Sudharshan Seneviratne
Department of Archaeology
University of Peradeniya
Sri Lanka

HENRY M JACKSON LECTURE. WHITMAN COLLEGE. WALLA WALLA. WA. USA. 12THAPRIL 2006

The level of academic standards they have sustained is a testimony to the commitment in intellectual capacity-building as your contribution towards humanizing knowledge.

Mission statement to the next generation of archaeologists

“The science of archaeology is problem-oriented and issue-related. It is essentially a multi disciplinary study investigating, documenting, interpreting and presenting human expressions, experiences and behaviour patterns of the past to its rightful inheritors, the next generation. The archaeologist investigating the past is a scientist who is objective, unbiased and unprejudiced. Above all, an archaeologist is a humanist and social activist who does not fear the past or compromises the future”.

Introduction

My decision to place before you some ideas on past perceptions is determined by the critical challenges posed to the professionals involved in reading the past. They are not only required to redefine their intellectual space but have been forced towards a paradigm shift in interpretative studies. As much as we welcome the state-of-the-art cutting-edge technology facilitating field archaeology, interpretative and theoretical studies, it is almost unnerving to witness the extent to which the study of the past is under siege in a global context.

The archaeologist has now to resolve his or her professional status with ‘competing interest’. This is mainly carried out by those who have appropriated and usurped the task of interpreting the past. They are now increasingly beginning to appreciate the functional value of retrieving the past sustaining ideologies of legitimation in the present. With the formation of nation states, the social upheavals conditioned by the Industrial Revolution, the emergence of the Communists states, growth of nationalism challenging Colonialism, the post Communist political scenario and the rise of various shades of fundamentalisms has provided a wide arena for reading, using and subverting the past.

The contemporary discourse hinges on the claims dealing with defining, owning, protecting, managing, interpreting and experiencing the archaeological heritage. Accordingly, it raises the difficult question as to what is archaeological heritage?  Emerging from it are other issues, such as – who should own and control the past? How should the material remains be protected? How should the archaeological heritage be presented to the public? (Skeats 2000).

This situation also throws up debates on the uses and abuses of this profession including a series of questions on the ethical conduct in the practice of archaeology and heritage management (see Vitelli 1996; Bond & Gilliam 1996; Kohl & Fawcett 1995). The critical question then is – why in contemporary times, the past becomes so vital in legitimating social and political power. Translated into simple English, this is a reference to the politicization of reading the past. The problem has to be viewed from the backdrop of certain historical processes relating to institutional and ideological formations that developed from the Pre Colonial to Post Colonial periods. I shall in the main take up some issues and case studies having a greater focus on post Colonial 20^th Century.

Ordering the past in antiquity

Since time immemorial, humans were driven by a powerful urge to probe the unknown and to learn about their own past. Stone Age and later early pastoral cum agricultural societies of the Neolithic expressed a desire to know about their varying pasts. This had a limited focus and function of knowing their antecedents and antiquity, ancestral genealogy, cultural identity and territorial affiliation. It is evident that we-they dichotomy did appear in these societies along with processes of marginalization. The concept of the ‘other’ was primarily based on speech, lineage and an affiliation with exploitable resource zones identified as territory. In fact kinship and language identities demarcated the Barbarian in several early societies.

The past had greater functional and legitimating value with the emergence of the early state, urbanism and social stratification following the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age and subsequently Iron Age civilizations. It introduced dramatic changes in technological applications, new settlement hierarchies, demographic shifts triggering-off migrations and displacement of communities, new production relations and the emergence of slave labour, the conclusive establishment of state territories, subjugation of communities, and above all the founding of ruling dynasties and the ideology of statecraft. The appropriation of the past thus became critical to the ideological formations in antiquity.

Ideology may be defined as a comprehensive system of concepts and beliefs, often political in nature, held by a group or an individual. Critical to our discussion is the evolution of an ideology, often imposed from above, by a particular group in society legitimizing its existence and perpetuation of its right over resources, territory and decision making authority and in the process – marginalizing the ‘other’.

