that states how much access to green space and leisure facilities people should have (PPG 17), determines acceptable noise levels in development (PPG 24) or controls outdoor advertising (PPG 19). It is, essentially, access to archaeology and heritage as a cultural aspiration legislated by central government. That is, of course, fine and private sector work contributes a huge proportion of the archaeological record. But can we posit a different kind or relationship between archaeology and politics? One wherein politicians can make use of the kinds of archaeological understanding of particular political positions and politicised situations outlined above to develop more nuanced legislative decisions? In short, can archaeology make politicians approach these particular places and situations in a usefully different way? Who knows what? Who does what? The first thing to understand when trying to work with politicians to effect change is who does what; who is responsible for the things that concern you? It is also important to have a basic understanding of what different individuals can do. With the examples described above, the situations being described archaeologically are within the remit of the local council. A local council will legislate and manage the day-to-day running of any location. Often, those flashpoints that can be exploited by the archaeologist to reveal the nature of contemporary politics are explicitly related to local council activities, consultations or planning meetings for instance. As well as inviting representations from interest groups and individuals, such exercises will also entail the commissioning of officers’ reports, which in essence detail exactly how far a proposed scheme fits with existing legislation and precedents, and expert reports, such as the various work that can be undertaken by private sector archaeology units but also including environmental reports and so on. Here, we can make out a number of different ways for the archaeologist to impact on the process. Primarily, the archaeologist can make a representation to a local council in relation to a particular matter as a member of the public. However, of more importance is for this kind of archaeological perspective to have an impact at the level of commissioned reports from officers and experts. In the case of officer’s reports, this would entail attempting to make changes to both local and national legislation. Impacting in this way upon expert reports can only be achieved through similar changes in legislation or altering the way that private sector archaeology is practised. I will not dwell on the latter here, rather I will focus on the ways in which this archaeological approach to contemporary politics might feed into legislative processes at the highest levels. It is common knowledge that one can lobby an MP on various issues or can arrange to meet with one’s own MP more locally. MPs do not have a say in local council affairs but they can petition local councillors and, more importantly, can raise local issues in



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Parliament in relation to national legislation. The major connection between sitting politicians and peers and representatives of archaeology and heritage interests is provided by the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group (APPAG).19 This group works to ensure that the interests of archaeology and heritage are fairly represented when the need arises. In particular, they profess support for The Archaeology Forum’s published statement, Archaeology Enriches Us All.20 This document is very much part of the connection between archaeology and politics that stems from the Planning Policy Guidance documents of the 1990s and concerns itself largely with the importance of archaeology and heritage as part of education, leading informed regeneration and contributing to the tourist economy. Practically, it is with APPAG that the power lies to effect change in the ways archaeology is routinely used by politicians and it is to APPAG to which I shall return below. Mediator or belligerent? I began this paper with talk of agonism, of politics being about productive argument between clear political positions, not about trying to find the safe middle ground. If archaeologists are to take the kinds of contemporary perspectives presented here and use them to change the way politicians engage with particular issues, the role of the individual archaeologist needs to be considered. Is it, for instance, of use for the archaeologist to take the side of a particular agonistic position? I suggest not, although I will reserve the right of the individual to involve themselves in political debate in whichever way they see fit. However, in making moves to try to alter the way archaeology is used at national government level it is perhaps better to approach the issue from a direction which is amenable as a mode of thought rather than a specific response. This is not to say that the archaeologist ought to aim to take the role of mediator. Rather it is to be hoped that archaeological perspectives on contemporary politics can be used by those specifically charged with mediation or decision-making to make their actions better informed. Random acts of archaeology

What might these kinds of contemporary archaeological intervention into local politics look like and how might they go about trying to impact upon the way that politicians view and deal with daily life within the city? Here, I will recall some of my own experiences from recent years of where my own archaeological investigation has, either intentionally or not, impacted upon local politics and local places. Modes of investigation It is important that, as far as is reasonably possible within the overall bounds of objective archaeology, we allow sites and material some opportunity to dictate their own modes of investigation. In saying this, I am not advocating any sort of essentialism or vitalism in the places we seek to understand, more that the archaeologist can work to be more open to different kinds of archaeological thinking that better reflect the on-the-ground situation being considered. For example, as discussed previously, it may become of use to think as the passage of minutes and hours rather than as a chro-

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nology of phases. Likewise, it may be that the material network under consideration is revealed through contemporary events, like protest or a planning meeting, rather than through the more typically archaeological observation of patterns in assembled material. In essence though, these different modes of investigation are new and useful ways of locating and connecting relevant material. I do not propose to replace traditional archaeological methods with anything new, except to say that we can connect sites and materials through their contemporary correlations as well as through post-excavation analysis or historical research. The Bear Pit As part of my doctoral research at the University of the West of England, I investigated the ways in which 1960s modern planning ideas had existed in the urban environment since their construction. The site central to my work in this area was St James Barton Roundabout underpass, known locally as The Bear Pit. It was a key part of the post-war redesign of Bristol, but also functioned as a clear expression of the modernist desire to separate people and vehicles. Looking at the various marks that adorned the ground in the open central space of this underpass I decided that the feature most diagnostic of the development of the area over time was its benches, largely represented by the marks showing where previous benches had been. Taking one area of this space and archaeologically recording it, a distinct stratigraphy became apparent as benches were shown to over cut each other, just as the post-holes of a much altered timber building do. The first phase was of numerous benches, generally close together and with some facing up onto the grassed verges between the underpass and its surrounding traffic. This suggests a place where a number of people are intended to come and spend time either with children playing on the verges or simply admiring the modernist vista. The second phase of bench design and placement shows fewer units, further apart and facing into the centre of the space, a clear change to the area’s original social function. More recently, these benches were replaced with single-seat armchair style benches as part of the solution to a perceived problem with homeless sleepers in the area. This simple stratigraphy demonstrates the change over fifty years from a consciously social space to one knowingly anti-social. I discussed the issue of the benches in The Bear Pit in British Archaeology in 2009,21 saying that the change in question demonstrated short-sightedness on the part of the local council. Within a few months of publication, a council employee had been to The Bear Pit and covered over the part of the space shown in the picture I had used to accompany the description with wood chippings. While I am, of course, prepared to accept that it may be coincidence, I use this story to demonstrate that if one publicises these kinds of archaeological interpretations of local micro-political situations, the right people are listening. Engaging with the MP During the course of my doctoral work, I met twice with my MP (also the MP for my study area), the Liberal Democrat Stephen Williams. The first meeting was as part of his weekly surgery and I asked him a series of questions concerning contemporary Bristol as part of a formal interview. It was at this meeting that I learnt quickly that MPs are



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not keen to delve explicitly into local council affairs. Some months later, I organised a session on contemporary archaeology and Bristol for a conference run by the Regional History Centre of the University of the West of England.22 Here, Mr Williams took part in the session as a discussant . After hearing papers on my own work, the social impact of the building of the M32 and the archaeology of homelessness, he gave a summing up in which he acknowledged that deeper understanding of the ways in which people use the contemporary city, and of the agonistic politics surrounding particular sites, would change the way he thought about the particular places in the city he goes. The points he picked up on were those explicitly archaeological ones discussed earlier. Clearly there are ways of demonstrating to our elected representatives how our work can impact upon their own lives and lives of their constituents. Conclusion: towards a new APPAG

To conclude this brief foray into a different way of connecting archaeology and politics, I suggest that APPAG is central to the wider appreciation of archaeological investigation as a tool for understanding the nature of contemporary politics and, by extension, approaching particular places and situations as legislators. However, the way to achieve this is not necessarily by seeking to change the nature of professional representations to the group. Instead, I propose that we can appeal directly to local and national politicians to change the way they view the places in which they live and work so that they can approach APPAG activities with their own archaeological perspective on the world with which to challenge the heritage bias of current manifestations of the archaeologypolitics relationship. We can do this in different ways. One, as suggested above, is to take part in local political processes as an archaeologist with a particular understanding of the material conditions of local political debate. Archaeologists can make themselves heard in consultations, planning committees, public meetings and more. It is by regular expression of these new perspectives that they will become known. Likewise, there are archaeological ‘direct actions’ which can move towards using contemporary archaeological perspectives to make a difference to daily life in particular, local places. These are those archaeological interventions that take place outside established political structures and include publishing, getting involved with different kinds of local action groups or simply talking to people. As acknowledged above, this does not necessarily look like archaeology. It does not necessarily involve any of the methods usually associated with archaeological fieldwork. But that does not mean that it is not archaeology; it certainly takes advantage of a wide range of archaeological theory and legislation. Perhaps even more, that which does not look like archaeology does not mean that it is not something archaeologists could (and should) aspire to do. It might well be possible to bring archaeological perspectives into local politics as a matter of course, but this needs archaeologists to develop such approaches and disseminate them. You can start by going out and pointing at things. What could be more archaeological than that?

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Notes 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9. 10.

Used in Murray 1993 and regularly repeated in conference papers. As suggested by the popular image of, for instance, community archaeology as an act of local politics in the face of national party politics or, worse, consciously pro- or anti-government in nature. Mouffe 2005. Storm Heter 2006. Much debate in public archaeology seeks to problematise varying definitions of ‘public’. There is not room to do so in this paper. Other papers in this volume will suggest that the interpretation of excavated material is of lesser importance than the bringing together of disparate individuals in a communal activity. See Kiddey & Schofield 2010 (Archaeology/ Heritage); Gabie 2008; Gabie (ed.) 2009; ‘Artist of the Week 126: Laura Oldfield Ford’, The Guardian, 18 February 2011 [last accessed 22/10/2012] (Arts); Whatmore & Hinchcliffe 2003; 2010 (Geography). ‘Bristol City Council reviews plan to replace Victorian street lights’, Bristol Evening Post, 17 September 2008 [last accessed 22/10/2012]; ‘Stop Nicking My Street Furniture’. BBC News Magazine, 27 June 2008 [last accessed 22/10/2012]. See [last accessed 22/10/2012]. Dixon 2009.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

Comprising Stokes Croft itself and some small areas surrounding it. See [last accessed 22/10/2012]. Kiddey & Schofield 2010. Bristol TUC 1980; Simpson 1982. Marti Burgess. Representation to the BCC Development Control (Central) Committee, 23 April 2008/11 June 2008. For Bristol City Council meeting agendas and public representations see and http://www.bristol.gov.uk/item/ committeecontent/?ref=wa&code=wa001&ye ar=2008&month=06&day=11&hour=14&mi nute=00> [last accessed 22/10/2012]. Priest & Cobb 1980. Dixon 2010. e.g. Department of the Environment 1990; Department of the Environment & Department of Heritage 1994; English Heritage 2010; DCLG 2012. See [last accessed 22/10/2012]. See [last accessed 22/10/2012]. Dixon 2009. The session ‘Contemporary Archaeology in Bristol: Past, Present, Future?’, run as part of the conference A Second City Remembered: Rethinking Bristol’s History, 1400–2000, St Matthias Campus, University of the West of England, 23–4 July 2010. [last accessed 23/01/2012].

Bibliography Bristol TUC 1980, Slumbering Volcano? Report of an Enquiry into the Origins of the Eruption in St Paul’s Bristol on 2nd April 1980, Bristol: Bristol TUC. Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) 2012 National Planning Policy Frameword. Available at: 100 Redeposited bone in crypt 1600 84 80 2230 (430 burials in situ) 12 14000 Unknown 20 >18152

Archaeological site records/ coffin plates extant

Assessed

ü

ü

Not studied (watching briefs etc) ü ü

ü ü ü ü ü ü ü ü 5

1

6

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been cemented by the 2008 legislative review, but both practical issues regarding the storage of many hundreds of individuals and associated artefacts and, more importantly, an unwillingness to see our recent past as truly ‘archaeological’ is also surely reflected. This is supported by the observation that more than a third of post-medieval sites included on the English Heritage database had been or were destined for reburial, compared to 5% of burials overall.17 Material excavated from archaeological sites is subject to question-led sampling strategies during and after excavation. For example, ceramic building materials may be recorded and discarded on-site with a representative sample retained (this can be easily understood if one considers the number of identical bricks required to create a wall), whilst botanical and faunal remains may be retained only if they originate from contextually secure deposits. Selection decisions may be made during excavation (e.g. which features to sample), following initial assessment or after the completion of publication work when the material is to be archived. Similarly, human remains may be reburied during an excavation phase (for example where large volumes of redeposited, disarticulated bone are found) whilst after assessment a sub-group may be selected for analysis, based on the potential for further work. It is also not universally true that individuals are reinterred in a commingled or unidentifiable condition. Whilst some cemeteries will permit reburial of multiple individuals in a single container and require them to be placed in biodegradable bags, others ask that remains are interred in individual labelled boxes or cardboard coffins. Where burials lying on land which falls under the jurisdiction of the Church of England are to be disturbed, the Church usually requires that remains are reburied as close to their original resting places as is possible, though research may be permitted before reburial.18 Whilst cost may be a factor when considering reburial (both archiving and reinternment have costs associated), the claim that many archaeologically excavated remains are reburied without labels due to the cost19 would seem erroneous since the labels required during excavation can easily be reused. The requirements of the different depositing institutions will also influence retention decisions, though these should conform to recognised best practice.20 The site archive provides an accessible resource for the future researcher. Initiatives such as the Archaeology Data Service and the Museum of London Centre for Human Bioarchaeology, the Wellcome Osteological Research Database (WORD), are widening that access. The implementation and rigorous monitoring of standards for recording which enable effective ‘preservation by record’ must be a key tenet of any future research agenda, as inexorable mass reburial prevents us from revisiting the material. Development pressures and constraints to research

The higher development pressures in our large towns and cities place cemeteries in such locations at greater risk of disturbance. Places of worship need to expand and change to meet the requirements of the modern congregation. Schools, often built on church land, need extending. Disused burial grounds may be the only pieces of undeveloped land in an urban setting. The nature of development means that assemblages are often excavated piecemeal: evaluations may take place years ahead of full excavation and parts



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of the same burial ground may be excavated decades apart for different clients and by different archaeological units. One such example is the work which was undertaken at St Marylebone Old Church. An evaluation and small excavation undertaken in 1992 produced a sample of seventeen individuals and although this included several individuals with accompanying biographic details, and intriguing archaeological artefacts such as a set of ‘Waterloo’ teeth, such a small group could tell us little about the living population from which they derived. It was not until 2004 that a construction project was finalised and large-scale excavations took place. This second phase of work archaeologically recovered 284 individuals from the footprint of a proposed building.21 As both phases of work were carried out by the same company (Museum of London Archaeology), the results formed a single, synthetic study, but this example indicates how opportunities could be lost, particularly without a period-specific research agenda to inform those creating the planning brief and drawing up the excavation strategy. The research questions which drive commercial archaeology are outlined in a written statement of investigation (WSI) before work commences and agreed by the local planning authorities. It is therefore vital to provide a framework within which they may then evaluate whether the proposed scheme will address scientific questions in the correct way. Indeed, the response to PPS5 advises that planning authorities consult existing frameworks when making decisions and approach qualified and experienced experts to broaden knowledge where this will enable a constant evolution of thought.22 Analytical questions of archaeological relevance often require the comparison of more than one sample population (by cemetery or by ‘site code’). A client may have a greater or lesser interest in the intellectual outcome of any archaeological work, but once a planning condition is discharged and the written and artefactual material is archived, most would, quite reasonably (and in-line with their contractual obligations), consider the project finished. Obtaining funding for cross-site analysis may be extremely difficult, and whilst the successful achievement of this for commercially-excavated material from other periods (e.g. the Roman Eastern Cemetery)23 demonstrates it is possible, such projects have been heavily reliant on funding from English Heritage, an avenue which may be reduced by current government funding cuts. It may also be extremely difficult for individuals external to the commercial contractor (e.g. doctoral researchers) to collaborate effectively with those who originally studied the material. Commercial staff may have moved onto other projects and without the continued backing of the relevant developer, archaeological contractors are unlikely to be able to afford adequate time for their staff to revisit projects. Commercial and academic timetables are rarely synchronised, and without considerable forethought, and support from both the client and monitoring body, human remains may be reburied without the opportunity for innovative specialist studies informed by the results of the original research. Undoubtedly, the practice of full-economic costing has further widened the gap between commercial archaeology and the higher education sector, placing university services beyond the reach of much developer-funded work, particularly at the current time when the construction industry is under increased pressure and archaeological tenders are often won or lost on price alone. Timescales concomitant with Research Council or charity funding may also

