11th May 2009, 11:31 AM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Windbag
I interpreted it as saying "we need to watch out for educationalists getting involved in developer-funded archaeology as it may allow archaeology to be hijacked by a single overriding political agenda. Archaeological theory may be used to allow one nationalistic narrative to dominate, and be supported by the empirical evidence revealed by fieldwork"
Sorry, doesn't make much more sense!
He's alluding to the Nazi party's hijacking of archaeology to support their theories of Germany and Aryanism as the font of all civilization.
Hmm, not sure how that might work in practice with most developer-funded work:
'that undated ditch and couple of post-holes is definitely evidence of the Aryan cultural supremacy!'
I think I understood some of what Pete was saying, but despite academics and 'commercial' archaeologists (a somewhat unfortunate term, which in itself almost suggests we are in it for the money (!!) rather than the love of archaeology and its pure academic and educational value) seemingly operating in different worlds, it would be nice if they could support each other a bit more in some cases.