The documentation of Epic literature in the east and the west was not a coincidence but a social and historical imperative. They were the legitimating charters or the Magna Carta in antiquity. Codification of legitimating charters most certainly coincided with definitive structural changes in society that entailed social tensions, readjustments and justification to a new Order. Norman Cantor identifies this as national historical myths giving identity and moral authenticity to a people. He illustrates how the Exodus flattered the Jews half a millennium after it allegedly took place by making them feel like heroic refugees from slavery and righteous conquerors of a land plagued by paganism, wealth and sex (2004:11-12). It was indeed a mass migration that required divine intervention, creation myths and the Great Deluge.

The Odyssey (which is actually “a collection of tall travel tales borrowed heavily from Egyptian fantasy”) represents Greek heroes who undertook their wandering journeys in search of the lost Golden Age following the brutal emergence of the city-states on the ashes of pre urban clan-based societies. Cantor again points out how the Iliad made the politicians, merchants, sailors and farmers of 5^th century Athens into austere, remorseless honourable and courageous demigods (ibid.).  The antiquity of the ruling elite in early India seeking connections to mythical suryavamsa (solar dynasty) and chandravamsa (lunar dynasty) is another example. The Mahabharat represents the conflict between lineage-based territorial groups of the pristine state for metallic resources and fertile tracts in the upper Gangatic valley. The underlying message in the Ramayan is the justification provided for encroachments made by Indo-Aryan speakers using the iron technology on rich mineral resource-areas held by non urban societies of a different cultural milieu.

Here in Sri Lanka, the Mahavamsa or Epic of the Great Lineage is a document composed in 4^th Century AC drawing its inspiration from ‘imagined’ North Indian migrations and the Buddha’s lineage legitimizing the existence of a particular dynasty, royal capital and monastic establishment during the period of transition to the early feudal system. In more recent times the poetic testament of Chief Seattle pleading for the preservation of his pristine ecology depicts this ideological contradiction between value systems represented by two different cultures and political economies.

The function of these written texts (and even oral traditions) were perpetuated as sources of memory constructing identities in the 18^th Century and after in different parts of the world. To quote a few instances: the Greek Classics were prescribed in the school curriculum instructing on the source of western civilization. Evidence from material culture and Indian texts justified the perpetuation of imperialism by the Colonial regime in India; inspiration drawn from the epic texts yet nurtures the parochial and exclusive Hindutva ideology in India; the Mahavamsa archaeology sustains a similar exclusive Sinhala-Buddhist psyche in Sri Lanka. There are several other sources justifying parochial and exclusive images among fundamentalist Christian, Zionist and Islamic groups in contemporary times.

The texts also depict the social geography of difference of contested cultural reality as in the case of Cyprus. In a pointed analysis Kohl & Fawcett have identified the relationship between Cypriot archaeology and political reality in a wider historical, cultural and political process that unfolded over last two centuries in Europe, the Middle East and the Mediterranean region (1995:12). Elsewhere I have identified the perpetuation of past perceptions and memory in contemporary times as the “ideological duality and its role in synthesizing past and present” (Seneviratne 1996:266) that has resulted in what I call “post post -modern Orientalism”. This synthesis is useful not only to legitimize hegemonic authority over territory, resident communities, resources and the decision making process, it is also a powerful weapon establishing a centre – periphery relationship marginalizing the other and authorizing the past.

This process was further enhanced when material remains and even biological remains were used in the construction of imagined identities. Let me quote the absurd but a lighter side of inventing physical types in Colonial India by British anthropologists. They anthropologized the romantic Orientalist image of epic heroes and paraded them in a new context. Kenneth Kennedy in his brilliant book calls them God Apes. 19^th Century discovery of skeletal remains were named Sivapithecus, Ramapithecus, Sugrivapithecus and Brahmapithecus. Mercifully a Krishnapitacus was not invented as Krishana’s amorous exploits were probably unacceptable to the Victorian morals of the Colonial anthropologists!