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negate the opportunity to be able to consider the inclusion of archaeological material from developer funded excavations. Ethical considerations of working with human remains

Research constraints resulting from ethical considerations are, perhaps unsurprisingly, more difficult to quantify. The fate of human remains is an emotive subject. Should we exhume our ancestors and if so, under what justification? Once exhumed should we study and learn from and perhaps display their remains for others to study or simply reinter them? Despite the extensive legislation and codification covering those who work in this area, issues of ‘ownership’ of the dead are not infrequently raised and the debate is often presented as a dichotomy between the unfeeling scientist, who views human bone as a cultural or scientific object, and the lay person who feels some kind of higher cultural, spiritual or emotional connection with the dead. Codes and guidance stress the importance of consultation, but one of the key difficulties is that this requires the researcher to establish which of the many potentially-interested parties has the greatest ‘claim’ over the remains in question. Here also, politics and archaeology directly interact. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is seen as a starting point in raising awareness of the ethical difficulties of working with human remains, but the Act was also a political response to the marginalisation of the native population. Similarly, the collection of anthropological specimens from colonies during the 19th and early 20th centuries, often in clandestine fashion, and the selection of medical specimens without consent, such as took place at Alder Hey Hospital a decade ago, have added further strands to the debate.24 Different religious groups may hold very disparate views on the spiritual importance of corporeal remains and on the considerations raised by the excavation, scientific study, retention, display and reburial of the remains of past populations. In recent years, British Pagan groups have been particularly vociferous proponents of reburial, though one of the key difficulties in such ethical discussions is that any one religious or cultural group may contain many individual voices, all expressing differing viewpoints.25 The difficulty of balancing the needs of development against the presumption that the dead should ‘rest in peace’ is particularly acute and through their involvement in controlled exhumation, archaeologists are placed in the centre of this discussion. It has been stated that many British archaeologists feel that it is ‘getting more difficult to work with human remains’,26 due to both legislative changes and an increased pressure to abstain on ethical grounds. However, there seems to be little evidence of a decrease in development on burial grounds or of the subsequent archaeological work as the result of such pressure. Perhaps what we see instead is a change to the way work is approached and an unwillingness to consider retention beyond that which is essential for the discharge of the client contract? The biochemical analysis of human remains also raises numerous ethical considerations, regardless of the date of death, and institutions working with human remains have recognised this by drawing up codes of practice and monitoring research.27 These sensitivities are all the more acute for samples of relatively recent date, particularly where



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named individuals are recovered. Views on death and the dead are highly individual and should be independently reached through educated consideration, but then ‘the need for sensitivity in dealing with human remains is widely recognised in the archaeological community’.28 Clearly, selection and retention decisions can only be affectively achieved when placed within an informative framework. Current and future research directions

Archaeologists now widely acknowledge that the study of post-medieval remains has much to offer our understanding of socio-economic history.29 Skeletal and archaeological material for which historic records survive can uniquely provide a test-bed for theoretical discussions of cultural identifiers. Models established using historic cemetery populations have great potential as interpretative tools for earlier, non-documented populations.30 Theoretical questions common to all cemetery assemblages could be tested using data acquired from post-medieval groups. However, some feel that ‘archaeological curators have failed to appreciate the value of such contexts to our understanding of the past and to scientific enquiry generally’.31 An effective research agenda can enable this to be redressed as it would be looked upon as ‘a means of both enhancing the credibility of the development control process and of ensuring cost-effectiveness and value for money, while legitimately maximising the intellectual return on expenditure’.32 Previous research has led some to suggest ways in which burial archaeology could be moved forwards, but although Reeve33 outlined a list of themes (such as migration), disciplines (forensic science) and specific historical events (the Big Stink) to which postmedieval burial studies could contribute, this was not intended to set an agenda, but rather as a means to ‘justify any disturbance and unasked-for examination’.34 Reflecting on the experience at Christ Church, Spitalfields, Reeve suggested several areas in which greater examination would have been of value, highlighting the archaeological evidence for the activities of the sextons and churchwardens and the study of decay.35 Roberts and Cox36 placed climate and health at the forefront of their list of future themes. Mays37 outlined the rise and fall of rickets and the relationship to environment and environmental pollution as a key area of enquiry, advocating examination of diet and dental health, the integration of historical and archaeological evidence, examination of the impact of industrialisation and geographically limited studies of disease frequencies. Approaching the subject from an historical viewpoint, Harding38 concluded that from the apparent variability in burial practices we could attempt to draw conclusions on individual beliefs and feelings about death, specifically proposing examination of the effect of the Burial in Woollen Act of 1678. Harding further stated that ‘if we can examine and understand attitudes to the body, including the dead body, in the past, we may help set a rational framework for discussing how we should deal with the present bodily remains of past populations’. The influence of the Reformation and rise of NonConformity have also been identified as key themes.39 The potential of molecular and microscopic analyses of bone to obtain information on diet, study pathogens, examine genetic relationships, investigate micro-preservation and histopathology has also been noted. 40 If synthesised with osteological, archaeological, scientific and social/historic data, isotope analysis of bone, tooth enamel and hair,

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diachronic information (serial measurements from hair and teeth) and aDNA analysis can be used to examine the effect of status, diet and pollution on health and examine migration, unlocking a potential wealth of information. Such work could create new sample ‘populations’ based on geographic origins and the course of an individual’s life rather than simply on the location of their burial, a decision which reflects a single point in that journey. Osteological indicators of health and disease could then be examined for this new ‘population’, adding to our understanding of the complexities of social organisation and of the daily living experience. Whilst post-medieval assemblages have been used to test osteological and forensic methods, there has as yet been no systematic examination of evidence for the population movement we know occurred during this period. A decade ago it was recognised that ‘when re-interment is stipulated as a condition of excavation, or is thought for ethical reasons to be best policy, consideration needs to be given to accessibility for future workers’.41 This led English Heritage to embark on a project to retain the Barton-on-Humber collection in the vault of the adjacent church, but questions based on tissue samples raise the possibility of another approach where this large-scale retention is not possible, banking minute samples of bone tooth or hair. Non-destructive techniques (e.g. radiology and 3-D laser scanning) are also potentially valuable, sustainable analytical tools. The post-medieval dead were buried with huge variety of grave goods including textiles and floral tributes. 42 Metalwork associated with the body, clothing and coffin (including depositum plates with invaluable biographic data) may be in a very poor state, particularly where tin-dipped iron was the material of choice rather than the more robust, and expensive, lead or brass.43 Artefacts may be routinely conserved and archived, or the decision may be taken to discard very poorly preserved depositum plates after recording on site. In either case, the additional information obtained from the use of such methods is invaluable. Radiography can offer a permanent record of inscriptions and stylistic information. A consortium approach that draws together experts in perhaps apparently unconnected fields, ideally from the earliest phases of project design, enables the examination of primary evidence of the past which would otherwise be unavailable to external researchers and enables the integration of information from disparate developer funded projects in a meaningful way. Such an approach was utilised in the analysis of two cemeteries from East London. Each buried population was known to have originated from a distinct religious group (one Catholic, one Baptist) and there was therefore the opportunity to examine the presence (or absence) of cultural signifiers in the osteological and archaeological record. From the inception of the publication project it was clear that there was enormous potential for innovative, collaborative work. Archaeological and osteological analytical work was carried out by a commercial contractor (MOLA), textiles were examined by a museum curator of dress and fashion, and radiographic and biochemical analyses were carried out by a team of academics at Bradford and City Universities. Differences in burial practice appeared, predominantly, to relate to socio-economic factors and although artefacts specific to particular religions were found (i.e. crucifixes and rosary beads) they were not ubiquitous. Differences in religious imagery were noted in the external decoration of the coffins.44 Patterns were seen in the data obtained from



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the study of the skeletal remains, particularly the demographic profile and indicators of social behaviour,45 but interpretation of osteological patterns is highly problematic, requiring the elimination of so many social and temporal variables that it can only work effectively when used in conjunction with other streams of information. By collaborating early on in the post-excavation process, it was possible to expand on the initial findings and initiate a doctoral project examining evidence of dietary and geographic signifiers within the Catholic population (many identified by their coffin plates as Irish migrants escaping the Great Famine in the mid-19th century). This project enhanced, rather than substituted for, the developer funded work. Work carried out to attempt to identify two distinct groups representing Irish immigrants and indigenous Londoners demonstrated that the carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of the mariner Miguel Pineda suggest that he consumed a diet rich in marine protein, whilst the nitrogen isotope ratio of the six-yearold John Broschan suggested a diet low in meat or fish protein. The high nitrogen isotope ratio of Mary Angel Beadles, aged two, may have been the result of breast feeding. It was possible to take samples of hair keratin, bone and dentine collagen from four individuals and the results of isotopic analyses enabled the reconstruction of dietary ‘lifeways’.46 Capturing the public imagination and ensuring benefit

If we accept that current legal requirements and development pressures preclude preservation in situ, and also lead to reburial, how can this unique resource be enhanced, protected and presented? Planning Policy Statement 5 recognised the finite nature of our heritage assets and the positive value which understanding these resources can bring to society.47 The accompanying Planning Practice Guide goes even further, stating that the historic environment enhances our daily lives and is (or should be) ‘a living and integral part’ of the local environment.48 Thus, commercial archaeology is in essence a public practice, and decisions made at local and national level influence archaeological work. Heritage has a key role in the generation of a feeling of local pride.49 In fact, PPS5 explicitly stated that we must ensure ‘opportunities are taken to capture evidence from the historic environment and to make this publically available, particularly where a heritage asset is to be lost’.50 Accompanying guidance suggests that knowledge must be transferred through exhibitions and popular publications.51 Discussion of how to better target our analyses is undoubtedly valuable but how can a research framework help to bring increased public value to such work? What do the public want to gain (if indeed anything) from the study of our recent past? One of the key arguments against the large-scale study and retention of the postmedieval burial resource is presented as, at best a lack of public interest and, at worst, a belief that such archaeological work is distasteful and immoral.52 However, research carried out by Cambridge Archaeology showed that the public were highly aware of skeletal research and that 88% of those who responded thought that collections of human remains should be retained for the future.53 A consultation exercise carried out by English Heritage concluded that the majority of respondents (91%) agreed that museums should be allowed to display human bones. Half (52%) said that this should be the case regardless of the age of the remains, a further 27% agreed on the proviso that that the remains were at least 100 years old. Interestingly, half of the population

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(49%) were also happy to see remains displayed regardless of whether the name of the individual was known, although this opinion showed distinct demographic differences (62% of those aged 18–34 agreed, compared with only 37% of those aged over 55 years). Those who did not claim a religious affiliation were more likely to agree to display (60%) than those who did (41%). The majority of respondents (91%) also agreed that human remains should be retained for research purposes: 59% agreed that this should be the case regardless of how old the remains were.54 This research suggests that the public is actually more open to research carried out on human remains than we might assume, or than is perhaps portrayed by the wealth of archaeological literature on the subject. Interestingly, a similar exercise carried out in Ireland for the Heritage Council, concluded that whilst archaeological investigation of human remains was widely supported whether for research or because of a development threat, those questioned stated that human remains should be reburied with ‘appropriate respect and ceremony’ following analysis, though the writer expressed concern that many of those groups approached for their opinions made no reply.55 Perhaps of greatest significance in the English Heritage survey was that 87% of respondents agreed with the statement that displaying human remains would ‘help the public understand how people have lived in the past’.56 The positive effect of the publicity surrounding the excavation of Christ Church, Spitalfields, in bringing a greater understanding of the importance of research into post-medieval populations has been noted.57 With effective communication of results (including all-important publication), this success could be built on further for ‘To act as if the sensibilities of the dead must be paramount … is to give then a power of veto that exceeds anything they could command in life’.62 Statistics from www.ancestry.co.uk indicate the size of the genealogical ‘market’: in one week in October 2010, 14,683,460 people added to family trees. It is clear that there is a genuine and detailed public interest in our recent past, a reflection of our disconnection with our own pasts and garnered by a desire to discover our origins. Effective research can create public interaction with the ephemera of post-medieval burials and gauge perceptions of the importance (or otherwise) of conserving this fragile heritage. But, given that survey results suggest that the level of support for archaeological work appears directly linked to the time which has passed since burial, how can we better engage with the public? O’Sullivan states that public engagement could be easily increased through ‘proactive, positive engagement with the local media, organised and purposeful site access for local people, dissemination of information on the purpose of the project, lectures or exhibitions … and distribution of any reports which result from the work to local libraries, historical societies and local history resource centres’.59 Educational exhibitions of archaeological human remains certainly retain popularity. ‘London Bodies’ in the late 1990s saw the Museum of London achieve a record 15,600 visitors who attended specifically to see the exhibition.60 This success was repeated with the ‘Skeletons’ exhibition at the Wellcome Trust in 2008. Visitors were asked to leave comments and 94% of these were positive.61 Both exhibitions featured the display of the remains of people who died as recently as the 19th century. Aldous and Payne concluded that ‘Museum professionals are probably worrying too much about possible public concern.’62



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‘The historic environment … can bring communities together in a shared sense of belonging’,63 and in locations with a strong pre-existing community identity, local groups may actively seek out involvement with and information on archaeological work. For example, in 2006, the inhabitants of Chelsea invited osteologists to speak as part of the Chelsea Festival. ‘A History of Chelsea – in Bones’ was addressed to a mixed audience and focused on what skeletal remains could reveal about those who had lived in the parish during the 18th and 19th century.64 Community involvement in archaeology certainly provides vital benefits for archaeology, bringing financial support and public acceptance. Just as post-medieval archaeology is largely a phenomenon of the past thirty years, so is ‘community’ archaeology.65 But community projects involving burial archaeology are not without their own issues. In October 2010, MOLA began a community archaeology project in Altab Ali Park, Whitechapel, East London. The project was to inform the redesign of the park and ensure that development proposals were sympathetic to the local significance of the site. The programme was designed to facilitate wide local participation and encourage a ‘sense of place’. The park lies on the site of the former St Mary’s churchyard which contains medieval and post-medieval burials. Because of the many issues of creating direct contact between the public and human remains and the desire to include as wide an audience as possible, the project was designed to ensure that no burials were disturbed. This process was carried out in discussion with the Diocesan Advisory Committee, the local parish church and English Heritage: the locations of the trenches were fully researched to ensure that the risk of disturbing burials was low, the proposed locations were evaluated and two areas in which no burials were found were selected for the community excavation. During excavation, the trench opening process was screened from public view and the public were not permitted to enter the trenches until it was confirmed that no human remains were present and they had been inspected by English Heritage and the Tower Hamlet’s Environmental Health Officer. Access to the trenches and all work within them was closely supervised by experienced staff (Fig. 8.1). The project was felt to have been a great success achieving the wide participation it set out to gain, yet this was only achieved by avoiding placing the present community in direct contact with the past community. In 2003, the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group (APPAG) stated that community involvement in archaeology could ‘encourage social inclusion and active citizenship and help to reinforce a sense of community by applauding cultural diversity’ and that we should work to involve the public in not just excavation, but also the development and publication of archaeological work.66 But given the difficulties highlighted by the Altab Ali Park project, how can we connect local communities to their recent past? It is no secret that history is ‘written by the victors’ and marginalises the common people. This is equally true of burial archaeology. Non-conformist individuals often leave little or no ‘paper trail’ due to a dearth of burial registers, and those who have little to leave do not write wills. For many individuals, the biographic information contained within their coffin plate provides the only clues to the details of their lives, but again such material culture is biased towards wealthier individuals. To better engage with the public, we must seek to redress this imbalance, to provide a ‘history’ which cannot be

