Not unlike “Bad Science”, lots of History is pretty bad too. This rant will be mainly about archaeology . Well, even more, mainly about tv archaeology, that being the closest that\u00c2\u00a0I get to really knowing anything about archaeology.<\/p>\n

Why do\u00c2\u00a0archaeologists assume that every prehistoric tribe did everything for ritual purposes? Given a dozen possible explanations for anything, religious ritual always seems to be the favoured purpose.\u00c2\u00a0 People who see everything created in prehistory as proof of alien landings are hardly more obsessed than the average tv archaeologist is with finding evidence of religious ritual in any surviving artefacts. Even going on the\u00c2\u00a0chance that the average person in prehistory was about half as sceptical as the average medieval peasant, that still leaves a lot of room for secular creativity.<\/p>\n

Even medieval peasants were always forming heretical movements and rebelling against the church. How many thousands got excommunicated or burned as witches for not believing exactly what they were told to believe? If anything -\u00c2\u00a0without written language or means of mass cultural communication and with a fairly even distribution of access to productive resources -\u00c2\u00a0prehistoric people would be less subject to pressures to believe whatever they were told. This suggests that they might have been less\u00c2\u00a0likely than most of the current world population to be convinced\u00c2\u00a0by religious authority to neglect the hunting, gathering, agriculture and socialising (that must have made up most of their lives) to create monuments to\u00c2\u00a0appease the gods. \u00c2\u00a0In any case,\u00c2\u00a0might not\u00c2\u00a0some of the surviving\u00c2\u00a0constructions be relics of homes, markets,\u00c2\u00a0meeting halls\u00c2\u00a0or food stores?\u00c2\u00a0Giant figures carved\u00c2\u00a0on hillsides would be adverts or indicators of location today.\u00c2\u00a0Why are they always\u00c2\u00a0seen as having\u00c2\u00a0only ritual\u00c2\u00a0significance if they are a few thousand years old?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Occam’s Razor somehow doesn’t apply to tv archaeologists. Their professional rule is “Never seek the simplest\u00c2\u00a0explanation.”<\/p>\n

My\u00c2\u00a0next gripe is with the reconstructions. The rule is: Never show any archaeology or history without a reconstruction. Some of these reconstructions are really good, as in the Battlefield Britain series. Lots of people have problems with showing rebuilt Saxon villages or using actors to portray Roman legionnaries or\u00c2\u00a0Celtic warriors. I don’t find these necessarily\u00c2\u00a0 irritating. Only a complete idiot would think that this was real video footage. We all know that actors aren’t real. The use of real people and realistic surroundings can make the past seem more immediate and comprehensible. (Note that was “can”). The compulsion to illustrate with footage can get out of hand, but generally it’s not a bad idea.<\/p>\n

Similarly with computer graphics, When they help those viewers\u00c2\u00a0with little visual imagination (like me) to picture a scene they can be illuminating.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the graphics that purport to be true that I have problems with. \u00c2\u00a0Have you found a\u00c2\u00a01 sq cm piece of\u00c2\u00a0tile? This must be the corner of a brightly painted 450\u00c2\u00a0metre square\u00c2\u00a0temple, complete with\u00c2\u00a0pillars, colonnades and a fountain, which your computer graphics team will create\u00c2\u00a0using 3DS Max. Is there a bit of bent metal? This must have been the corner of a shield which had a Celtic motif in the centre and gold chasing around its bevelled edges.\u00c2\u00a0 So here it is. Found a skull? Our inhouse artists will model the face of its original owner, showing the actual eye and hair colour and hairstyle. This stuff is so manifestly ridiculous that it destroys any belief you might have had in anything else they\u00c2\u00a0tell you.<\/p>\n

Apart from tv arcchaeology,\u00c2\u00a0I have big problems with a lot of Heritage archaeology. \u00c2\u00a0This seems driven by the need to have cash cows. Does your historic monument lack vistor appeal? Maybe walls have been demolished or stones are inconveniently crumbling. Put them back. People always appreciate things looking in good shape. That’s why they restore old houses to live in. Noone can tell the difference anyway, if it’s sensitively done, can they?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Some of these ancient designers had no idea about what would attract the modern paying visitor so its just using our modern skills and knowledge to do what they woudl have done if they know how to.<\/p>\n

The current Stonehenge controversy\u00c2\u00a0provides an example of millions spent on consultation (with any organisation that claims an interest) about plans which will cost many millions more. There is a major road (amjor, by Wiltshire standards)\u00c2\u00a0 quite close to Stonehenge and a minor road that cuts off part of one of the ditches on the site. The plans involve not just moving at least one road but also<\/p>\n