In view of this, one has to view ethno-cultural and ethno-religious history emanating from the written and oral traditions, including material evidence and biological evidence drawn from the past, as critical factors providing a basis for community identity on the one hand, and an ideology of domination and legitimation on the other.

The political uses of the past

This brings us to the central issue on the treatment and the manipulation of the past as a legitimating process or what is known as political uses of the past. Understanding this process cannot be simplistic and the issues must be addressed under multiple headings for our convenience.

Evidently the political use of culture-related material from historical and archaeological sources is now applied with much sophistication and at an enhanced scale. Firstly, contemporary States and others groups contending for state power have increasingly come to appreciate the functional value of symbols drawn from the past, especially in the construction of ‘national’ identities and ‘imagined’ political communities. The swastika symbol idealized as the Aryan hall-mark by the Third Reich and Neo Nazis; the Macedonian sun symbol of the House of Phillip as a contested symbol in modern Albania; the star of David which is a rallying point to Jewish communities of past and present are a few out of a long list of symbols in a global context.

Secondly, to our dismay, as Romila Thapar states, there is yet an intellectual hesitation to depart from underlying “Colonial Constructions and Orientalist Readings” (vide Thapar 2002: 1-36). The latter is true not only in this of the world. Take for instance the portrayal of the Iraq war in the context of a clash between civilized and barbaric worlds, brining back memories of Oriental Despotism and confrontations between civilized Greek city states and the barbaric Persian Empire! One does not need the passionate eloquence of Arundati Roy’s algebra for an understanding of this bizarre equation.

Excellent case studies carried out in the last ten years clearly establish that the above situation is real because archaeological and historical studies have been deeply involved in the nationalist enterprise since its inception (Kohl and Fawcett 1995:9; Fowler 1987). As Mike Rowlands comments, “The expansion of archaeology’s relation to nationalism and ethnicity in the construction of collective identity seems certain to continue. Partly materiality of the archaeological record will assure this. Partly also the creation of alternative pasts is increasingly being used to legitimate land claims, ethnic territories and access to economic resources” (cited in Jones 1997:1).

It was popularly held that the past determines the way we view the present. Conversely, it is now evident that the present also shapes how we view the past (Blakey 1990:38). We must recognize that every society carries its own and varied perceptions of the past. The historian and archaeologist must be conscious of this past and possess an asymmetric view of such distinct traditions. The treatment of the past now calls for a discourse on alternative systems of constructs and contexts. This perception is based on a trajectory concerning identity, regionality, and legitimacy. It is a process that has to be situated beyond theories of Orientalism, Eurocentricism and Wallestenian World Systems.

Alternatively, it calls for an understanding of the total cultural ecology or the interacting and symbiotic relationship between resident communities and the natural environment of their habitat.  This is a dialectical process that ultimately determined the nature and level of social, economic, political and religio-cultural formations in pre Industrial societies. We have to recognize it as a discursive processes interacting with two or multiple systems in the formation of social systems on the one hand and cognitive values of such societies on the other.

A positive application of this view is possible only if one does not subscribe to linear and symmetric views of the past and recognize that uneven and parallel developments are a reality; that time and space cannot be generalized; that blanket developments do not occur within a pan regional context and continuity does not dominate over change. Hence there is a need to advance alternative readings of historical processes that condition identities.

Many social scientists are yet to credit ethno-cultural and ethno-religious histories as powerful undercurrents determining the rhythm of contemporary political structures. This hesitancy has prevented them from making a fuller evaluation of contemporary socio-political ideologies drawing substantial inspiration from the past. This is partly due to their inability to synthesize contemporary sources with cultural sources such as the historical texts, oral history, ancient material cultural remains including paleobiological studies. Whether we resolve these issues under Ben Andersons Imagined Communities or Arjun Appadorai’s parallel phenomenon of cultural flows where multiple worlds form the ‘scapes’, is yet to be seen.