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Figure 8.1: Community archaeology project at Altab Ali Park, Whitechapel, east London. Copyright: Museum of London Archaeology.

found from books alone. Linking osteological and artefactual information with intertissue comparison using elemental and isotope analysis for diet, population movement, and exposure to pollutants can be used to construct these missing life histories. Realising the potential of these remains as individuals will also acknowledge that whilst ‘people don’t bury skeletons, but bury bodies’, fundamentally ‘people bury people’. The success of the Museum of London’s ‘Streetmuseum’ phone application, demonstrates that there is a market for heritage tools (Fig.8.2). This application provides an innovative way to view the existing archive, giving images geographical context, but as the public cannot directly comment on or add to the resource it does not allow for full interaction, rather allowing participation with the past only in a format designed by and therefore constrained by, heritage professionals. Innovations to enable two-way interaction seem a logical next step, and would enable the public to provide their own views of the past, contribute knowledge and discuss ethical issues in ‘real’ time. The co-ordinated mapping of place of birth (or baptism), place of residence at death and location of burial using new media (websites, phone applications) could enable the public user to gain entry into local history studies, find out who lived and worked on their street and gain a sense of belonging, whilst providing a tool to address wider issues of identity. This will encourage a greater sense of place amongst the public audience, connecting them with the people who lived and died in



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Figure 8.2: A screenshot from the Museum of London’s ‘Streetmuseum’ phone application. Copyright: Museum of London.

their neighbourhood in a new and unique way, whilst a notice board facility would enable the public to contribute directly their thoughts, feelings and information. We must be imaginative in the way in which we disseminate the results, finding novel ways to release a potentially inaccessible subject to public scrutiny and demystify our recent dead. For example, the limited readership appeal of archaeological reports,67 could be addressed by utilising different publication models: ‘life histories’ could form the basis for narrative presentations as short stories. Such public-focused outputs can present the human face of hard science with the hope of inspiring and captivating public imagination. Consortium led projects, bringing together archaeology, osteology, heritage management concerns, history, chemistry, biology, medicine have the potential to significantly increase public engagement with both science and heritage creating a ‘multi-dimensional approach, in which the public can experience all aspects of heritage’.68 Summary and conclusions: the need for a research agenda

Now is an exciting time in post-medieval burial archaeology: recent legislative changes and ethical debates have resulted in a level of self-reflection rarely seen in archaeology. English Heritage define archaeological remains as those of the previous generation (i.e. >30 years old) whilst The Human Tissue Act applies to human remains younger than

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100 years; in less than 10 years the victims of the 1919 flu pandemic will have passed beyond the chronological limit of the Act. We remain in a contradictory position where post-medieval remains are often the subject of greater levels of sensitivity and yet lower levels of archaeological involvement. Research cannot move forward when the materials on which it relies are accessible for a limited time. To inform the future, burial archaeology must be protected, understood and valued. Generating fresh perspectives will enable us to ‘future proof ’ our cultural heritage. A research agenda appears to be much called for by archaeologists and historians and would be appreciated by those in the planning sector. Such a document would provide ‘a yardstick against which to measure their results and a mechanism that provides feedback and publicises findings’.69 The APPAG noted that poor communication within the profession had impeded research.70 The creation of a research agenda would facilitate discussion and the finished product would provide a framework within which future communication could function. Working within an agreed research agenda to raise public interest and awareness of post-medieval burial archaeology would have a positive effect on the expectations and outputs of commercial archaeology and of archaeological research. A research agenda can facilitate connections, communication and exchange and ensure we effectively address the question of how to present our past to the public. Current planning guidance acknowledges the legal parameters within which the disturbance of human remains must operate and acknowledges the importance of seeking advice and using professional guidelines, calling for the use of national and regional plans and subject specific expert advice to ensure effective protection of specific assets,71 particularly before the implementation of a development plan.72 An agenda would assist those who must decide on licence requirements and grant applications and support petitions to clients when a change in brief is called for, vital when ‘there is a clear need to ensure an appropriate level of archaeological intervention when post-medieval burial grounds are threatened with destruction by development’.73 Practical considerations of sample size can also be addressed if we have an agenda in which to frame such decisions. Stakeholder consultation as part of this process can examine the conditions required to sustain this resource within social, political, cultural, intellectual, institutional and regulatory frameworks. With all biochemical analyses, it is vital that the scientific potential of the data justifies destructive work and a research agenda would provide a framework within which to monitor this. A research agenda will enable the process of organising disparate data sources to be effectively conducted, assess current scientific needs and future directions and develop a consensus on excavation, handling, sampling and selective retention. Research councils will benefit from a rigorous, long-term research framework to optimise financial input to future projects. To be effective, such an agenda must draw together research threads from within artefact studies, conservation, archaeology, archaeological science, anthropology and social history. By looking at the bigger picture we will get a more targeted approach to analytical work. Archaeological research ‘provides a unique perspective on our human identity’.74 Whilst we must not overlook the sensitivities surrounding destructive sampling, a multi-disciplinary approach will enable an understanding of our recent ancestors’ response to extreme social and environmental



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change. The resurgence of ‘historic’ diseases such as syphilis,75 rickets76 and tuberculosis,77 confirms that the study of past populations has the potential to empower us to change modern society.78 Perhaps most importantly, it appears that the ongoing changes to the implementation of burial law will place a particular importance on the research potential of an assemblage when deciding when and whether reburial will occur.79 Without an agenda to which the decision makers can refer, the task will be an onerous one, presenting the danger that remains with an importance and potential beyond that which is immediately apparent will be lost to the future. With an agenda, the coffin lid need not be the only roof which protects the remains of our recent ancestors. The production of a truly interdisciplinary research agenda could have a wide-ranging impact on developers, commercial archaeology units, planners, museums and archives and provide a genuine benefit to the public, to create a future where ‘the dead may genuinely teach the living’.80

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist. Mays 1999, 332; Roberts & Cox 2003, 289. Harding 1998, 205. Molleson & Cox 1993. Mays 1999, 331. Nixon et al. 2002. Smith 2010, 8. Davis 2004. English Heritage 2007, 18. http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/docs/ exhuming-human-remains-faq.pdf [last accessed 10/2/2011]. P. Hinton pers. comm. P. Hinton pers. comm. ‘Reburial requirement impedes archaeology’, The Guardian, 4 February 2011. ‘Flexible reburying’, The Guardian, Letters, 9 February 2011. Mays 1999, 332; Roberts & Cox 2003, 289. Department of the Environment 1990. Mays 1999, 339. Church of England & English Heritage 2005, 11. Sayer 2010, 34. Brown 2007. Miles et al. 2008, 96. DCLG, DCMS & English Heritage 2010, 12. Barber & Bowsher 2000. Swain 2002, 95. Wallis and Blain 2011.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

Sayer 2009. e.g. Museum of London 2006. Mays 1999, 339. Nixon et al. 2002, 70. Nixon et al. 2002, 71. Roberts & Cox 2003, 289. Nixon et al. 2002, 2. Reeve 1998, 222. Reeve 1998, 223. Reeve 1998, 217, 223. Roberts & Cox 2003, 296. Mays 1999. Harding 1998, 211. Nixon et al. 2002, 72–3. Bell & Lee-Thorp 1998; Mays 1999, 338. Mays 1999, 339. Molleson & Cox 1993; Miles et al. 2008; Henderson et al. forthcoming. Miles & Connell, 2012. Powers & Miles 2012. Walker & Henderson 2010. Beaumont, forthcoming. English Heritage 2010, 2, 7. English Heritage 2010, 6. English Heritage 2010, 14. English Heritage 2010, 2. English Heritage 2010, 40. COBDO 2008. Carroll 2005. BDRC 2009.

142 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

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O’Sullivan 2001, 130, 139. BDRC 2009. Mays 1999, 332. Harding 1998, 212. O’Sullivan 2001, 138. Swain 2002, 100. Aldous & Payne 2009. Aldous & Payne 2009, 35. Nixon et al. 2002, 99. J Bekvalac pers. comm. Simpson & Williams 2008, 71, 73. APPAG 2003, 17. APPAG 2003, 34. Simpson & Williams 2008, 75. Nixon et al. 2002, 2.

70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80.

APPAG 2003, 29. DCLG, DCMS & English Heritage 2010, 17, 19, 24, 31. DCLG, DCMS & English Heritage 2010, 22. Mays 1999, 338. Taylor 2003, 11. Righarts et al. 2004. ‘Increase in rickets in Southampton astonishes doctors’, 12 November 2010, [last accessed 10/2/2011]. Crofts et al. 2008. Harding 1998, 205. P Hinton pers. comm. White 1998, 250.

Bibliography Aldous, A. & Payne, S. 2009, ‘London’s buried bones: Wellcome reactions’, The Archaeologist 72, 34–5. APPAG 2003, The Current State of Archaeology in the United Kingdom, First report of the AllParty Parliamentary Archaeology Group. Barber, B. & Bowsher, D. 2000, The Eastern Cemetery of Roman London: Excavations 1983–1990, London: Museum of London Archaeology Service. Beaumont, J. forthcoming, ‘Using stable isotope analysis to identify Irish migrants in the Catholic Mission of St Mary and St Michael, Whitechapel’, in Henderson et al. forthcoming. Bell, L. & Lee-Thorp, J.A. 1998, ‘Advances and constraints in the study of human skeletal remains: a joint perspective’, in Cox 1998, 238–46. BDRC 2009, Research into Issues Surrounding Human Bones in Museums. Available at: [last accessed 12/2/11]. Boston, C., Boyle, A. & Witkin, A. 2009, ‘In the Vaults Beneath’: Archaeological Recording at St George’s Church, Bloomsbury, Oxford: Oxford Archaeology. Boyle, A., Boston, C. & Witkin, A. 2005, The Archaeological Experience of St Luke’s Church, Old Street, Islington, Oxford: Oxford Archaeology. Brickley, M.S., Buteux, S. & Adams, J. 2006, St Martin’s Uncovered: Investigations in the Churchyard of St Martin’s-in-the-Bull Ring, Birmingham, 2001, Oxford, Oxbow Books. Brown, D.H. 2007, Archaeological Archives: a Guide to Best Practice in Creation, Compilation, Transfer and Curation, Reading: Institute of Field Archaeologists. Carroll, Q. 2005, ‘Bodies – who wants to rebury old skeletons?’, British Archaeology 82, 11–15. Church of England & English Heritage 2005, Guidance for Best Practice for Treatment of Human Remains Excavated from Christian Burial Grounds in England, Swindon: English Heritage. Connell, B. & Miles, A. 2010, The City Bunhill Burial Ground, Golden Lane, London: Excavations at South Islington Schools, 2006, London: Museum of London Archaeology. Council of British Druid Orders (COBDO) 2008, Request for the Reburial of Human Remains



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and Grave Goods, Avebury, Appendix 1. Available at: [Last accessed 24/02/11]. Cox, M. (ed.) 1998, Grave Concerns: Death and Burial in England 1700–1850, York: Council for British Archaeology. Crofts, J.P., Gelb, D., Andrews, N., Delpech, V., Watson, J.M. & Abubakar, I. 2008, ‘Investigating tuberculosis trends in England’, Public Health 122(12), 1302–10. Davis, M. 2004, ‘A study into the mitigation of construction impact on archaeological remains’, in Nixon (ed.) 2004, Department of the Environment 1990, Planning Policy Guidance 16: Archaeology and Planning. Available at: [last accessed 22/10/2012] Egan, G. & Michael, R.L. (eds) 1999, Old and New Worlds, Oxford: Oxbow Emery, P.A. & Wooldridge, K. 2011, St Pancras Burial Ground: Excavations for St Pancras International, the London Terminus of High Speed 1, 2002–3, London: Museum of London Archaeology. English Heritage 2007, Piling and Archaeology: An English Heritage Guidance Note, Swindon: English Heritage. English Heritage 2010, PPS5 Planning for the Historic Environment: Historic Environment Planning Practice Guide, March 2010. Available at: [last accessed 23/10/2012]. Harding, V. 1998, ‘Research priorities: an historian’s perspective’, in Cox (ed.) 1998, 205–12. Henderson, M., Miles, A. & Walker, D. with Connell, B. & Wroe-Brown, R. forthcoming, ‘He being dead yet speaketh’: Excavations of Three Post-medieval Burial Grounds in Tower Hamlets, East London 2004–10, London: Museum of London Archaeology. King, C. & Sayer, D. (eds) 2012, The Archaeology of Post-Medieval Religion, Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Mays, S. 1999, ‘The study of human skeletal remains from English Post Medieval sites’, in Egan & Michael (eds) 1999, 331–41. McKinley, J.I. 2008, The 18th Century Baptist Chapel and Burial Ground at West Butts Street, Poole, Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology Ltd. Miles, A., Powers, N. & Wroe-Brown, R., with Walker, D. 2008, St Marylebone Church and Burial Ground: Excavations at St Marylebone Church of England School, 2005, London: Museum of London Archaeology. Miles, A. & Connell, B. 2012, New Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, Southwark: Excavations at Globe Academy, 2008, London: Museum of London Archaeology. Molleson, T. & Cox, M. with Waldron, A.H. & Whittaker, D.K. 1993, The Spitalfields Project. Volume 2: The Anthropology – The Middling Sort, York: Council for British Archaeology. Museum of London 2006, Policy for the Care of Human Remains in Museum of London Collections. Available at: < http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Collections-Research/LAARC/ [last Centre-for-Human-Bioarchaeology/Policies/MuseumPolicyonHumanRemains.htm> accessed 23/10/12]. Nixon, T. (ed.) 2004, Preserving Archaeological Remains In Situ? Proceedings of the 2nd Conference 12–14 September 2001, London: Museum of London Archaeology Service & English Heritage. Nixon, T., McAdam, E., Tomber, R. & Swain, H. 2002, A Research Framework for London Archaeology 2002, London: Museum of London. O’Sullivan, J. 2001, ‘Ethics and the archaeology of human remains’, The Journal of Irish Archaeology X, 121–51. Powers, N. & Miles, A. 2012, ‘Nonconformist identities in 19th-century London: archaeological

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and osteological evidence from the burial grounds of Bow Baptist Chapel and the Catholic Mission of St Mary and St Michael, Tower Hamlets’, in King & Sayer (eds) 2012, 233–48. Reeve, J. 1998, ‘A view from the metropolis: post-medieval burials in London’, in Cox, M. (ed.) 1998, 213–37. Righarts, A.A., Simms, I., Wallace, L., Solomou, M. & Fenton, K.A. 2004, ‘Syphilis surveillance and epidemiology in the United Kingdom’, Euro Surveill 9(12), 21–5. Roberts, C.A. & Cox, M. 2003, Health and Disease in Britain: From Prehistory to the Present Day, Gloucester: Sutton Publishing. Sayer, D. 2009, ‘Is there a crisis facing British burial archaeology?’, Antiquity 83, 199–205. Sayer, D. 2010, ‘The human remains crisis’, British Archaeology 115 (November/December 2010), 34–5. Simpson, F. & Williams, H. 2008, ‘Evaluating community archaeology in the UK’, Public Archaeology 7(2), 69–90. Smith, R. 2010, ‘Archaeological archives – where do we go from here?’, The Archaeologist 70, 8–9. Swain, H. 2002, ‘The ethics of displaying human remains from British archaeological sites’, Public Archaeology 2, 95–100. Taylor, T. 2003, The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death, London: Fourth Estate. Walker, D. & Henderson, M. 2010, ‘Smoking and health in London’s East End in the first half of the 19th century’, Post-Medieval Archaeology 44(1), 209–22. Wallis, R.J. & Blain, J. 2011, ‘From respect to reburial: negotiating pagan interest in prehistoric human remains in Britain, through the Avebury consultation’, Public Archaeology 10(1), 23–45. White, B. 1998, ‘The excavation and study of human skeletal remains: a view from the floor’, in Cox (ed.) 1998, 247–51.