\n
• building a tunnel under the site to carry its traffic<\/li>\n
• repairing the section of ditch that the road cuts off to “restore” it .<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  Most people who have been to Stonehenge would see the visitors’ car park and visitor centre – not to mention the demonic fences and paths that keep people from the actual stones\u00c2\u00a0 – as the main problems. A paying customer actually sees little more than you can see for free from the road (and quite a lot less than you can see from one part of the main road which presents a panoramic view of the stones in context.) My suspicion is that its the chance of a free view that drives the owners mad.\u00c2\u00a0 Stonehenge must be English Heritage’s biggest earner, with relatively little outlay except on clearing rubbish, staff, fencing and providing shopping facilities.<\/p>\n

  But the new plans involve digging up one of the World’s Heritage landscapes to TUNNEL under it.\u00c2\u00a0 Plus rebuilding bits of the site to match the archaeologists’s assumptions.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0If part of the site is to rebuilt, why not just stop messing about with it and build a fullscale plaster mockup in a place without traffic? Stonehenge already shows the impact of Victorian archaeologists’ putting stones back where they thought they should\u00c2\u00a0be, so its already quite ersatz enough.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The damage was already done when the road was built. Why make it worse? \u00c2\u00a0At least it’s legitimate and relatively innocent damage now. Real people\u00c2\u00a0needed a road for purposes that roads are normally used for, so they built one, more or less ignoring the stones. In a few hundred years it will be part of the history of the Stonehenge site – ugly but at least genuine.<\/p>\n

  Maybe I’ve misunderstood the tunnelling plan.\u00c2\u00a0 I suspect that, given a toss-up between digging up ground brimming with 6,000 year-old construction work (the significance of which we really don’t currently have the understanding to grasp) and attracting the tourist pound\/euro\/dollar or Yen, the need for cash won. The so-called “cursus” was not considered to be anything significant at all, until about 30 years ago. Hence it was left alone,\u00c2\u00a0under the relatively benign \u00c2\u00a0protection of a working farmer rather than the apparently unscrupulous hands of the heritage industry.<\/p>\n

  In this month’s English Heritage newsletter, a tv archaeologist wrote about how\u00c2\u00a0atmospheric Stonehenge would have appeared to the pilgrim of 6,000 years ago and how reconstructing the site would allow us to have this experience. This exemplifies the most woolly-minded heritage pesh: –<\/p>\n

  There were no “pilgrims”\u00c2\u00a0before the Christian era, surely. There is no evidence that Stonehenge was the endpoint of prehistoric\u00c2\u00a0devotional journeys. Even after thousands of years of casual destruction, there are\u00c2\u00a0stunning megalithic monuments throughout the\u00c2\u00a0whole of the British Isles. Why would Stonehenge have been any more significant than any other henge at the time it was actually used? Its significance to us is a Victorian legacy.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

  The “atmospheric” idea is fine if you think only in terms of\u00c2\u00a0the vistor’s enjoyment but it is completely unrelated to any historical or archaeological value\u00c2\u00a0of Stonehenge. Prehistoric monuments are not just for holidays. They aren’t just ours. We have no\u00c2\u00a0way of knowing what future technologies will uncover if we can just stop ragging all prehistoric sites to death for our own short term goals.\u00c2\u00a0Do we have the right to contribute to damaging the heritage of future generations? If the “atmosphere” and the “experience”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0are so important, why not build\u00c2\u00a0a prehistory theme park – preferably on a site already ravaged by industrial development\u00c2\u00a0– with no\u00c2\u00a0visible\u00c2\u00a0reminders of the twentyfirst\u00c2\u00a0century (or any of the other centuries in between the building of Stonehenge and now)? Avebury is inconveniently distant, so that could be added close by. Silbury Hill would provide a convenient backdrop. In fact, why not build replica pyramids nearby so you could compare Silbury with a stone pyramid of about the same era? \u00c2\u00a0I believe the pyramids also have disturbing surroundings that stop you forgetting you are not in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom. Angkor Watt is supposed to be really amazing as well, but is so awkwardly inaccessible. That could be there too.<\/p>\n

  Oh, silly me. I forgot that there is already a Disneyland Europe.<\/p>\n

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      Not unlike “Bad Science”, lots of History is pretty bad too. This rant will be mainly about archaeology . Well, even more, mainly about tv archaeology, that being the closest that\u00c2\u00a0I get to really knowing anything about archaeology. Why do\u00c2\u00a0archaeologists … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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