Constructing the community

Historically, ethnic consciousness grew out of people who shared territory, sacred belief systems and biological characteristics, where it reinforced distinctiveness of that community in relation to others. It is suggested that territoriality becomes translated in to nationality, scared belief systems into religion and biological characteristics into race (Ringer and Lawless 1989:3-4). One of the most critical issues in archaeological theory and practice is the role of archaeology in the construction and legitimation of collective cultural identities. Oliver and Coudart correctly point out that “the crucial theoretical question of archaeology today is that of national identity, or more specifically that of the relationship archaeology enjoys with the construction (or the fabrication) of collected identities (1995:365).”  There is also an unmistakable effort on the part of archaeology to equate cultures with ethnic groups. Let me give you some case studies.

One case study highlighting the political manipulation of the past in the construction of imagined communities comes from Nazi Germany. Gustaf Kossinna who identified German archaeology as ‘pre eminently national discipline’, was a pioneer in the development of an ethnic paradigm and who identified artefact types retrieved from settlements with ethnic groups or tribes. He attributed the antecedents of these tribes to the pre historic times and traced the descent of the Nordic, Aryan, Germanic super-race to the Indo-Europeans. Archaeology received state patronage in the Third Reich and archaeological investigations were carried out by SS officers to discover scientific information legitimizing the Aryan theory. Ironically enough, the converse of the same methodology was used by other European nations in introducing material culture and community history elevating national consciousness in the face of German aggression. The study of megalithic monuments for this purpose in Denmark is a case in point.

I wish to draw my second case study from South India and Sri Lanka. One must take note of two inter locking dimensions before the 1970’s decade in association with south India. They are:

1. The treatment of South Indian history by Colonial and local historians
2. The introduction of the composite Dravidian identity to the resident communities of South India.

In south Asia Colonialism and Orientalism played a pivotal role in forming images of the past associated with a particular territory. Their primary contributions were the introduction of racial elements such as Arya and Dravida; the notion of mythical heroic races; Asia and its cultures as static and unchanging entities governed by Oriental Despots. Colonialism also treated the south as the ‘other’ geographical, cultural and ‘racial’ zone differentiated from the Indo-Gangetic plain and its Aryan habitat in the north. The south was relegated to a secondary position vis-à-vis the north. The imperial ethos and Arya racial characteristics of the Colonial metropolis had a seemingly greater affinity with north India than the south. Local historians, mainly those of Brahmin origin, even until the mid nineteenth century betrayed a bias towards North Indo-centric views of Indian history. Conversely, from the early twentieth century, non-Brahmin historians of south India set their own agenda in historiography by glorifying the past of south India, its Dravidian civilization and imperial culture (Also see Raju 2002:183-216).

It is the Christian missionaries who made a significant contribution towards a revival of Tamil language and culture-related studies from the early 17^th Century (Jaiswal 1974). Individuals such as Bishop Cladwell, due to their pre occupation with a West Asian-centric worldview and Biblical terms, argued for an equation between race and language (Caldwell 1976: 3-5). This notion was further propagated by Herbert Risley who drew an equation between race and language (Risley 1908:7). The existence of a ‘Dravidian race’ was ‘authenticated’ by paleo-biological studies of Zuckerman in 1930 who studied the skulls retrieved from Adittanallur Megalithic burial site. He identified two skulls as Australoid and Dravidian respectively. He also sealed this argument with a global identity by establishing a racial connection between the Dravidian and the races in the Mediterranean region (Kennedy 2000).

The local non-Brahmin intelligentsia pushed the search for the Dravidian type towards its logical conclusion and surprisingly enough they received fraternal support from the Colonial administrators. In addition, international archaeological research into Sumerian archaeology and Indus civilization only perpetuated and harnessed this notion of migratory patterns and the great civilizing factor introduced by the Dravidians – extending all the way from the Mediterranean to south India.