‘Men That Are Gone … Come Like Shadows, So Depart’:1 Research Practice and Sampling Strategies for Enhancing Our Understanding of Post-Medieval Human Remains Andrew S Wilson, Natasha Powers, Janet Montgomery, Jo Buckberry, Julia Beaumont, David Bowsher, Matthew Town, Robert C. Janaway The public generally accepts that human remains are often disturbed during the course of redevelopment and that, legally, such remains have to be removed. However, it is clear that the public and other stakeholders also tend to hold a variety of opinions with regard to the acceptance of handling human remains and of studying, retaining and/ or disposing of them after they have been removed. Where funding or time constraints linked to reburial do not permit detailed study, we suggest that there is a need to define acceptable policies for the sampling of human remains to ensure that the resource is sustained for future study. This concept is particularly important in major urban centres where piecemeal excavation of original burial grounds is commonplace, with different portions of the same cemetery often excavated decades apart. Post-medieval burial grounds and crypts can pose particular problems because of the increased potential there for the survival of well-preserved human remains and associated artefacts. These assemblages can offer a wealth of information, particularly where augmented by parish records and/or epigraphic data. This paper considers best practice for optimising the research potential whilst recognising that ‘sampling’ is an emotive issue both amongst practitioners studying human remains and the wider public. It advocates a consortium approach which recognises the value of specialist input to the planning and excavation phases of a project. The paper argues for a defined and pragmatic approach that affords dignity to named individuals and aims to return to them their biological identities, situated within a contextual narrative. This approach can advance our understanding of the recent past, and it can do so within a framework that aspires to ethical acceptance. Introduction

In common with the paper by Powers et al. (this volume) on the need for a high-level research framework for the post-medieval burial resource, this paper presents an aspirational viewpoint rather than the results of any comprehensive public consultation. We stress the need for a greater openness amongst all stakeholders concerned with the

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archaeology of the recent past. We detail the approaches taken by scientists, working alongside human osteologists and archaeologists, and the benefits that this work can bring in terms of integrating information that is otherwise lost to future generations. Although efforts have recently been made to clarify the legal position within England concerning the excavation of human remains, other pressures often still exist at a local level, particularly with post-medieval assemblages. In these cases the costs of cemetery or crypt excavation are significant, due to factors such as the density, volume and state of preservation of the material recovered, perceived health risks, the existence of identifiable living relatives and issues of wider public sentiment, the costs of assessment, analysis and storage in the medium to longer term, and inflation associated with budgets assigned for reburial costs. These factors can exert an influence on decisions concerning the timescales during which assemblages may be available for wider research. The opportunities for biochemical analysis and the unique information that these analyses of ‘lifeways’ can provide are often, therefore, tempered by the threat of reburial. In this paper we introduce a pragmatic framework that aspires to the targeted sampling of bone, teeth, hair and nail and propose that this framework becomes recognised as an accepted standard to ensure that the research potential is maximised even where reburial is inevitable. Given variance in planning and legal constraints across the UK the paper is largely focused on practice in England. The excavation of recent burials

Irrespective of time period, the excavation, analysis and display of human remains can prove a contentious topic, with many finding human remains fascinating (as evidenced by the positive feedback from the general public towards museum exhibits such as ‘London Bodies’), and others (including some archaeologists) remaining uncomfortable with the process of excavating these remains, particularly when it involves the relatively recent dead.2 Regardless of stance, so long as the needs of those living in urban centres continue to be met, human remains will be disturbed as a consequence of the reuse and redevelopment of land. Redevelopment, particularly in large urban centres, is not a new phenomenon and the reality is that, when excavated, burial grounds often show evidence of inter-cutting and reburial of charnel throughout their extended history. Recent changes in the planning process and English Heritage’s Guidance on the Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment3 clearly emphasise the need to communicate with and provide assurances to local stakeholders and they renew emphasis on the need for a wider research framework. Of course, there is nothing new in the results of planning-led projects being made publicly available, although such information is increasingly becoming more accessible. For London, for example, there are a number of key online resources that can be mined and re-examined to retune and refocus research agendas, such as the osteological database available via the Centre for Human Bioarchaeology website.4 Depending on the nature of the excavation and the timescales involved, what has sometimes proven more difficult is the retention and revisiting of physical remains over longer time periods. Of course, the harsh reality of a commercial environment means that financial tensions between the interests of redeveloping a site and the costs associated with both archaeological excavation and the



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post-excavation work are inescapable. Delays and costs incurred through archaeological intervention or the commercial clearance of burials are not insignificant and the smooth passage of these enabling works is of primacy for the developer, with long-term curation or the reburial of remains viewed as yet another cost to be met. The relatively recent nature of post-medieval burials inevitably swells the number of potential stakeholders who might express interest in being consulted about the procedures for their exhumation and their fate following removal. The formation of APABE (Advisory Panel on the Archaeology of Burials in England) came at a time of vocal objections by pagan groups to the disturbance of the dead and for the reburial of prehistoric remains (importantly, this is a position not shared across all pagan groups).5 Public sentiment can also run high in modern urban centres where post-medieval burial grounds often yield very high densities of inhumations and living descendants may be traceable. History has shown that mistrust has bred where the interests of stakeholders have not been taken into account as, for example, in many pre-PPG16 projects or in projects exempt from the formal requirements of normal planning practice.6 Recent experience in Copenhagen found that a number of different and changing sentiments were expressed by construction engineers, archaeologists and the wider public in relation to the excavation, osteological analysis and reburial of several thousand post-medieval human remains that came to light during the construction of a new metro station.7 The wider moral and ethical debates concerning the disturbance of archaeological human remains are covered in detail elsewhere,8 although it is interesting to note that traditional legal, moral and ethical boundaries continue to be redrawn even in established areas such as healthcare and medical training.9 Archaeology has undergone a massive scientific revolution in recent years, with a very significant emphasis on enhancing understanding and public engagement with the past.10 This is perhaps most evident with the scientific study of human remains,11 with novel techniques and research agendas that continue to evolve, particularly in the niche fields of biomolecular archaeology (e.g. DNA, residues, proteins and lipid biomarkers), isotope geochemistry and the impact of pollutants. Over the past two decades a number of important documents have been published that promote the scientific analysis of human remains, and the benefits this can bring within a broader research framework, these include: the English Heritage/Church of England Guidelines for Best Practice for Treatment of Human Remains Excavated from Christian Burial Grounds in England;12 the English Heritage/Centre for Archaeology Human Bones from Archaeological Sites: Guidelines for Producing Assessment Documents and Analytical Reports;13 the IfA guidance on the Excavation and Post-Excavation Treatment of Cremated and Inhumed Human Remains and Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains;14 the Association of Diocesan and Cathedral Archaeologists’ (ADCA) first guidance note on Archaeological Requirements for Works on Churches and Churchyards;15 and the British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology Code of Practice.16 Specific to crypt archaeology is the IfA’s Crypt Archaeology: An Approach and the ADCA’s Archaeology and Burial Vault: A Guidance Note for Churches.17 Recently the Advisory panel on the Archaeology of Burials in England have drafted guidance for the destructive sampling of human remains.18 This paper seeks to augment this existing guidance by promoting better sampling strategies for future projects that enhance the scientific potential of post-medieval human remains

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while showing an awareness of the need to consider stakeholder interests with the excavation, recording, selection, retention and analysis of representative material. Preservation by record, as opposed to preservation by mitigation, does have its limitations, although the distinction between clearance by a commercial exhumation company and the research potential afforded through re-integrating historical records, archaeology and lifeways information has sometimes been undersold. Scientific endeavour has often not been aided by the restrictive time limits imposed by Ministry of Justice licences which until recently implied reburial. Whilst extensions to such licences are now considered a formality, clear research justifications are required and these are often now viewed in the context of the wider pressures of space, storage and cost within commercial archaeology and the museum sector. We present here arguments for archaeological intervention versus commercial clearance. The longer-term benefits of a comprehensive scientific framework for study can be viewed as a tangible and moderating influence over the necessary insult of disturbing human remains where there may be the chance of identifiable living descendents. We seek to explain the merits and benefits of a pragmatic archaeological approach to alleviate some of these tensions. The nature of post-medieval burial assemblages

Whilst there is merit for some in not drawing too marked a distinction between postmedieval and earlier burials, because of historical continuities of practice and to avoid muddying the legal requirements/practical guidance associated with the excavation of human remains, there are noteworthy distinctions that cannot be ignored.19 These important differences have an impact both in terms of archaeological practice and in defining sampling and analytical strategies. The complexities and the relatively high costs associated with the excavation and analysis of post-medieval assemblages are often related to the good state of preservation of the remains or to the sheer volume of material which is encountered. The excavation of some post-medieval burial sites (e.g. crypts) has been shown to benefit from a consortium approach that better addresses some of these wider complexities, including: security; health and safety (e.g. structural stability, confined spaces, and potential for lead coffins and biohazards); taphonomy and conservation needs (e.g. targeted approaches to safeguarding the recovery and ongoing assessment needs of corroded/fragmented depositums to yield biographic data and other artefacts including textiles, jewellery and dental appliances); and the realisation of the rich potential for assembling detailed ‘lifeways’ information given the enhanced potential for recovery of soft tissues (e.g. hair, nail) alongside conventional hard tissues (bone and teeth). Significantly, where the likes of hair and nail survive it is possible to exploit the incremental nature of tissue growth to assemble diachronic information pertaining to the final months and years of an individual’s life,20 whereas teeth offer information relating to childhood and bones offer an averaged ‘lifeways’ signature, dependent on the bone in question and the relative speed of bone turnover (Figs 9.1–9.3). Increasingly the preservation conditions and information potential of post-medieval remains have parallels with other areas, including conflict archaeology, mummy studies, medico-legal investigation and taphonomic research, each using human subjects and



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Figure 9.1: Uses of dental enamel.

Figure 9.2: Uses of hair and nail.

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Figure 9.3: Uses of bone and tooth dentine.

collectively seeing renewed interest in the development of formalised codes of practice for excavation and handling, tissue sampling, tracking, analysis, storage requirements (safeguarding potential biomolecular information) and disposal alongside wider stakeholder interests. Given the potential for organic survival (as variable as it may be), by utilising different types of tissue sample and associated evidential materials it is possible to offer ‘augmented life histories’ for use in individualisation together with associated biographic data.21 Of course, the nature of this research method creates an obligation for synthetic approaches to the handling, interpretation and wider contextualisation of the historic, archaeological, osteological and related scientific data. Furthermore, there are the very real issues of managing the sheer volume of material and data generated from post-medieval sites, the space requirements and costs associated with the curation (even temporarily) of these assemblages, the permitted timescales for access and study, and the matter of how costs and responsibilities for reburial or retention should be shared between interested parties. There is also some evidence of darker practices emerging – at Bradford we have direct experience of being encouraged to bid against other academic institutions for the ‘research rights’ relating to certain remains, entailing assumption of the responsibility for meeting reburial costs at a later date.



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What do these assemblages represent?

The 18th and 19th centuries were times of immense change. Within the UK we see this manifest as varied responses to industrialisation, including a rural decline together with a concomitant explosion of urban centres. For example, over the course of a century the population in Bradford, West Yorkshire, (once the centre of the world’s worsted industry) grew unchecked from 6,393 (1801) to 103,778 (1851), reaching 279,767 (1901).22 These population changes were evident at different scales and can be viewed comprehensibly in a global setting, with issues that have a currency and resonance even today in terms of population movement and population diversity. Urbanisation and industrialisation brought other challenges that were felt, and are thus visible, at the individual level. The biochemical analysis of human tissues can reveal measurable differences which evidence ‘lifeways’ responses23 to dietary change, disease and other stressors, the impact of new occupations or recreational habits, and increased exposure to pollutants. There is an enhanced potential for biographic information to identify buried individuals and their living descendents. In part this is defined by the evolution of funerary practice and fashion, initially as a copy of the elite heraldic tradition,24 which ultimately shaped the development of a trade in mass-produced metalwork and the wider adoption of coffin plates (depositums), even in Non-Conformist assemblages such as the Bethel Chapel crypt at Villiers Street in Sunderland where depositums were recovered from more than half of the burials. When combined with the development of more systematic records (mostly post-1830s), including death registers and local records associated with the use of vaults, crypts and burial grounds, these assemblages offer a real opportunity for individualisation. Certainly, since excavations at Christ Church Spitalfields there have been a number of notable individuals for whom an enhanced life picture has been collected,25 each providing a very tangible and personal account of life in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is ironic that it was the expansion of large urban centres during these centuries that resulted in newly created burial grounds, often clearly delineated or distorted along denominational, economic and social lines, yet today such large-scale urban redevelopment has the potential to offer up assemblages that can provide detailed evidence of post-medieval life. However, without an appropriate framework and due care, the significance of loss may be even more apparent to future generations. The high level research framework proposed by Powers et al. (this volume) illustrates the need for a pragmatic approach to the geographic and temporal constraints that need to be addressed. Realising the research potential

Since the excavation of the crypt at Christ Church Spitalfields in London during the 1980s26 there has been increased interest in post-medieval assemblages. In recent years there has been a gathering pace in the publication of monographs and other papers with a major focus on post-medieval human remains including: All Saints Chelsea; St Benets Sherehog; Cross Bones Burial Ground, Redcross Way, Southwark; St Marylebone; St George’s Bloomsbury; Butts Street Poole; St Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton; St Martin’s in the Bull-Ring, Birmingham; Royal Hospital Greenwich; St Nicholas

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Church, Sevenoaks; Christ Church Spitalfields; and St Pancras Burial Ground.27 Collectively, these publications enable a better synthetic view of the time-period. However, to date, the majority relate to London and all but one originate from an urban area. A recent catalogue serves as a valuable contribution attempting to survey the grey literature and extend knowledge of post-medieval assemblages,28 but this is an ever shifting picture, especially within the context of reburial. Early collaboration between commercial archaeology and academic institutions is helping to consolidate research questions and better define research potential. However, unless funds exist to comprehensively analyse assemblages in cases where reburial is a necessity or requirement, steps must be taken to safeguard the research potential ensuring that relevant tissues are collected, avoiding their loss to future excavations of related assemblages or parts of the same site. Scientific advances also continue to have an impact on refining our understandings from such material including, novel genetic studies (pathogen DNA, ancestry etc.), analysis of residues/ biomolecules (drug residues, lipid biomarkers etc.), stable light isotopes (diet, pregnancy/lactation, and other physiological stressors),29 radiogenic isotopes (migration) or elemental analysis (pollution studies).30 Although the per-analysis costs are usually relatively affordable, the justification for undertaking such work requires the collection of targeted samples across the assemblage(s) and in some cases the use of incremental tissues (teeth, hair and nail) that grow at defined rates and therefore require multiple sub-samples (e.g. hair segments) to yield diachronic information. Given the possibility of matching ‘lifeways’ evidence to the individual using extant burial registers and other documentary sources which complement the osteology, there is an enhanced value and importance of such post-medieval assemblages to modern society. These benefits include their historic significance/scientific potential in relation to disease, the history of dentistry and medicine, demography/the local population with large samples of sub-adults, and also to genealogical studies. Not only can the additional biographical details enhance our understanding of life histories in the past, but the remains can be used to develop and refine osteological methods. Studies using named individuals with known age and sex can contribute to modern forensic science and medical science by, for instance, developing new methods for age estimation and sex assessment, refining existing methods31 or enhancing understanding of pathological conditions. The wider public is often unaware of such endeavours, but this work is hardly of purely academic interest. Ultimately future scientific advances mean that the potential of human remains is ever increasing. Newly defined guidance, embodied in English Heritage’s Management of Research Projects within the Historic Environment (MoRPHE) and the National Planning Policy Framework32 and in the Southport group consultation document,33 offers a more holistic approach, with clear emphasis on new opportunities for research and the goal that archaeology should be viewed as an asset rather than a cost. However, with the number of burials now being exhumed,34 the demands of space and multifactorial reburial ­pressures pose difficulties for long-term curation. At the same time as there is a greater recognition of the academic potential of the post-medieval burial resource, there is a divergence between what is workable financially in commercial archaeology versus the expectation within the Higher Education sector to apply full-economic costing to



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any ‘knowledge exchange’ work, unless other arrangements of mutual benefit are entered into. Similarly, additional costs need to be factored in where identifiable living descendents may wish remains to be interred. Furthermore when timescales are defined by reburial or storage costs this has the potential to create a clear disconnect between what is achievable via developer-funded work and research council or charities’ monies that need to be applied for (i.e. a time lag and for which there is intense competition) in order to undertake cutting-edge research. Pragmatic approaches to facilitate future research

Given the requirements of ‘respectful and dignified’ treatment as defined in Ministry of Justice exhumation licences, it is important that we develop clear guidance on research practice for the post-medieval burial resource, including for sampling strategies and documentation. Looking beyond the extant guidance documents and considering scientific advances made since the excavations at Christ Church Spitalfields (e.g. with DNA and isotopic analyses), it is crucial that we take steps to safeguard this evidence, both now and for the future. There is heightened interest in our tangible past, as genealogy becomes a popular past-time buoyed by online resources such as ancestry.co.uk and TV series like Who Do You Think You Are? Yet, when do ‘ancestors’ become of more general relevance to the wider populace, in terms of understanding nutrition, health, disease and demographics? Historic archaeology has often had to wrestle the preconception that ‘we know it all already’.35 English Heritage have a 30-year perspective on what constitutes archaeology, although the key legislation that helps to define human remains as archaeological is the Human Tissue Act (2004), given that the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) is not concerned with remains more than 100 years old. Whether palatable or not, the 100 years specified by the HTA is an arbitrary cut off as this is a shifting timescale. So, for instance, in a few years time the victims of the Spanish Flu epidemic (1918–19) which killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide, will potentially be open to archaeological scrutiny. There is often confusion with the definition of ‘sampling’, with the term often viewed as a dirty word in archaeology and human osteology. Clearly there are a number of different meanings based on ‘scale’ and contrasting viewpoints. The term ‘sample’ can refer to a small portion, piece or segment that is representative of the whole or to a specimen. At a macro-scale, sampling is concerned with the completeness of the excavated assemblage relative to the size of the original burial ground. The reality is that the majority of archaeological excavations only recover a sample of the original buried population. If the burial ground was only partially excavated because the area under redevelopment only covered a portion of it, then the excavated assemblage would represent a sample of the whole, the significance being that the remainder may be excavated when adjacent land is redeveloped years if not decades later. At a meso-scale, sampling could also refer to whether all of the excavated skeletons that underwent assessment were subject to complete analysis (defined by the EH/ALGAO approved research design). At a micro-scale, this could refer to the nature and type of sample retrieved from a skeleton, such as a sample of hair, standardised tooth samples (defined by the age at which they

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form/mineralise), a portion of bone from the femoral mid-shaft, or even a sub-sample of this retrieved tissue as with the diachronic information obtainable from the segmental analysis of hair. Although it may not always be practical to retain skeletal remains beyond osteological analysis, there are clear arguments for creating a repository for tissue samples to facilitate comprehensive analysis and address wider research questions. Scientific advances have ensured that even with destructive sampling practices, very small quantities are required these days for the majority of analyses (e.g. the taking of a small portion of bone, or a tooth) and a number of different tests can be undertaken on the same sample (assuming that a clear sequence is defined). The development of a sampling strategy should therefore be seen as an integral part of the high level research framework for the 18th-/19th-century burial resource since this will help to define the sequence with which these samples are collected safeguarding any morphometric observations, augmented by other recording methods (including photography, 3D laser scanning and filmless radiography) as appropriate. Although in their infancy, some of these approaches are making a demonstrable impact on the study of human remains. For example, the recent JISCfunded projects led by Bradford – From Cemetery to Clinic and Digitised Diseases – have been digitising skeletal elements from internationally-important collections together with project partners Museum of London Archaeology, the Royal College of Surgeons and Novium (formerly Chichester District Museum) to safeguard fragile skeletal specimens. To undertake this work we have been using a Faro QuantumArm with V3 laser scanner to capture a 3D model of these bones on to which photo-realistic texturing is applied. Post-processing also sees these images compressed to a useable size that allows them to be manipulated online using standard web viewers, much in the same way as modern on-line gaming environments are being developed. Furthermore, the use of filmless radiography offers advantages of speed and higher dynamic range over conventional film radiography, but again standard methods are still being developed for their application to skeletal collections. It is important to recognise that even with samples that do fall under the remit of the HTA, the legislation is not about halting the taking of samples, but more about the governance of sampling practice, tissue tracking, use, retention and disposal. Furthermore, many establishments have disposed of extant teaching collections rather than interpret the law and address this fully as shown by concern expressed by the Academy of Medical Sciences in their response to the Retained Organs Commission Consultation on the category of unclaimed and unidentifiable organs and tissue.36 One important response to the HTA within biomedical science has been the establishment of registered Tissue Banks (often called ‘Biobanks’) around the country,37 now with various commercial interests looking to facilitate their use and help support this infrastructure for research benefit.38 The most prominent archaeological parallel thus far is the International Ancient Egyptian Mummy Tissue Bank at Manchester.38 Collectively these repositories store tissue under optimal conditions and manage the process of informed consent, patient records, requests for study and ultimately disposal of residual samples as appropriate. Of course, there are also those areas such as criminal justice that are served by specific guidance in relation to Home Office Pathologists and forensic casework. The British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology and the Institute



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for Archaeologists have similar general codes of conduct for the excavation and postexcavation assessment and analysis of human osteoarchaeological remains. Other similar institutional codes of conduct (for museums and commercial archaeological units) and university policies/ethics panels also serve as mechanisms by which the interests of different stakeholders are considered by these professional bodies. Communication and public engagement

Most excavations are not actively publicised, and the licensing requirements for burial grounds may require that to be the case. Whether publicised or not, it is inevitable that the wider public discovers that such excavations are taking place. The site of the former Bethel Chapel crypt at Villiers Street in Sunderland was excavated in 2010 under controlled archaeological conditions. As the crypt is not classed as a burial ground in the same manner as a graveyard there was no requirement under Ministry of Justice licensing to publicise the works through a newspaper announcement beforehand. A decision was therefore made by the developers to undertake the excavations without public consultation, though it was agreed that any public interest in the project would be addressed as the works progressed, and any relatives who expressed an interest or concern in the works would be seen by the project consultants and the matter explained to them. The works were undertaken within a defined programme for analysis and reburial based on the requirements for the Ministry of Justice licence, and the remains will ultimately be reinterred in Bishopwearmouth cemetery. The option for people to ‘reclaim’ their relatives remained a possibility. As the excavations progressed, it became known that work was underway and an independent councillor and heritage campaigner, Peter Maddison, and a local historian, Arnie Sneddon, campaigned for the vaults to be left intact.40 A strategy for this had been prepared, and prompted by the protest a press statement was released, stating that ‘Archaeologists are busy documenting the rare find before the remains are removed and sent away for analysis. The bones will be reburied in Bishopwearmouth Cemetery and the crypt will be filled in’, with the excavator quoted as saying ‘The work presents a rare opportunity to learn more about the lifestyles of people in 19th-century Sunderland.’ Interestingly, a not very scientifically-rigorous Google search revealed that local sentiment was that this was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the history of Sunderland. Significantly, a better managed and more pro-active approach to public consultation and press management would have conveyed the message that collectively the developer and the wider archaeological team were taking the historical significance of the finds seriously, and that the results of analysis would be disseminated widely to the local population. By explaining why the analysis of human remains furthers scientific understanding, rather than just stating that it does, also helps to present a more engaging rationale. Public sentiment is not a new concern: for example, St Pancras Old Church cemetery was first disturbed during the construction of the St Pancras railway terminus in the 1860s and, at the time, the work attracted public outcry. Famously, Thomas Hardy oversaw the exhumation of the bodies and their subsequent re-interment in a mass grave, with grave stones that surround the ‘Hardy tree’ reputedly placed here around the

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Figure 9.4: The Hardy Tree, churchyard of St Pancras Old Church (image courtesy of Jenna Dittmar-Blado).

time of the exhumation (Fig. 9.4).41 Further graves were cleared prior to the extension of the Channel Tunnel rail link in 2002/3, which led to outcry at the ‘desecration of graves’ amongst the archaeological community when the archaeological watching brief was suspended part way through the works, before being reinstated several weeks later following negotiations.42 A personal letter from one of us (JB) to the relevant MP and local councillor, raising concerns about damage to a valuable archaeological resource, drew a response more concerned with defending the disturbance of the graves, and in particular the grave of a person of note (perhaps intended as a more general response), which may indicate that the bulk of letters received by the MP related to the disturbance of the cemetery and not to the cessation of archaeological recording at that point. The site is now just about to be published and the osteological data will be published on the Centre for Human Bioarchaeology website at the Museum of London. The National Planning Policy Framework emphasises the key principle of localism within the planning process to ensure wider public consultation. With post-medieval burial grounds, this approach can help to ensure that the wishes of descendents are acknowledged at the start of any project, and it should ensure that they are kept ‘in the loop’ throughout the project, if they so desire. But the fear that public outcry could cause the works to be delayed or even halted, effectively crippled what the consortium involved in the excavation of Villiers Street Crypt in Sunderland hoped would have been a positive heritage news story for the region, although of course this can equally apply to all ‘sensitive’ archaeology or to all situations where development is unwanted.



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Despite some adverse publicity during the recent interdisciplinary excavation of the World War I mass grave at Fromelles in France, overseen by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the process was overall a positive experience with the reburial of individuals together with an identification and an enhanced understanding of their ‘lifeways’ the ultimate goal.43 Clearly, we should not underestimate the importance of the viewpoints of descendents and increasingly as the arbitrary 100 year cut-off creeps forward into the 20th century, the greater availability of records concerning the individual (including film footage and other sources) may pose additional sensitivities that perhaps many are not yet prepared for. Certainly, at Spitalfields, the reburial of specific individuals took place at the request of their families and such wishes do need to be respected. This has a large implication for post-medieval archaeology, as the vast majority of named individuals in collections date to the 18th and 19th centuries. Conclusions

Early planning makes for a better project by ensuring that the developer is aware of accurate costs from the outset. Given storage constraints (in the light of the volume of human remains excavated in London alone over recent years), we have to accept a degree of compromise that recognises there is a place for targeted tissue storage even if long-term storage of the skeletal assemblage is not possible. In looking towards a sustainable future for the post-medieval burial resource (considering recent scientific developments and aspirations) it is important to consider future-proof solutions wherever possible. These need to be concerned with optimising recording methods, designing tissue sampling strategies and providing facilities (tissue banks) for optimal storage with tissue tracking. Such repositories could even hold residual material generated during analysis (e.g. collagen or DNA extracts). Ultimately, when presented as a defined strategy alongside a high level research framework for the 18th-/19th-century burial resource, the aim will be to ensure that, beyond minimum standards for osteological analysis as outlined by IfA and EH, there are also appropriate standards for standardised tissue sampling, tissue tracking and curation. When recognised within the post-excavation budget as a defined cost, with clearly defined samples and clear mention of required quantities and storage needs then it is possible to safeguard very valuable information for the future, even if analytical costs are unavailable in the short term. In articulating what these targets should be, there is clearly a need for a defined and pragmatic approach alongside a balanced framework for consultation – an approach that takes on board the varied legal, ethical, financial and time pressures associated with retention versus reburial, ultimately balancing the wishes of a number of stakeholders (developers, religious bodies, archaeologists, osteologists, archaeological scientists, the wider public and of course living descendents). Clearly a process that engages with living descendents and the wider public at the earliest possible opportunity is more likely to garner support. Of course it is important to assess on a case basis what potential evidence can be learnt and the overall significance of the assemblage at a regional, national and international level.

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Ultimately we should be aspiring to a process that not only affords dignity to named individuals but similarly aims to return biological identities to otherwise nameless individuals. Collectively these approaches have the potential to advance our understanding of the recent past within a framework that aspires to ethical acceptance.