In the 20^th Century, with the revival of regional archaeological studies a sharp debate arose among archaeologists and anthropologists on an equation between megaliths, and imagined Dravidian races (vide Banerjee 1965; Furer-Heimendorf 1952; Kennedy 1975; Subbarao 1962). The megalithic burials in south India represent one the of the most racialized monuments in South Asia and is a constant racial marker along imagined migratory routes of the Dravidian race telescoping their affinity from mega to macro and micro regions!

It is perhaps the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the LTTE in Sri Lanka that pushed the racial identity of the Tamil speakers to the level of a higher political agenda.   With symbols drawn from the past, the LTTE advanced the cause of Tamil ethno – nationalism in a more sophisticated manner. The symbol of the Tiger adorning the LTTE flag was borrowed from the Imperial Chola of ancient south India counterpoising the Lion symbol of the Sri Lankan state and that of the Sinhala-speaking people who identify themselves with Indo-Aryan-speaking people from north India. The megalithic monuments in Peninsula India and Sri Lanka came to be viewed as material evidence for the migratory route of the Dravidian ‘race’ indicating a pan Dravidian homeland in South Asia. Interestingly enough in the 1970’s the late Cyril Mathew equated all Buddhist sites in the north and east of Sri Lanka with the Sinhala race. #rd Century BC Early Brahmi inscriptions in the east recording the term dameda (or those who arrived from Tamilaham or the region speaking Tamil) was of no consequence to him!

My third case study is debating the modalities of projecting Native American cultural history as a marginalized historical presentation until recent times. The central issue here is “who has the power and authority to control the presentation of minority ethnic groups’ prehistory”. This also hinges on the practice and ethics of heritage management. The National Geography psyche of depicting the exotic savage was reflected in the museums where Euro-American archaeology had largely been used to depict Native Americans in a static state of primitive pre history.  It is said that “since a major function of museums and reconstructions is to socialize the public, the ideological content of their archaeological messages has an especially pronounced impact’ (Blakey 1990: 38). Meskell points out that along with the census and maps, museums form a key institutional concept in the grammar of Colonial power (1998:3).

Until recent times, public depictions constantly down played the role of Amer-indian culture in the history of frontier America. Blakey also notes that “the exhibits also established a basis for segregating and omitting non-white narratives from American history” (1990:39). While Native American groups were presented as static entities and mostly with nature, the Euro-American culture was essentially associated with technology and progress. Significantly enough, while the cultures of the Native American people often were exhibited in Natural history museums, Euro-American culture is displayed in the halls of American history museums. The Native American is thus presented as under-developed and as recipients of Euro-American culture.

Contradictions of this situation are significant indeed. A major contradiction facing the archaeologist is the attempt to classify cultures through material traits. These cultural definitions have been challenged for instance by certain Native American tribes. They claimed that ethnicity in their case is associated with the intangible heritage such as religious beliefs, language and oral history. Thus the authoritative knowledge of the archaeologist ordering past was conclusively challenged.  Ironically enough a good amount of archaeological studies on the past of the Amerindian have also faced contradictions of over romanticizing their cultures, staking a claim as the oldest community in the Americas and also themselves guilty of racializing cultural remains.

My fifth case study comes again from Sri Lanka. This is with special reference to the phosphate deposit at Eppawela situated in the heart of the agricultural and heritage sites of Sri Lanka. This is a case of reinforcing inverted and truncated identities from below as a response to global pressure from above. Since then 1980’s with heavy doses of foreign investment made by multi nationals, the ongoing ethnic war and aggressive Christian Evangelic movements there is a hardening of sentiments looking back to the past and invoking mythic heroes as saviours who will rescue the community, their habitat and culture from foreign devils. What is more dangerous is the high potential the effected poor agricultural communities carry of being social fascists of tomorrow.

The case studies we unfolded may drive home the argument that archaeological and historical construction of communities that essentially had a racial basis legitimized through the retrieval of culture related material.