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Anon, Darlington Telegraph & NorthEastern News, 1 March 1862; adapted from Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1. Downes & Pollard 1999. English Heritage 2010; Lee et al. 2006. < http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Collections-Research/LAARC/Centre-for-HumanBioarchaeology/Database/> [Last accessed 23/10/12]. Williams 2011. Sayer 2010. Lynnerup, pers. comm. Bahn 1984; Bahn & Patterson 1986; Boyle 1999; Swain 2002; Tarlow 2006; Mays 2008; Alberti et al. 2009; Sayer 2010. Herrmann 2011. Williams 2009. Roberts 2009. Mays 2005. Mays 2004. Roberts & McKinley 1993; Brickley & McKinley 2004. ADCA 2004. BABAO 2010. Cox & Kneller 2002; ADCA 2010. Mays et al. 2013. See Cox 1996; Powers et al. this volume. Wilson & Gilbert 2007. Christensen 2006; Cox et al. 2008; Kaufmann & Ruhli 2010.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

Duckett & Waddington-Feather 2005. Sealy, Armstrong & Schrire 1995. Litten 1992. Cox 1996; Miles & White 2008. Reeve & Adams 1993. Cowie, Kausmally & Bekvalac 2008; Miles & White 2008; Brickley & Miles 1999; Miles et al. 2008; Boston et al. 2009; McKinley 2008; Adams & Colls 2007; Brickley et al. 2006; Boston et al. 2008; Boyle & Keevil 1998; Molleson et al. 1993; Reeve & Adams 1993; Cox 1996; Emery & Wooldridge 2011. Cherryson et al. 2012. Wilson & Cadwallader 2010; Richards 2006. Farmer, MacKenzie & Moody 2006. Sengupta, Whittaker & Shellis 1999. DCLG 2012; Lee et al. 2006. Southport Group 2011. See Powers et al. this volume. Gilchrist 2005; Hicks 2004. Academy of Medical Sciences 2002. Galea 2010. e.g. [last accessed 23/10/12]. Lambert-Zazulak, Rutherford & David 2000. Robertson 2010. Ackroyd 2001. Smith 2002; Sayer 2010. Summers et al. 2010.



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Bibliography Academy of Medical Sciences 2002, Response to the Retained Organs Commission Consultation Document on ‘Unclaimed and unidentifiable organs and tissue’, June 2002. Available at: [last accessed 24/2/12]. Ackroyd, P. 2001, London: the Biography, London: Vintage. Adams, J. & Colls, K. (eds) 2007, ‘Out of the Darkness, Cometh Light’: Life and Death in Nineteenth Century Wolverhampton; Excavation of the Overflow Burial Ground of St Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton 2001–2002, Oxford: Archaeopress. ADCA 2004, Archaeological Requirements for Works on Churches and Churchyards, Association of Diocesan and Cathedral Archaeologists. Available at: [last accessed 23/10/12]. ADCA 2010, Archaeology and Burial Vaults. A Guidance Note for Churches, Association of Diocesan and Cathedral Archaeologists. Available at Alberti, S., Drew, R., Bienkowski, P. & Chapman, M.J. 2009, ‘Should we display the dead?’, Museum and Society 7(3), 133–49. BABAO 2010, British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology Code of Practice. Available at: [last accessed 24/2/12]. Bahn, P.G. 1984, ‘Do not disturb? Archaeology and the rights of the dead’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 1(2), 213–25. Bahn, P.G. & Patterson, R.W.K. 1986, ‘The Last Rights: More on Archaeology and the Dead’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 5(3), 255–71. Boston, C., Witkin, A., Boyle, A. & Wilson, D.R.P. 2008, Safe Moor’d in Greenwich Tier: A Study of the Skeletons of Royal Navy Sailors and Marines Excavated at the Royal Hospital Greenwich, Oxford: Oxford Archaeology. Boston, C., Boyle, A. & Witkin, A. 2009, ‘In the Vaults Beneath’: Archaeological Recording at St George’s Church, Bloomsbury, Oxford: Oxford Archaeology. Boyle, A. 1999, ‘A grave disturbance: archaeological perceptions of the recently dead’, in Downes & Pollard (eds), 187–99. Boyle, A. & Keevil, G. 1998, ‘“To the Praise of the Dead, and Anatomie”: The analysis of postmedieval burials at St Nicholas, Sevenoaks, Kent’, in Cox (ed.) 1998, 85–99. Brickley, M. & Miles, A. 1999, The Cross Bones Burial Ground, Redcross Way Southwark, London: Archaeological Excavations (1991–1998) for the London Underground Limited Jubilee Line Extension Project, London, Museum of London Archaeology Service. Brickley, M. & McKinley, J.I. 2004, Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains, Reading, Institute of Field Archaeologists. Brickley, M.S., Buteux, S. & Adams, J. 2006, St Martin’s Uncovered: Investigations in the Churchyard of St Martin’s-in-the-Bull Ring, Birmingham, 2001, Oxford, Oxbow Books. Cherryson, A., Crossland, Z. & Tarlow, S. 2012, A Fine and Private Place: The Archaeology of Death and Burial in Post-Medieval Britain and Ireland, Leicester: Leicester Archaeology Monograph. Christensen, A.M. 2006, ‘Moral considerations in body donation for scientific research: a unique look at the University of Tennessee’s Anthropological Research Facility’, Bioethics 20(3), 136–45. Connell, B. & Miles, A. 2010, The City Bunhill Burial Ground, Golden Lane, London: Excavations at South Islington Schools, 2006, London: Museum of London Archaeology.

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Cowie, R. Kausmally, T. & Bekvalac, J. 2008, Late 17th- to 19th-century Burial and Earlier Occupation at All Saints, Chelsea Old Church, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, Museum of London Archaeology Service. Cox, M. (ed.) 1996, Life and Death in Spitalfields 1700–1850, York: Council for British Archaeology. Cox, M. (ed.) 1998, Grave Concerns: Death and Burial in England 1700 to 1850, York: Council for British Archaeology. Cox, M. & Kneller, P. 2002, Crypt Archaeology: an Approach, Reading, Institute of Field Archaeologists. Cox, M., Flavel, A., Hanson, I., Laver, J. & Wessling, R. (eds) 2008, Scientific Investigation of Mass Graves: Towards Protocols and Standard Operating Procedures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) 2012, National Planning Policy Framework. Available at: [Last accessed 23/10/12]. Mays, S., Elders, J., Humphrey, L., White, W. & Marshall, P. 2013, Science and the Dead: A Guidline for the Destructive Sampling of Archaeological Human Remains for Scientific Analysis. Available at: [last accessed 15/03/2013]



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McKinley, J.I. 2008, The 18th Century Baptist Chapel and Burial Ground at West Butts Street, Poole, Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology Ltd. Miles, A. & White, W. with Tankard, D. 2008, Burial at the Site of the Parish Church of St Benet Sherehog Before and After the Great Fire: Excavations at 1 Poultry, City of London, London: Museum of London Archaeology Service. Miles, A., Powers, N., Wroe-Brown, R. & Walker, D. 2008. St Marylebone Church and Burial Ground in the 18th to 19th Centuries: Excavations at St Marylebone School, 1992 and 2004–6, London: Museum of London. Molleson, T. & Cox, M. with Waldron, A.H. & Whittaker, D.K. 1993, The Spitalfields Project: The Middling Sort, Volume 2 – The Anthropology, York: Council for British Archaeology. Reeve, J. & Adams, M. (eds) 1993, The Spitalfields Project: Across the Styx, volume1 - the Archaeology, York: Council for British Archaeology. Richards, M.P. 2006, ‘Palaeodietary reconstruction’, in Brickley, Buteux & Adams 2006, 147–51. Roberts, C.A. 2009, Human Remains in Archaeology: a Handbook, York: Council for British Archaeology. Roberts, C. & McKinley, J. 1993, Excavation and Post-excavation Treatment of Cremated and Inhumed Human Remains, Reading: Institute of Field Archaeologists. Robertson, R. 2010, ‘Mass tomb found under chapel’, reproduced from the Sunderland Echo’ in World Archaeology News, 22 January 2010. Available at: [last accessed 24/2/12]. Sayer, D. 2010, Ethics and Burial Archaeology, London: Duckworth. Scarre, C. & Scarre, G. (eds) 2006, The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sealy, J., Armstrong, R. & Schrire, C. 1995, ‘Beyond lifetime averages – tracing life-histories through isotopic analysis of different calcified tissues from archaeological human skeletons’, Antiquity 69(263), 290–300. Sengupta, A., Whittaker, D.K. & Shellis, R.P. 1999, ‘Difficulties in estimating age using root dentine translucency in human teeth of varying antiquity’, Archives of Oral Biology 44(11), 889–99. Smith, G. 2002, ‘Graves destroyed by Chunnel diggers’, London Evening Standard, 26 November 2002. Southport Group 2011, Realising the Benefits of Planning-led Investigation in the Historic Environment: a Framework for Delivering the Requirements of PPS5, Reading: Institute for Archaeologists. Summers, J., Loe, L. & Steel, N. 2010, Remembering Fromelles: A New Cemetery for a New Century, Maidenhead: CWGC Publishing. Swain, H. 2002, ‘The ethics of displaying human remains from British archaeological sites’, Public Archaeology 2, 95–100. Tarlow, S. 2006, ‘Archaeological ethics and the people of the past’, in Scarre & Scarre (eds) 2006, 199–216. Thompson, T. & Black, S. 2007, Forensic Human Identification: an Introduction, Boca Raton: CRC Press. Williams, J. 2009, The Use of Science to Enhance Our Understanding of the Past. National Heritage Science Strategy. Available at: [last accessed 26/7/12] Williams, L. 2011 ‘How to honour the ancient dead’, guardian.co.uk Monday 31 October 2011. Available at: [Last accessed 24/2/12]. Wilson, A.S. & Gilbert, M.T.P. 2007, ‘Hair and nail’, in Thompson & Black 2007, 147–74. Wilson, A.S. & Cadwallader, L. 2010, ‘Individuals with surviving hair’, in Connell & Miles 2010, 49–52.

Dialogues Between Past, Present and Future: Reflections on Engaging the Recent Past Siân Jones

The past remains integral to us all, individually and collectively. We must concede the ancients their place.… But their place is not simply back there in a foreign country; it is assimilated to ourselves, and resurrected in an ever-changing present.1

In his seminal work, The Past is a Foreign Country, David Lowenthal not only captures the inseparable nature of past and present, but also advocates that we embrace the production of a useable past in a shifting present. Today, few archaeologists would dispute that our understandings of the past are a product of the present. Moreover, most accept that archaeology is a public concern with political, ethical and social implications in wider society. Indeed, as this volume demonstrates, they actively seek to produce an engaged and engaging past. Yet this has not always been the case. For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, archaeologists, like historians, sought to separate the past as a distinct realm from the present and to subject it to objective investigation in and of itself. This distinction, often seen as a defining characteristic of western modernity,2 was challenged in the later 20th century by significant shifts in cultural theory that exposed the mediated nature of historical knowledge. In particular, postmodern approaches question the very existence of historical facts as secure and objective things standing apart from those who seek to understand the past.3 In the wake of these challenges, and the resulting relativisation of the past, an interest in the social and political conditions underpinning the production of historical knowledge flourished. Invented traditions have been unpicked, revealing an intricate web of interests and identities woven into the very fabric of our understandings of the past and its manifestation as heritage in the present.4 Memory has taken centre stage in the historical disciplines, both as a way to access the histories of subaltern groups, and as a means to deconstruct grand narratives.5 At the same time, against a backdrop of fervent deconstruction, a more direct and instrumental relationship between past and present has been advocated, further complicating the relationship. The articles in this stimulating volume can thus be seen as the product of three to four decades of passionate debate about the relationship between past and present. Collectively they show how widely accepted many of Lowenthal’s originally contentious arguments have become. Studies like those of Mytum and Mackie, which highlight the objectification of the past through museums, heritage management and memorialisa-

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tion, are now commonplace. The often-fraught politics of remembering and forgetting discussed by Horning and Mytum are also widely examined. Community archaeology and public outreach have become routine aspects of archaeological practice and there is an increasing body of literature reflecting on their social and economic impact, illustrated by the contributions of Isherwood, Johnson and Simpson, and Nevell. Yet despite radical shifts in archaeological theory and practice, tensions remain. These ultimately concern the relationship between archaeology and society, as can be seen in the articles by Dixon, Powers et al. and Wilson et al. Are all narratives about the past equal, or are some of greater value or authority than others? What is the role of archaeological knowledge alongside a cacophony of other perspectives on the past? What forms of power and authority should underpin the relations between archaeologists and the wider publics they interact with? Should we maintain a ‘top-down’ approach, or relinquish power to facilitate ‘bottom-up’ forms of archaeological practice and interpretation? In this short commentary I intend to explore some of these tensions as they emerge within and between the contributions. I will start with those focusing on memory and the politics of engaging with the past, and then move on to discuss those reflecting on, and in some cases advocating, specific forms of community and public engagement, before concluding with a discussion of politics and professional authority. Memory

In the last few decades, a concern with memory has become prolific in most academic disciplines within the humanities, as well as in the public sphere, to the extent that commentators have talked of a memory ‘boom’ or ‘industry’.6 Once thought to be the refuge of the individual, there is now much talk of collective or social memory. The role of historic buildings, monuments and landscapes as mnemonic devices evoking past events, people, relationships and ideas has been extensively explored. It has been shown that they are often associated with a complex nexus of memories that are reworked and actively negotiated in the present. Studies highlighting the active selection and construction of memory in the present have carried a particular cache framed by postmodern disillusionment with the idea of an objective, distanced historical enquiry.7 The past is regarded as central to ethnic and national identity.8 Actively constructed by political and cultural elites, it is seen as something that is produced through monuments, memorials, museums, galleries and the public rituals of the state. All of these things, it is argued, represent attempts to fix collective memory, and provide a sense of stability and permanence, particularly with respect to identity.9 As a counterpart to this work on statesponsored and elite forms of memory, studies have also focused on retrieving forms of social memory associated with minority or subordinate social groups, various kinds of underclass, women, minority ethnic groups and so forth.10 As a result it is now widely recognised that social memory is selective, fragmented and situated.11 This pre-occupation with memory has made its mark on the archaeology of the recent past.12 In his overview of 21st-century historical archaeology, Orser identifies heritage and memory as one of four key areas characterising current research.13 Narratives privileging dominant forms of social memory frequently inform a patriotic and nostalgic heritage, whether these be places associated with social elites, or romantic and objectified



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representations of vernacular culture.14 Much work has focused on deconstructing these dominant forms of collective memory, highlighting the role of museums and heritage institutions in mediating public and especially national forms of memory.15 This is a concern with memory and discourse as something produced in the present, heavily influenced by current interests and power relations.16 Yet most archaeologists also remain committed to excavating and analysing a material ‘record’ to gain new insights into the past. As a result many archaeologists have used their excavations to seek out hidden or ‘silenced’ histories.17 Not surprisingly this is not always a straightforward process. The physical remains can contradict existing narratives, something that is often foregrounded when oral histories are carried out alongside excavation.18 Furthermore, given the socially and politically mediated nature of archaeological enquiry, the authority of archaeological narratives over others is far from sacrosanct. Three of the contributors to this volume are directly or indirectly concerned with issues relating to collective memory. Mackie focuses on the National Folk Museum at Cregneash, in the Isle of Man. Museums of folk and vernacular culture play a particular role in the objectification of national culture. The documentation and collection of ‘folk culture’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, provided the locus for the invention of a pre-industrial, pre-urban tradition that was used to create horizontal solidarity within modern nation-states and provide a basis for the imagination of a national community where previously one had not existed.19 When it opened in 1938, the Cregneash museum was the first publically owned open-air museum in the British Isles. Mackie reveals that the recent past was sanitised, idealised and reinvented in the creation of a Manx national folk culture. As in other countries, regional and local diversity was erased, as Manx folk culture was objectified and homogenised within the museum context.20 The Cregneash museum is made up of in situ, original buildings, but as in other museums these have been selectively preserved and restored, and the material culture associated with the buildings was adapted and transformed to conform to idealised notions of ‘primitive’ rural life. Mackie’s analysis shows how, throughout its history, the Museum has been used as a means to establish a form of collective memory that would promote Manx national identity at times of change. However, as is often the case with the invention of national traditions, she also raises concerns over the selective nature of the process and the resulting authenticity of the Museum and its exhibits. Mytum discusses the production of public memory surrounding the First World War in the Isle of Man. Focusing on Manx war memorials, his research reveals the diverse influences that shaped the form, decoration, texts, and locations of these intentional monuments. Interestingly, many of the memorials draw directly on the form and decoration of historic monuments, namely the ringed ‘Celtic’ cross and also crosses in the Scandinavian style. The use of such monuments as an inspiration for war memorials serves to tie memorialisation of war into a more distant past already intricately bound up with national identity. At the same time it also reinforces the significance of these historic ‘Celtic’ and ‘Scandinavian’ monuments in the present through their reproduction as historic sites of remembrance. Whereas Mackie’s study illustrates the production of a homogenised collective memory in a single institutional context, the distributed nature of the production of memory through Mytum’s war memorials reveals a more disparate picture where tensions between different representations of Manx national