Remedial strategies

Recent trends in archaeological thought stress the culturally-constructed nature of archaeological inquiry and an examination of the roles it plays in determining how the past is manipulated to construct and legitimate cultural or national histories, ethnic associations and nationalist claims. Again this has to be viewed within the dialectics of reading the past. On the one hand with the establishment of UNESCO world heritage sites and shared culture of humanity there is a healthy critical dialogue that has emerged in a global context.  Elsewhere in the world the debate continues with renewed vigour reinforcing and searching for ethnic identities, nationalism and legitimating processes drawing inspiration from the past or conversely marginalizing and excluding the past of the other. The post Soviet Union fragmentation of Eastern Europe, the war in Iraq, the Ayodhya syndrome in India, the aboriginal issue, along with many other areas of confrontation pose a major challenge to the practice of archaeology, its public domain, issue related research agenda, ethical conduct of the professional and even gender issues of reading the past and gender bias among professionals.

The archaeologist must therefore act, both, as a professional and educationist reaching out and elevating the level of consciousness of the next generation. Take the case of South Asia for instance. It is by and large the subversion of knowledge dissemination and the termination of liberal education that became a catalyst, conditioning an abysmal situation in the post-colonial period. It unleashed a vicious crisis resulting in the vertical division of our society into watertight mental compartments along ethno-religious and ethno-national lines and the long-term attrition of democratic norms and the cultural plurality of South Asia.  Regi Siriwardena, a radical humanist, highlighted this tragedy in the following words. “In the history of communal conflict in Sri Lanka especially in the last quarter of a century, education has been one of the principal battlegrounds.” Texts books became the ‘New Testament of Parochialism,’ derailing any sense of aesthetic and intelligent appreciation of technological and cultural achievements of humanity as a whole.

For centuries the rich cultural personality of South Asia was nurtured through cross-cultural interactions. It is ironic that during the advanced period of ‘print capitalism’ (after Benedict Anderson) sustaining distance contraction, we have constructed vertically arranged ethno-national compartments. Conversely, we must now come to terms with a national identity with two compartments—national and multiple cultural identities. As Eric Wolf points out, one nation or culture cannot be studied in isolation because “human populations construct their cultures in interaction with one another.”[i] Even the Diaspora does not form an isolated entity.  One of the critical challenges facing educational reforms in South Asia is bridging national, religious and cosmopolitan identities with a futuristic vision. This is best put in Amartya Sen’s words in Argumentative India where he challenges those who believe in exclusiveness to face up to the reality of  “intellectual pluralism underlying its religious diversity; constructive encounters and the pluralist, interactive and dynamic heritage of India”. This is indeed applicable in a global context for inclusiveness.

The role of the professional archaeologist is pivotal in this context as they too are facing a huge challenge from parochial images and subversion of the past.  In view of this a critical study of archaeo-historical material becomes an imperative. Inaccuracies can only perpetuate the mistrust and deep-rooted antagonisms consequently resulting in a sharper social polarization between ethno-cultural groups. It calls for a soul-searching exercise on the untold human misery caused by ethnic conflict in the former Colonies and in Post Communist countries in Europe.

Public archaeology, heritage management, museum acquisitions and presentation, archaeology and identities, archaeology and gender issues, ethics and the practice of archaeology have been central themes in issue-related archaeology during the decade of 1980 and after, more specifically in Europe, Australia and in the United States of America. Some of these issues are now being discussed in South Asia, mainly in India, though a larger segment of South Asian historians and archaeologists have not entered into a serious discourse in an effort to address these issues.

It goes without saying that any discussion on this subject is politically sensitive to the professional archaeologist or historian. Venturing into such politically ‘incorrect’ studies quite naturally exposes the researcher to both professional and institutional hazards. It carries the prospect of being academically and ‘socially’ ostracized by professional colleagues for disseminating anti nationalist and anti social sentiments.  This has happened in India and in south and north Sri Lanka. The wrath unleashed upon open-minded academics of India that attempted to present its history from a liberal point of view in their curriculum stands out as one of the darkest chapters in the academic and intellectual history of India. The situation is not too different in Sri Lanka where reading the past is under siege from old parochialisms and new forms of fundamentalisms that are increasingly entering the political mainstream of this country. This has resulted in a vicious system of patronage sustained through a servile chain of command that has stunted the growth of an intellectually alert next generation of archaeologists.

This situation also poses a twofold challenge to the activist archaeologist and historian with a sense of humanistic social awareness. The first is the task of providing the next generation of professionals in South Asia with an alternative perspective against parochialism for the very survival of these professions in multi-cultural and multi-ethnic societies.  This could be and must be done by introducing programs on the Shared Cultures, awareness programs on cultural diversity and pluralism promoting inclusiveness.

The second is our responsibility towards the society at large as professionals reading the past in providing alternative strategies for social change. This is done to counter the self-destructive path taken by various shades of social-fascist forces dislocating historically evolved social systems of South Asia and elsewhere I the world. Professor K. Indrapala in his recent book, The Evolution of an Ethnic Identity: The Tamils in Sri Lanka C.300 BC to C.1200 CE, inscribes his moving dedication, “To the innocents who lost their lives as a direct consequence of misinterpretations of history”. Our efforts at utilizing both the tangible and the intangible heritage in conflict resolution have paid rich dividends and we are today hopeful towards positive attitudes by the next generation of professionals in reading the past.

Finally, returning in a full circle to my point of commencement, I am happy to present my tribute in honour of the liberal arts. It has a direct bearing on the _­topic I presented today dealing on the subversion of memory for political expediency. Centres of the liberal arts quite definitely are an anti-thesis to that subversive mind-set. Such centres stand out as beacons to those who respect the dignity of fellow humans and value the uninhibited spirit of intellectual inquiry.  I am indeed proud to be a product of such an institution in Sri Lanka founded in 1886 by an American, Col. Henry Olcott who was a product of Wisconsin Madison.

The serene beauty of cultural monuments and the aesthetics of which we enjoy so much have to be valued and appreciated as creations of humanity and not with this or that label attached to them. As much as we take great pride of such achievements we must possess a sense of cultural justice to value, appreciate and relate to human creations irrespective of various identities we have attached to human society. The very concept of UNESCO World Heritage sites attempts to establish this norm of respecting both, the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity as a whole. We need to take great pride in the cultural diversity of this island society and its rich cultural heritage and legacy as a living example of a shared cultural inheritance. We have essentially inherited a rich and refined cultural legacy from a wide range of human interactions and experience. It is the very poetry of humaneness that has to be endowed as a gift to the next generation.

“The science of archaeology is problem-oriented and issue-related. It is essentially a multi disciplinary study investigating, documenting, interpreting and presenting human expressions, experiences and behaviour patterns of the past to its rightful inheritors, the next generation. The archaeologist investigating the past is a scientist who is objective, unbiased and unprejudiced. Above all, an archaeologist is a humanist and social activist who does not fear the past or compromises the future”.

Mission statement to the next generation of archaeologists.

The archaeology of Ethnicity – Siam Jones

The politics of the past – Gathercole & Lowenthal

Archaeology & heritage management  – H.F. Cleere

Debating archaeological heritage – Robin Skeats

Archaeological ethics – Karen Vitelli

God Apes & Fossil men – Kenneth kennedy

Archaeology under fire – Lynn Meskell

The Excluded past – Peter Stone & Robert MacKenzie

Theory in Archaeology – Peter Ucko

Nationalism, Politics and the practice of  Archaeology – Khol & Fawcett

Centre & periphery – TC Champion

Loot, Legitimacy and ownership – Colin renfrew

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Tags: Archaeology, Politics
Posted in Monthly Theme, Prof. Sudharshan Seneviratne