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identity, and its relationship to British national and imperial identities, emerge. Mytum also highlights the important role of forgetting, which is also implicit in Mackie’s analysis of how the particular histories of the buildings and objects at the Cregneash museum are erased from popular memory through their conservation and display. In particular, following Connerton, Mytum identifies ‘prescriptive forgetting’ and ‘structural amnesia’21 in relation to home front conditions and the Manx internment camps at Knockaloe and the Cunningham holiday resort. Horning also focuses on selective and disparate forms of memory, in the form of the altogether more oppositional narratives produced by Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland. Recent anniversaries relating to the Ulster Plantation threaten to ignite tensions surrounding the dichotomous ways in which the importation of loyal British (mainly Protestant) settlers by James I (VI) is remembered. This kind of ‘postmemory’,22 reproduced over several generations, frames group identity, whilst simultaneously being strategically mobilised in support of present political interests.23 In her sophisticated analysis, Horning reveals the complex ways in which these dichotomous forms of memory are negotiated in relation to different anniversaries in specific local contexts. As in Mytum’s research, forgetting is shown to be as important as remembering in this politically charged context. Contrasts with celebratory forms of memorialisation associated with early modern colonialism in the Americas, especially the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, add further complexity. At the heart of Horning’s contribution are some very important reflections on the role of archaeologists and community archaeology in situations characterised by opposed forms of collective memory. She argues that professional archaeologists have a responsibility to share the forgotten, unwanted or surprising histories that they have unearthed through community archaeology and judicious public outreach, whether or not they challenge forms of social memory. I will return to the issue of professional authority below, but first I wish to turn to the relationship between excavation and memory in the context of community archaeology. Moshenska has argued that ‘excavations can serve as nexuses of memory, meeting places where personal narratives can be shared, challenged and renegotiated’.24 However, this suggests a rather different relationship between excavation and memory; one where excavation is a site for the production of memory, as much as it is a means to counter the distortions of memory by the recovery of evidence that, through expert interpretation, allows suppressed forms of memory to be reinstated. Excavation is a materialising practice, producing artefacts that offer an unsettling sense of connection to the past. These appear to collapse the difference between past and present bringing the past into the present in an immediate, and, for many, an apparently unmediated, way.25 In the context of community archaeology, such memory work comes to the fore, as people are encouraged to actively participate in archaeological projects, often creating tensions around the role of professional archaeologists. Community

The concept of ‘community archaeology’ has now become commonplace, and its practice is increasingly widespread, even though there is much ambiguity and debate about what it involves.26 As Isherwood and Horning point out in this volume, it has a long



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history in the UK in the form of avocational local archaeology where professional archaeologists have largely remained in an authoritative role supporting active amateurs.27 In contrast, in other parts of the world, such as North America and Australia, community archaeology has emerged in more contentious political contexts where the authority of archaeologists has been challenged by indigenous populations and other minority groups.28 Nevertheless, these distinctions are narrowing, and community archaeology in the UK has expanded rapidly to incorporate more disenfranchised communities in response to the communitarian political rhetoric and policies of the last two decades. This new emphasis on inclusion can be seen in the first report on The Current State of Archaeology in the UK produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group, which stated that: Community archaeology can encourage social inclusion and active citizenship and help to reinforce a sense of community by applauding cultural diversity. It contributes to local sense of place and local distinctiveness as well as tourism.29

The former Labour Government used the concept of community as a tool in attempting to counter social exclusion, and the current Coalition Government’s emphasis on the ‘Big Society’, impact, and localism means that the currency of community archaeology continues. The Heritage Lottery Fund has been influential, providing funding for a large number of community archaeology projects.30 In this funding context, the community component becomes as important as the archaeology component. The language of funding frameworks, and thus successful applications, is explicitly communitarian, with outcomes oriented towards social cohesion and inclusion, building community confidence and skills, contributing to a sense of identity and place, and so forth. Many archaeologists have embraced community archaeology, but it also raises a number of questions, issues and tensions. There are practical issues concerning levels and kinds of public participation, control over funding, design, method and interpretation.31 Is it enough for professional archaeologists to facilitate public participation whilst remaining in control of methodology, recording, interpretation and so forth, or does community archaeology demand greater collaboration? In practice, the answer to these questions is often mired in tensions between professional interests, identities and modes of practice, and community ones. Johnson and Simpson address many of these issues in their discussion of the Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project, which focused on the industrial history of the Prestongrange colliery site. Initially a ‘top-down’ project, initiated by East Lothian Council, who manage the Prestongrange Museum, and directed by CFA Archaeology, they chart the evolution of the project and the increasing influence of volunteers in decision-making and the direction of the project. In phase one, the objectives were to investigate the pre-colliery remains at the site and develop a conservation strategy, whilst simultaneously provide the opportunity for local volunteers to get involved. In terms of volunteering the net was cast very widely without targeting any specific groups. However, the project offers a clear example of how excavation provides an arena for the production of memory and identity. In particular, Johnson and Simpson stress how the recent past provides a familiar terrain, resonant with social memory and oral histories,

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for volunteers to engage with. Although they do not analyse processes of memory and identity construction in any detail, they discuss how the excavation re-ignited interest in the history of Prestongrange, creating a shift in relations between archaeologists and volunteers. In phase two of the project, space was made for volunteers to have more control over the direction of the project, including non-excavation elements such as reminiscence work, as well as greater responsibility in the excavation context. However, tensions also emerged around expertise, authority and archaeological priorities such as the importance of recording and archiving. Nevell’s article picks up on these issues in his account of the ‘Dig Manchester’ community archaeology project, and asks how they might be assessed and measured. The project began as ‘I Dig Moston’ in 2003 and following two years of community excavations the professionals and volunteers involved successfully applied for HLF funding to deliver a broader community archaeology project under the banner of ‘Dig Manchester’ between 2005 and 2008. This consisted of a programme of community excavations and educational activities across the city led by the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit and Manchester Museum, and involving local residents, schoolchildren and community organisations. From the beginning the project targeted individuals at risk of social exclusion living in deprived wards of the city. This triggered criticisms over the apparently ‘top-down’ nature of the project with the charge that professionals were initiating and controlling the excavations. Nevell shows that some of the most vociferous criticisms stemmed from avocational archaeologists who took to the pages of Current Archaeology in 2005 and 2006.32 Here it was claimed that the project was redefining the nature of public archaeology privileging local residents over and above ‘amateur archaeologists who may actually know something about the subject’.33 As Nevell argues the scale of the project meant that complex and dynamic networks of power relations were created between different stakeholder groups. In response he employs American planner Sherry Arnstein’s ‘Ladder of Public Involvement’ to distinguish different kinds of power relation across a spectrum ranging from ‘non-participation’, to ‘tokenism’ and ultimately to ‘citizen power’.34 In this light, he argues that Dig Manchester can be seen to include elements of tokenism, but also substantial ‘citizen power’ in the form of community initiation, partnership and grass roots participation. Forms of appraisal and impact assessment are of course important aspects of community archaeology and a requirement for most funding bodies.35 The Arnstein framework is relatively sophisticated in that it acknowledges a spectrum of participation and allows for shifts in power relations within projects. It is also unusual in focusing on power relationships when many forms of impact assessment and appraisal deal only with blander, if still important, measures focusing on confidence, learning, enjoyment, skills and creativity. However, even the Arnstein framework tends to focus attention on measuring types of community involvement rather than encouraging critical reflection on the construction of communities and the role of the professional organisations and individuals. In part this stems from political and popular discourses that take a rather uncritical approach to community as something ‘traditional’, ‘positive’ and ‘good’.36 As Bauman suggests community itself has taken on a rather rosy view, ‘like a fireplace at which we warm our hands on a frosty day’.37 As a result, most forms of evaluation take the nature and existence of community for granted as the object of engagement, and



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attempt to quantify positive social outcomes. In this context, communities are conceived as discrete, bounded objects, almost analogous to living organisms. We ask things like, ‘what does the community want, or think, or say …?’, ‘is there evidence for increased community confidence and skills?’ The answers to such questions are often attributed some kind of privileged status. There is also a tendency to identify communities with particular places, and frequent talk of ‘the local community’ in the context of community archaeology projects. The danger is that community archaeology becomes a process of identifying specific communities and encouraging them to discover or engage with their history as if both are self-evident things that simply need to be brought together for the greater good. Both Prestongrange and Dig Manchester provide tantalising glimpses of how the projects themselves provided arenas for the active negotiation of community identities and interests, and yet little in depth analysis is provided in this regard. Any exploration of the nature of community identities and boundaries requires a more anthropological approach. Isherwood takes up this challenge in his paper, which draws on his doctoral thesis alongside subsequent experience as a community archaeology consultant. Focusing on memory, he is critical of the way that many community archaeology projects are often framed in terms of some kind of genealogical relationship between communities and their histories, with the aim of revitalising or reinstating such relationships where they have been marginalised or suppressed. Through a number of case studies, including some of the Dig Manchester excavations, he shows that, whilst some projects focusing on living memory sites, like Northenden Mill, can activate genealogical forms of memory, they also trigger unexpected and tangential forms of memory. For instance, the discovery of a millstone became the locus for the articulation of memories of Cyprus for a Greek Cypriot now living in Northenden. Watergrove Resevoir provided a mechanism for the mobilisation of memories relating to the Mangla dam in Kashmir, as well as a site for negotiating the politics of forced relocation, for second and third generation immigrants from Kashmir. Most importantly Isherwood highlights how community excavations themselves provide a forum for the generation of community memories in the narratives that are produced by the project. These are often embedded in local power relations and participants use them as a basis to gain increased status and cultural capital. As a result, community archaeology can act as a forum for the construction of community boundaries, which simultaneously involve forms of exclusion as well as inclusion. The active role of community archaeology projects in the generation of new forms of meaning, identity and memory is inevitable and indeed represents significant opportunities for the development of archaeology. However, there is a need for more in-depth consideration of the issues and power relations involved; something that both Isherwood and Horning reinforce. As Isherwood argues, we cannot assume the existence of self-evident or natural genealogical relationships between communities and historic sites; the implied counterpart to Johnson and Simpson’s ‘artificial community’ thrown together through untargeted volunteering. All communities are dynamic, their boundaries produced and negotiated in the context of social relationships, so that it is hard to draw distinctions between genuine and artificial communities of this kind. The historic environment provides a medium for the production and reproduction of community identities through the attribution of specific meanings and values.38 It is therefore

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equally important that professional forms of significance assessment take into account social value, because as Isherwood’s examples show, many aspects of the recent past that are significant in terms of social memory and identity would not necessarily be selected for conservation or investigation on the basis of their historic significance.39 With this in mind it is time to turn to the issue of politics and authority. Frameworks, politics and professional authority

Whatever the ideals of social engagement archaeologists uphold, and these are varied and contested, there are also a host of pressures and frameworks that impact on how people engage with the recent past. The vast proportion of the excavation conducted in the UK takes place in the context of commercial development, framed by the various planning policies applied in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These complex frameworks influence what is preserved in situ and what is excavated in advance of development, as well as what happens to the evidence. A number of the articles in this volume take England as their frame of reference and highlight the new emphasis on the social value of heritage in Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning for the Historic Environment (now superseded by National Planning Policy Framework, although the policies are very similar and the intent the same).40 The value of heritage assets to society provides the justification for protection in planning decisions, making commercial archaeology a public practice.41 Furthermore, public participation and community engagement are seen as an integral part of archaeology and there is greater emphasis on making the evidence publically available through popular forms of dissemination.42 For some contributors this new planning policy framework offers exciting opportunities in terms of public engagement (Isherwood, Nevell, and Wilson et al.). Nevertheless, there are many complex factors involved in realising this potential and other ethical, political and professional factors impinge.43 In their two related articles Powers et al. and Wilson et al. explore the manifold forces informing how post-medieval burials are researched and engaged with. They show that despite recent efforts to clarify the legal position concerning the excavation of human remains in England, a range of other social, political, ethical and regulatory frameworks impact on what is investigated and the social value that accrues from this research. Both articles emphasise the potential of systematic research on post-medieval burials to contribute to our understanding of the immense changes associated with industrialisation and the associated explosion of urban centres and large-scale migration. The synthesis of archaeological, osteological, biochemical, genetic and socio-historic analyses can contribute a wealth of knowledge on status, diet, health and disease, and the impact of pollution and migration, increasing our knowledge and understanding of how these vast changes impacted on people’s lives. There is also the potential to explore individual lifeways and in some cases identify particular individuals. Powers et al. suggest that, as history is so often ‘written by the victors’ and ‘marginalises the common people’, the systematic study of the information contained within their remains, along with their grave goods and coffin furniture, can help to redress this imbalance and shed light on missing life histories. Nevertheless, at present many recent burials are still disinterred and reburied elsewhere as a result of development with minimal archaeological recording



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and little or no osteological examination. To redress this situation Powers et al. propose a high-level research framework, and Wilson et al. a targeted sampling framework, to maximise research potential. Both articles also address issues of public engagement, community archaeology and communication. Indeed, the public value of investigating post-medieval human remains provides an important justification in both cases, but there are tensions in this regard and the articles are perhaps less convincing in explaining how their research will be converted to increased public value. Public sensitivities to the excavation of human remains are acknowledged, especially by Wilson et al. in their discussion of identifiable living descendents as stakeholders. Yet, ultimately, the ethical issues surrounding these sensitivities are rather sidelined, and the role of human remains as a medium for the production of meaning, identity and place is only discussed in passing. Examination of the way people engage with human remains in the present could usefully be added to the research framework, as could oral history and memory research. Furthermore, despite an interesting array of suggestions for forms of engagement and dissemination, some of which are interactive, a marked distinction between the professional production of knowledge and a rather passive public is upheld. Debates about the relationship between professional archaeologists and non-archaeologists are an important strand running through the entire book. Some of the authors, such as Isherwood, Nevell, and Johnson and Simpson, make a call for professional archaeologists to relinquish some of the power and authority they hold. For Nevell, and Johnson and Simpson, this stems from their experience of community archaeology and the dynamic relations of power that underpin such projects. For Isherwood, it is just as much a question of relaxing authoritative modes of defining heritage value, so that a wider range of often-unexpected social values can be accommodated alongside historic significance. These shifts are important, but as Horning is at pains to point out, it becomes more problematic when dealing with strongly opposed communities, such as in Northern Ireland, where the historic environment can act as a touch paper for conflicting forms of memory. In such political contexts, the question of which communities should be the focus of active policies of inclusion, and whose values and historical narratives should be privileged, is far from clear. In response, Horning argues there is a need for archaeologists to draw on their professional expertise to reveal the convoluted histories and entangled material relationships that underpin the history of particular places. In his reflective paper, Dixon deals with similar issues from a rather different perspective, arguing that archaeological investigation can offer a political tool in its own right rather than limiting political engagement to community outreach and the designation of heritage values in the present. He argues that politics has a strongly material dimension, being a space of conflict in which the relationships between materials, places and people, and their respective pasts and futures, are contested. By tracing material networks relating to the present and the recent past, contemporary archaeology can reveal the ways in which agonistic political positions develop when change is proposed to almost any site or material in the contemporary landscape. For Dixon this is particularly acute in contexts of urban decay and regeneration, such as in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol. Here tensions between different community groupings revolve around the land-banking

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of historic buildings, which can be traced back to 1970s urban planning, with issues of housing, cultural development and historic amenity informing conflicting narratives of the past and different future prospects. By tracing the networks of relationships between materials and people over time, Dixon argues that archaeology can offer a different kind of community archaeology; an archaeology of community disputes and relations rather than an exercise in outreach and inclusion. Whilst there needs to be space for many different kinds of ‘community archaeology’ this is a useful point to end this commentary. Dixon’s proposals about how this distinctively archaeological perspective might make inroads in political debate are somewhat less developed. However, his main point is an important one. By tracing material networks archaeologists can increase understanding of how materials, sites and landscapes become involved in the production of identities and power relations. If I have any overarching qualms they stem from the feeling that materials – objects, human remains, monuments, places and so forth – could have taken a more prominent position at the centre of many of the chapters. Although all the articles do this to some degree or another, the material world tends to be conceived as the backdrop for the creation of memory, or forms of public engagement. By placing the material world more centrally as the starting point for reflection and analysis the lively and vital relationships between people, including archaeologists, and the material culture of the recent past would shine through even more clearly.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Lowenthal 1985, 412. Thomas 2004. Eggert 2009, 9–10. See e.g. Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983; Handler 1988. Radstone & Hodgkin 2003a. For overviews see Connerton 2006; Klein 2000; Misztal 2003; Roediger & Wertsch 2008; Rowlands & Tilley 2006; Wertsch 2002. Radstone & Hodgkin 2003. See e.g. Handler 1988; Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983; Lowenthal 1985; Nora 1989. Connerton 1989. Misztal 2003, 63 e.g. Lambek 2003; Smith 2006; Wertsch 2002. See Holtorf & Williams 2006; Jones & Russell 2012; Orser 2010. Orser 2010. Shackel 2001, 657. Orser 2010 Shackel 2011.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

Examples include Funari 2003; Marshall, Roseneil & Armstrong 2009; McGuire & Reckner 2003; Shackel 2003; Walker 2003. e.g. see Casella & Croucher 2010. Crang 1999; Eriksen 1993 [2002]. See for example Crang 1999. Connerton 2008. Hirsch 1997. See Jones 2011 and 2012 for a similar situation regarding forms of postmemory relating to the Highland Clearances. Moshenska 2007, 91. Fillipucci 2010, 75. See Marshall 2009; Smith & Waterton 2009. For a more detailed analysis see Isherwood 2009; also Faulkner 2000; Liddle 1985. Marshall 2009. All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group 2003, 17. Isherwood 2009. See Marshall 2009; Moser et al. 2002.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

BETWEEN PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 173 Current Archaeology issues 197, 198, and 201. Current Archaeology issue 197, 259. Arnstein 1969. See Merriman 2004; Simpson & Williams 2008. McClanahan 2007; Smith & Waterton 2009, 39. Bauman 2001, 1.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

For detailed examples see Jones 2005; Smith 2006. Jones 2004, 66–7; see also Johnstone 1994. DCLG 2010 and English Heritage 2010. English Heritage 2010, 7. English Heritage 2010, 39–40. See Southport Group 2011.

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Hicks, D. & Beaudry, M. (eds) 2006, Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hirsch, M. 1997, Family Frames: Photographs, Narrative and Postmemory, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hobsbawm, E. & Ranger T. (eds) 1983, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: University Press. Holtorf, C. & Williams, H.M.R. 2006, ‘Landscapes and memories’, in Hicks & Beaudry (eds) 2006, 235–54. Isherwood, R. A. 2009, ‘Community Archaeology: a Study of the Conceptual, Political and Practical Issues Surrounding Community Archaeology in the United Kingdom Today’, unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Manchester. Johnstone, C. 1994, What is Social Value? A Discussion Paper, (Australian Heritage Commission Technical Publications, Series No. 3.), Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Jones, S. 2004, Early Medieval Sculpture and the Production of Meaning, Value and Place, Edinburgh: Historic Scotland. Jones, S. 2005, ‘Making place, resisting displacement: Conflicting national and local identities in Scotland’, in Littler & Naidoo (eds) 2005, 94–114. Jones, S. 2011, ‘“Sorting stones”: monuments, memory and resistance in the Scottish Highlands’, in Beaudry & Symonds (eds) 2011, 113–39. Jones, S. 2012, ‘“Thrown like chaff in the wind”: excavation, memory and the negotiation of loss in the Scottish Highlands’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology 16(2), 346–66. Jones, S. & Russell, L. 2012, ‘Archaeology, memory and oral tradition: an introduction’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology 16(2), 267–83. Klein, K. L. 2000, ‘On the emergence of memory in historical discourse,’ Representations 69, 127–50. Lambek, M. 2003, ‘Memory in a Maussian universe’, in Radstone & Hodgkin (eds) 2003b, 202–16. Liddle, P. 1985, Community Archaeology: A Fieldworker’s Handbook of Organisation and Techniques, Leicester: Leicestershire Museums Art Galleries and Records Service. Littler, J. & Naidoo, R. (eds) 2005, The Politics of Heritage: ‘Race’, Identity and National Stories, London: Routledge. Lowenthal, D. 1985, The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marshall, Y. 2009, ‘Community archaeology’, in Cunliffe, et al. (eds) 2009, 1078–1102. Marshall, Y., Roseneil, S., & Armstrong, K. 2009, ‘Situating the Greenham archaeology: an autoethnography of a feminist project,’ Public Archaeology 8(2–3), 225–45. McClanahan, A. 2007, ‘The cult of community: Defining the “local” in public archaeology and heritage discourse’, in Gabrow et al. (eds) 2007, 51–7. McGuire, R. & Reckner, P. 2003, ‘Building a working class archaeology: the Colorado Coal Field War project’, Industrial Archaeology Review 25, 83–95. Merriman, N. (ed.) 2004, Public Archaeology, London: Routledge. Misztal, B.A. 2003, Theories of Social Remembering, Maidenhead: Open University Press. Moser, S., Glazier, D., Phillips, J.E., el Nemr, L.N., Mousa, M.S., Aiesh, R.N., Richardson, S., Conner, A. & Seymour, M. 2002. ‘Transforming archaeology through practice: strategies for collaborative archaeology and the Community Archaeology Project at Quseir, Egypt,’ World Archaeology 34(2), 220–48. Moshenska, G. 2007, ‘Oral history in historical archaeology: excavating sites of memory’, Oral History 35(1), 91–7. Nora, P. 1989, ‘Between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire’, Representations 26, 7–24. Orser, C.E. 2010, ‘Twenty-first-century historical archaeology’, Journal of Archaeological Research 18, 111–50.



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Radstone, S. & Hodgkin, K. 2003a, ‘Regimes of memory: an introduction’, in Radstone & Hodgkin (eds) 2003b, 1–22. Radstone, S. & Hodgkin, K. (eds) 2003b, Regimes of Memory, London: Routledge. Roediger III, H.L. & Wertsch, J.V. 2008, ‘Creating a new discipline of memory studies’, Memory Studies 1(1), 9–22. Rowlands, M. & Tilley, C. 2006, ‘Monuments and memorials’, in Tilley et al. (eds) 2006, 500–15. Shackel, P. A. 2001, ‘Public memory and the search for power in American historical archaeology’, American Anthropologist 103(3), 655–70. Shackel P. A. 2003, Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration and the Post-Bellum Landscape, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Shackel, P. 2011, ‘Pursuing heritage, engaging communities’, Historical Archaeology 45, 1–9. Simpson, F. & Williams, H.M.R. 2008, ‘Evaluating community archaeology in the UK’, Public Archaeology 7(2), 69–90. Smith, L. 2006, Uses of Heritage, London: Routledge. Smith, L. & Waterton, E. 2009, Heritage, Communities and Archaeology, London: Duckworth. Southport Group 2011, Realising the Benefits of Planning-Led Investigation in the Historic Environment: a Framework for Delivery, The Southport Group. Available at: [Last accessed 29/10/12]. Thomas, J. 2004, Archaeology and Modernity, London: Routledge. Tilley, C., Keane, W., Kuechler-Fogden, S., Rowlands, M. & Spyer, P. (eds.) 2006, Handbook of Material Culture, London: Sage. Walker, M. 2003, ‘The Ludlow Massacre: class, warfare, and historical memory in Southern Colorado,’ Historical Archaeology 37(3), 66–80. Wertsch, J.V. 2002, Voices of Collective Remembering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

INDEX Page numbers in bold type refer to illustrations

Advisory Panel on the Archaeology of Burials in England (APABE)  147 All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group (APPAG)  119, 121, 137, 140, 167 Altab Ali Park, London, England, community archaeology project  137, 138 archaeology as a social and political practice  2, 7, 111–21, 163, 166–7, 170–2 and the public good  7–8 role of the professional archaeologist in community and public contexts  80–1, 91, 95–7, 101–2, 107, 117, 119, 132–3, 136–41, 155–8, 166, 170–2 Ards peninsula, Northern Ireland  99–100 authorised heritage discourse (AHD)  88, 90 Arnstein, Sherry  6, 8, 67–8, 168 Ballylough Castle, Northern Ireland  101 Baltimore, USA, public archaeology project 96 Belfast, Northern Ireland  100 Bethel Chapel, Villiers Street, Sunderland, England  151, 155, 156 Bristol, England  114–17, 120 Caine, Sir Thomas Henry Hall, author  17 Christ Church Spitalfields, London, England  126, 133, 136, 151, 153 Church of England  130 Colorado Coal Field project  96 community or public archaeology critique  8, 95–7, 168–9 definition and rationale  77, 95–7, 113, 167 emergence as a practice  1–2, 167 impact assessment  69–72, 73, 82, 168–9 methodology  58–63, 89–91

participants: expectations, interests, degree of involvement  60–3, 67–9, 72–3, 77–9, 80, 82, 91, 96–7, 167–70 and the recent past  2–3, 59–60, 82 social outcomes  4–6, 58–60, 63, 67–8, 70–2, 78, 80–91, 167–70 see also power Connerton, Paul  36, 46–7 contemporary archaeology  116–17 Crellin, Ewart  38 Cubbon, William, director of the Manx Museum  18, 19, 20 Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland  100 Dig Manchester community archaeology project  65–73, 82 Dunbar community archaeology project  78, 78–9, 81, 88 Dungiven Priory, Northern Ireland  101 Dunluce Castle and village, Northern Ireland 101, 103–4, 104 English Heritage  127, 130, 131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 146 folk museums critique of their authenticity  14–17, 27, 30, 31 Cregneash, Isle of Man  14, 18–31 origins and spread  13–14, 19 Skansen, Sweden  13–14, 27 Fromelles, France, World War I mass grave 157 Goodland/Ballyuchan, Northern Ireland  101 Hazelius, Arthur  13–14, 27

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human remains circumstances surrounding excavation and analysis, England  130–2, 146–8, 150, 152, 157 ethical considerations  132–3 the law and current practice regarding exhumation and reburial, England 126–7, 130, 148 post-medieval burial assemblages, character 148–51 public attitudes to excavation, analysis, retention and display  135–6, 146–7, 155–7 research potential  125–6, 133–5, 148–53 research and sampling methodologies 130, 131, 133–5, 147–8, 152, 153–5, 157 Human Tissue Act  139–40, 153, 154 Hungate community archaeology project 85, 88

MacDonnell, Randall, Earl of Antrim  101, 104 Manx National Heritage  17, 23–4, 28–31 Marstrander, Professor Carl  19 material networks  114–15, 171–2 Megaw, Basil, assistant director of the Manx Museum  18, 21–2, 24, 25, 29 memory collective (or social) memory  4, 36, 50, 77, 82–90, 164–6 and identity  3–4 and museums  15, 165 Ministry of Justice, England  126–7, 148, 153, 155 Mouffe, Chantal  112 Movanagher, Northern Ireland  101 multi-vocality definition and context  2, 96 critique 5

internment camps Amache, Colorado, USA  96 Isle of Man  47–50 Isle of Man and World War I  35–6 governance and relationship with the United Kingdom  17, 35, 48 identity  17–18, 28, 41, 43, 44, 50 Tynwald  17, 35, 41, 42, 43, 46, 48 see also Cregneash under folk museums; war memorials, Isle of Man; Isle of Man under internment camps

National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 118, 152, 156, 170 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act  132 New York, USA, African Burial Ground  96 Northenden Mill community archaeology project 82–4, 83, 88 Northern Ireland Catholic and Protestant communities in the present  96 community archaeology, character and role of 103–7 history education in schools  102–3 potency of the past  97, 102–3 Troubles, the  98, 106–7 Ulster Plantation, history and commemoration 97–102

Jamestown, Virginia, USA  98, 99 Kelly, Harry  19–20, 26–7 Kennish, John  17 Kermode, P.M.C., antiquarian  38, 41 Kirkholt, Rochdale, community archaeology project 80–2, 81, 90 Limavady, Northern Ireland, site of O’Cahan/ Phillips castle  101, 104–6, 105 Liss community archaeology project  79, 79–80, 81, 86–7, 88 London, England, post-medieval burial assemblages  127–9, 134–5, 151–2 Lowenthal, David  163 Ludlow, Colorado, USA  96

participation and archaeology  8; see also community archaeology ‘ladder of citizen participation’ see Arnstein, Sherry the ‘participatory turn’ in public discourse 2 Peate, Iorwerth  18 Planning Policy Guidance Note 15 (PPG15) 118



INDEX 179

Planning Policy Guidance Note 16 (PPG16) 73, 118 Planning Policy Statement 5 (PPS5)  73, 118, 135, 170 politics, definition of  112 post-modern condition, the  2, 163, 164 power  5–8, 61, 67–8, 72–3, 95–7, 164–5, 168–9, 171–2 Prestongrange, East Lothian, Scotland glassworks, pottery, colliery and brickworks site  55–7, 56, 57 Morison’s Haven, harbour  56, 57 Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project  55–6, 57–63 Raglan, Lord, Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man  35, 36 Rathmullan Priory, Northern Ireland  98–9, 99 recent past, the (its potency in the present) 3 Royton Hall, near Oldham, community archaeology project  84, 88, 89

St Marylebone Old Church, London, England, excavations  131 St Pancras Old Church cemetery, London, England 155–6, 156 Shanks, Michael and Tilley, Christopher  2 Shoreditch Park, London, community archaeology project  85, 97 social learning  6, 8, 68 Trigger, Bruce  2 war memorials, Isle of Man form, decoration and symbolism  37–42 inauguration speeches  44–5 individual examples  38–41, 43–6, 37, 39, 40¸ 42 inscriptions 43–4 location 45–6 Watergrove Reservoir, Rochdale, community archaeology project  85–6 Williams, Stephen, M.P.  120–21